For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven
On November 2nd, 2020, we wrote these words in our reflection for you:
»The pilgrims on the Camino called out to each other ‘Ultreja’. It means as much as ‘onward, forward!’. In this manner, the pilgrims cheered themselves on with a word that gave them courage.«
For over two years our word of courage and motivation has been »May you be sheltered«. We have it called it out to you many hundreds of times. We were determined not to leave people without inspiration, guidance, orientation and horizons of hope during the trying and troubling time of the pandemic. Only when the crisis eased and the need was not there, did we finally stop on June 9th, 2021.
Yet, like so many of the storms of life, the crisis returned with vigour and strength. So we resumed the reflections in November with the 25 Advent Reflections »And the almond tree blossomed: How religious images speak to us of God« and have continued to bring the comfort, wisdom and perspectives of the biblical stories to you, until today. We have kept faith with you.
Quieter days have now returned. The pandemic is easing, people can attend the many courses being offered again and it is easily possible to return to our churches to celebrate the liturgy. Travel, celebration and community gatherings are again possible, easing the isolation and loneliness of a great many people. We realise that the time has come to lay down the heavy burden of this task. Storytellers often refer to this as laying down the mantle, and remind us that it is important to know when the hour has come to do this. We believe that the time has come.
In his book, Night Train to Lisbon, Pascal Mercier writes telling words: »We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.« During these long months, we have left something of ourselves behind in the countless reflections we have written, something of our faith, something of our hope and assuredly something of our concern for the people entrusted to our care. Perhaps you will go back to the reflections every once in a while and like Pascal Mercier rediscover some things that can be found »only by going back there«.
We also know that a great uncertainty remains as to what the coming months will bring. Will we face another wave of the virus? Will lockdowns and restrictions be necessary again? It is difficult to plan ahead when we are never sure as to what the future will bring. Yet, there is at least one certainty you can rely on: Whatever the coming months may bring, we will be there for you. And if we see that it is necessary, we will once again pick up the mantle we lay down today, and once again the encouraging word will issue forth from our hearts and minds and voices: »May you be sheltered«.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
Erik Riechers SAC
May 6th, 2022
Overcoming limitations
My almost 6-year-old granddaughter recently told me about her friend and her fear of heights. She knows this from her big sister. »You know, Oma, Rosa is also afraid of heights. But she still went with us in the gondola, even though it wasn't easy for her. She overcomes her fear of heights. But I don't think Lena wants to overcome it. She doesn't even try.«
Her thoughts and her language have been haunting me ever since. Are we not like Lena far too often? A barrier arises - internally or coming from outside - that irritates us and often causes us to fearfully come to a stop. It can be frightening to walk along a narrow path on a steep slope when the ground is unsafe. It can be unsettling when familiar neighbours move away and now strangers come very close to me who may not even speak my language. Have we not often in our lives been faced with a task that seemed far too difficult and from which we wanted to slip away – and perhaps we did? We may not even have tried!
I was impressed by the word »overcome« in my granddaughter's story and how confidently she used it. It was clear to her that the gondola ride cost her sister an effort to overcome her fears. All the more admiring was the tone with which she spoke of her sister and all the greater was the lack of understanding for her friend.
Indeed, how we writhe until we have overcome a limit or a hurdle. In the high jump, the best technique for jumping as high as possible is the flop jump. Even the run-up is arched and in the take-off the jumper turns around his longitudinal axis. He winds up in the air to »clear« the bar. With practice, the bar can even be raised.
It is a constant exercise of our lives to embrace limitations, to accept things that cannot be changed. Yet there are so many barriers that we could and should courageously and patiently overcome in order to move towards more life. Sometimes we »only« have to overcome our complacency to do this, sometimes we have to recognise the questions in our fears and seek an answer. Again and again we need to discover our deep longings and re-prioritise. Often we need companions who help us, practise with us and also encourage us again and again to take the plunge.
The Easter weeks encourage us to do so. Death has been overcome so that we can live, also and especially beyond our limits. Perhaps then we can pray Psalm 18 in a whole new way:
»Yea, by thee I can crush a troop; and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God—his way is perfect; the promise of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him. For who is God, but the Lord? And who is a rock, except our God? - the God who girded me with strength, and made my way safe. He made my feet like hinds’ feet, and set me secure on the heights.« (Ps 18, 29-33)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 2nd, 2022
We must obey God rather than any human authority
When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, »We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.« But Peter and the apostles answered, »We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.«
Acts 5, 27-32
»We must obey God rather than any human authority«. This sentence of Peter in the face of the high priest's command to silence is a classic. However, as so often, we have only applied it selectively to our lives.
We often apply it when it comes to external issues. In politics, in society, in the economy, we are deeply aware that we should obey God more than human authority. In these areas, we clearly recognise the danger that comes from the High Councils of our time. Too often, the human authority wants to give us »strict orders not to teach in this name« so that they can do whatever they want. Political authorities love to employ this maneuver whenever the teaching of the Gospel interferes with the programs of political expediency. The people of God are often expected to keep their mouths shut on issues such as poverty, injustice, migration, corruption and discrimination and told to stick to »religious issues«. But that is not what God wants: if we listen more to human authority than to God, turn a blind eye and close our ears, then injustice, brutality, exploitation, globalised indifference will certainly arise.
However, does this Word of Sacred Scripture apply only in such situations? Does it have no other meaning for the life of God's people? I believe it does. One has to obey God more than human authority also in the more personal issues and encounters of a human life. After all, there is also a High Council trying to exert authority over us on a very personal and basic level of our lives. It consists of people, usually self-appointed, who like to impose their view of life, the world and of faith upon us. They constantly issue a stream of order to us, telling what is permissible and what we should be, so that the world can unfold as they see fit. The High Council of our daily lives are the people who feel the constant urge to pass judgement on us, our way of thinking and our way of living.
People tell us: you are useless and of no use. God says: »Because you are precious and valuable in my eyes and because I love you, I give people for you and whole nations for your life«. (Is 43:4) In view of messages that contradict each other, do we obey God more than people here.
People tell us: you are inferior and insignificant. The Psalmist says that God sees us as follows: »What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.« (Ps 8, 4-5) In God's eyes we have great worth, and enjoy God's esteem. When the voices that reach our ears contradict each other, are we obeying God more than human authority?
People tell us: your life is meaningless and you have nothing to contribute. God says our lives are so meaningful that he has an interest in us down to the smallest detail. »And even the hairs of your head are all counted.« (Mt 10:30) In this case, do we obey God more than human authority?
People tell us that we are not lovable, that we do not deserve to be loved, or that we cannot or will not be loved at all. God tells us: »I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.« (Jer 31:3) When our self-respect is at stake, do we obey God more than human authority?
People tell us that we are not wanted, that we are not gladly seen, that we are superfluous and that things could be done without us, perhaps even that things would go better, easier or faster if we were not in the way, not a burden. The psalmist notices how God looks at us and prays: »For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.« (Ps 139:13-14) In the eyes of the God who created us, we have worth, dignity and purpose and are desired, longed-for children. When the words of human beings conflict with the words of God, will we obey God than human authority?
Erik Riechers SAC
Werl, April 29th, 2022
A Prayer for those who Doubt and Question
Lord Jesus, You smile gently as You pass through closed doors to find us.
You are the Lord of our longing for a life that is not yet tangible,
beyond our understanding and imagination.
Teach us Your respect for men and women like Thomas,
that we, too, might honour the questioning heart.
A question is an expression of desire.
Everything is set in motion as a result of a question.
The question is what arouses.
Even a querulous question, is better than no question,
because it pushes at the limits of the sort of silent conspiracy of the way things have to be.
Questioning is what really motivates,
and gives us the strong feeling that we don't know everything,
that there are things here that we should know.
And even if we do not get an immediate or satisfactory answer,
we know our questions will lead us to an encounter with You.
We have not always found You in the answers we have received and learned.
But You have always found us in the questions we cherish in our hearts,
even if at first we only dare to ask them behind closed doors.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 25th, 2022
The Gift we Need for Faith to Blossom
I learned from a great master of biblical storytelling. One of the lessons I took most deeply to heart was his admonition that we must learn to cherish »the Bible for images more than for thought«. (Stories of Faith p.10) It is a conviction that I have cherished in my heart and honoured in my work for three decades. It is also a conviction for which I have paid a high price.
I held a Holy Thursday homily in which I unfolded the meaning of the change of garment. Like most times when I unveil the deeper meaning of the images of the Bible, it evoked very little response. It disappointed me, but it did not surprise me.
We are caught in a strange place on the faith journey. On the one hand so many people complain about dry and tedious teaching directives, abut theological language that is incomprehensible and fails to inspire. On the other hand, we cannot really deal with the images of Scripture either. The biblical images open great and wide spaces of the human heart, spaces that cannot be quickly traversed, briefly explained swiftly exhausted. These great images require a great effort of us, to listen and then interpret them on deep levels of our own human experience. And like all wide open spaces, they need to be navigated. Confronted with all that effort, we then actually prefer the short, terse explanation. In the battle between depth and convenience, convenience wins more often than it should.
We need only cast our gaze at the Easter stories of the Gospels to see the problem we are facing. The stories of the resurrection appearances show us the same pattern over and over.
- No one is ever found in the act of praying.
You will find them visiting the tomb (Mt 28, 1), walking in the country (Mk 16, 12), fleeing Jerusalem for Emmaus (Lk 24, 13), at home (Jn 20, 2), or fishing the night away (Jn 21, 3). They fearfully hide behind locked doors (Jn 20, 19). But not one resurrection story ever speaks of them at prayer, seeking the conversation with God.
- None of them recognise him.
They do not know him on the roads he walked so often with them (Lk 24, 16). Mary Magdalen thinks he must be the gardener (Jn 20,14) and no one thinks to connect the stranger who has bread and fish with him on the shores of Lake Tiberias, with the Lord who shared bread and fish with them on the same shore and fed the multitudes (Jn 21,4).
- The first reaction is never delight.
For all of our triumphant Easter songs, no one broke out in choruses of Hallelujah in the resurrection appearances. There is doubt (Mt 28, 17, Lk 24, 41). They are startled and terrified (Lk 24, 37). Peter, upon hearing that it is the Lord, jumps into the sea rather than face an encounter and conversation with Jesus (Jn 21, 7)
However, when Jesus encounters these very diverse people after his resurrection, he never offers them a quick or clear explanation of what has happened, where he has been and what they need to do in order to come to overcome fear and doubt and come to faith and joy.
Instead, Jesus chooses a very different approach. He attempts to show himself to them as the Lord with whom they are familiar. To do this, he always chooses a rich image, a deep symbol. This image, metaphor or gesture is the way in which Jesus gives each person what he or she needs to journey deeper into the realms of faith.
He calls Mary of Magdala by name so that she recognises him by his voice. He eats with the disciples at Emmaus, and it is through his gesture of breaking bread that he reveals himself. Peter is given the gift of a conversation at the charcoal fire. To the disciples in Jerusalem he shows his hands and his feet and invites them to touch his flesh. To Thomas, on the other hand, he shows his wounds before he confesses his faith. The beloved disciple will be given a fishing net with 153 large fish before he says »It is the Lord«. When »in their joy they were disbelieving« (Lk 24, 41, he takes the time to eat broiled fish in their presence.
Jesus to each person what he or she needs to deal with the tumultuous inner confusion with which they are dealing. What he does not offer is a quick or quaint explanation that instantly drives all fear and confusion from their hearts. His is the gift of the symbol, the gesture, the metaphor and the image, and that has not changed. Because this is the wide and spacious world of God meeting the wide and spacious world of the human heart. The mystery into which we are immersed is rich and complicated and complex and multifaceted. There are no quick fixes in the world of genuine faith. Yet, if we are too convenient to interpret these gifts of Jesus, we are failing to unpack the gift. And no explanation in the world will be able to make up for what we will then lose.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 22nd, 2022
The Walk to Emmaus
Easter stories tell of gradual understanding, of slowly grasping the previously unimaginable. They are honest. They do not deny fear or confusion and hopelessness, but they reveal to us the emotion of the heart.
Such a story stands over this day. For in our hardships and abysmal disappointments, we believe we are all alone. Often we only talk to ourselves and go round in circles.
We often don't realise that there are people by our side. They go along with us. They suffer with us. They understand us - perhaps they have gone through the same deep valleys.
And then there is HE, to whom nothing human is alien, beside us and always already ahead of us:
emmaus
I ran away
all dazed
nailed to my pain
buried in myself in fatal sadness
oh you
I had not even noticed
that you are still here
the whole way already
if I want a piece of bread
actually I have
no appetite but
thank you
I'm growing warm all over
the whole way
you have been listening to my soliloquies
oh
and not only you
from: Andreas Knapp, Höher als der Himmel
I wish you a blessed Easter journey.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, Easter Monday, April 18th, 2022
What we cannot afford to ignore
Good Friday is a hard pill to swallow. It refuses to let us skip to the good part. It forces us to take a part of the mystery seriously, namely death and suffering, which we would rather pass over in order celebrate the resurrection.
This day teaches us a most basic lesson about our faith. The resurrection if not a placebo. It is also not an escape route that circumvents suffering and death. The resurrection is the power of God, but it unveils itself in a person who is free enough to willingly enter into the full experience of death and dying.
Easter unfolds in people who refuse to shy away from Good Friday. The priest-poet Andreas Knapp offers us the opportunity to stop and gaze upon a mystery we would rather ignore or even avoid altogether.
good friday
he crucifixated
so that we are completely detached
he exposed
so that we need not be ashamed
he, put on display
so that we can let ourselves be seen
he, our emergency nail
so that we do not fall
he, died a failure
so that we can live our fragility
From: Andreas Knapp, Höher als der Himmel
I wish you a blessed and profound Good Friday.
Erik Riechers SAC
Good Friday, April 15th, 2022
Veiled
A good 30 years ago I sang in a choir in the parish church of Niederlana. It is famous for its beautiful winged altar by Hans Schnatterpeck. But at that time it was closed, the cross veiled - we were in Holy Week.
Since the early Middle Ages, crosses have been veiled during the Passion period and only unveiled for the veneration of the cross on Good Friday. Often these were magnificent triumphal crosses that spoke of victory over death rather than suffering. Concealing the triumphant was meant to help us focus on the Way of the Cross as a journey of suffering. Many of us still know the custom of veiling the cross to this day.
Placing a cover around something is usually done to protect what is to be concealed in a very pragmatic way: from dirt, from sunlight, from wrong use or from theft. But I also cover that which is sacred to me in order to withdraw it from the gaze of those who do not appreciate it, indeed who might degrade it. After all, the Holy of Holies of the Jews, the innermost room of the Jewish temple, was veiled all year round, a curtain separating it from the main hall. Only once a year, on the Feast of Atonement, was the High Priest allowed to enter. For everyone else, the Holy of Holies always remained veiled.
When the cross of Jesus is veiled in many places during these days, it reminds me that the whole way of Jesus' suffering became a way of an increasing veiling. Especially the oldest Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, shows the passion journey of Jesus as a journey in which the divine is increasingly hidden in its power. In Galilee, Jesus showed himself to be the powerful one: he healed and worked miracles, he preached, he gathered people around him and his good news of the Kingdom of God. In Jerusalem, his powerlessness became more and more evident. He was attacked, delivered up, tortured and finally executed in disgrace. People then - as today in the face of horrific suffering - ask: Where is God? Who can still see God here, in the maltreated, tortured and finally dying? But then, at the moment of his death, a cover is torn, namely the curtain of the temple that veils the Holy of Holies. And Mark lets a witness speak who discovers the Holy of Holies, namely God, under the »veil« of Jesus' catastrophe: »When the centurion who was facing Jesus saw him die in this way, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.« (Mk 15:39)
What was veiled is revealed in a way that is radically different from anything humans imagine.
We used to think that suffering and the cross covered God. Now we see: in the cross is God.
We thought we did not see God in the crosses of our day. But now we begin to suspect: He is in every tear, every bent back, every helping hand, and every open heart.
We used to believe the Holy of Holies is behind a veil. Now it becomes visible to those who pass through the cross.
Veiling and unveiling are close to one another in this week: Jesus' last meal with his disciples reveals the heart of God. The way Jesus goes through his last hours reveals again and again his greatness and the radicality, even divinity, of his love.
So veiled crosses can sharpen our gaze to what is revealed in suffering - even today. We see divinity in the midst of war in many compassionate hearts, hands ready for action, creative helpers, lived by old and young.
The cross may be »foolishness« (1 Cor 1:23) in the eyes of the world, but for us Christians God shows himself in this weakness.
So I wish us all an unveiling Holy Week.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 11th, 2022
Mercy as the Initiative of God
A few weeks ago, I listened to a young priest give a homily during a weekday Mass for a group of elderly women religious. When he was finished, I was left with an uneasy feeling rising up inside my heart. The preacher had spent all his time emphasising humanity’s unworthiness, sin and ingratitude and only then, more as an afterthought than anything else, he briefly mentioned God's mercy.
Later on the same day, I gave my opening presentation for a retreat for the people who had attended Mass that morning. Afterwards, a number of the participants came to thank me, telling me that they felt strangely comforted and strengthened. One of the women told me, she was unsettled and unsure why my presentation had such a different effect on her than the homily of the morning. After all, she said, both the homily and my presentation had more or less the same topic, namely sin and mercy
Not really. In the morning sermon, sin was portrayed as the occasion of mercy. Sin is the trigger, and then God develops mercy as the strategy with which he responds to sin. In this sermon, sin is what takes the initiative. It sets everything in motion, including God.
Because we are such great sinners, mercy comes.
Because we live so ungratefully, mercy comes.
Because we act so unworthily, mercy comes.
It is very clearly emphasised that sin sets God in motion and that mercy is merely God's response to the initiative of sin.
But Jesus speaks of mercy in a very different fashion. I had spoken on the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who has been beaten and left to die on the side of the road receives mercy. But mercy, in the form of the Samaritan, does not come to him because he was such a great sinner. The great sinners were the robbers who did this to him. Mercy does not come to him because he lived in ingratitude, nor does it come, because he acted in an unworthy or sinful manner. »But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.« (Lk 10,33) That is why mercy came to him. That is why mercy crossed the road.
Jesus emphasises that mercy is the initiative of God and that it comes first. Mercy comes before sin. It can deal with sin, and certainly comes when sin is involved. But mercy is older than any sin.
This deep revelation of the heart of God has great consequences for our human hearts, as became apparent by the very different effect the homily and my presentation had on the hearts that were listening. In the homily, we heard that sin was the defining moment. The role and power of sin was repeated so vehemently and so often that, in the end, the preacher took sin more seriously than the mercy of God. If mercy is then mentioned at all, it is only in connection with sin.
This, however, is a repudiation of Paul’s deepest instinct: »But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more«. (Rom 5, 20) The phrase »abounded all the more« is a translation of the Greek word huperperisseo. The word conveys the experience of something that is exceeding all the old measures, that is stretching and expanding beyond old proportions and it speaks of something that is to be enjoyed and relished abundantly. It is like a giant river that is being flooded with waters from upstream.
And why is it important to know this? It matters, because we humans also need mercy when we have not sinned at all. Mercy is the divine love that takes the initiative, just as the Samaritan takes the initiative to cross over the road and offer help, assistance and relief. When the other person does not have the strength, courage or possibility to act lovingly, the mercy of God, on its own initiative, creates space of life for people. »The love of God was revealed among us in that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.« (1 John 4, 9)
We need this initiative love of God, this mercy, even when we have not sinned. When we are sick or anxious, we need mercy. In times when we are anxious or intimidated, lonely or depressed, we are in need of mercy. The hour of mercy has arrived when we are exhausted and discouraged, disappointed or simply listless. These are very common experiences of daily life and they all are moments when we need mercy. But not of these things are sins. Yet, all of them awaken the great desire of our God to come to us, seek us out, bring us healing.
These are the moments when I meet my God as the merciful one, as the God who always speaks the first word, makes the first gesture, and takes the initiative.
Erik Riechers SAC
Dorfen, April 8th 2022
Discovering Life
The title of a book for young explorers awakened something in me: »Natur - entdecken, verstehen, mitmachen«. (Nature – discovering, understanding, participating). It was the word »discovering«. The dictionary calls it a weak verb and we use it a great deal.
We know names of people who discovered new regions of the earth or sea routes, of astronomers who discovered new stars, of biologists who decoded DNA sequences. Children discover new flowers in the garden, I discovered a new path in the forest or my love for the sea. Sometimes we discover new nooks in a city we know or completely new sides to a person we already know. Whether Marco Polo or my grandchildren, whether Galileo Galilei or myself - everything that is discovered was there before. It is as if the discoverer had pulled away a blanket. So he can see for the first time what has existed for a long time. He uncovers, he exposes and thus finds something previously unknown or hidden. It may be that he had been looking for it for a long time, or perhaps he had no idea.
Every spring in our latitudes can be an example of this for us. For weeks and months the earth looked brown and dead, covered with the increasingly dry autumn leaves. But as soon as I remove them in February or March, I discover the tips of tulip leaves, the shoots of peonies, and the first little leaves of day lilies. Sometimes we don't even know which plant is just emerging.
Don't we often look upon our lives like a blanket? We believe that what we see is already life, our life, and we do not suspect or do not even want to know what lies beneath this cover. The blanket that often lies protectively over our lives is called »That's how it's done« or »Others expect it of me« or »That looks good«. It may also be that we no longer recognise a pattern, that the blanket has become grey like run-of-the-mill asphalt. As we all know, it's easy to walk on it, but long walks on it do neither the feet nor the back any good. The ground is too hard. It is completely different to walk on natural ground, when our steps are cushioned and we can also see what ground we are walking on.
Let us be mindful and honest on our journey through life: every now and then something flashes up - a memory of an old longing, a feeling of warmth and desire. Is there a glow of life hidden under a layer of ashes? It needs to be kindled so that we can rediscover the life within us: add a little oxygen, pull away the blanket and see what emerges. Yes, such a discovery can become a real resurrection experience. There is more life in me, much more life that emerges. For me, it is a task and challenge of Lent to rediscover the life in me and to give it more and more space, to let it out, so to speak.
But we should think further, beyond ourselves, and see what life is hidden under the blanket of others. We sit opposite each other in open-plan offices or at screens, next to each other in trains and buses, in school classes or at our dining tables, and yet we only perceive the outer shell of each other. Sadness in the eyes, a smile around the lips, an uncertain look, drooping shoulders - all these could be gateways to discovering true life in the other. Of course, some people pull their blanket tightly around them and are relieved by the protection of anonymity. But others are waiting for us to discover what is really going on inside them and help them to be able and allowed to live it. We could stand by them in the fulfilment of a long-cherished wish, give them space and time, rejoice with them, but also share the hard with them. All this requires strength and effort, but has any explorer ever found life without effort?
Etty Hillesum, the young Jewish intellectual executed in Auschwitz in 1943, prayed in July 1942: »... perhaps we can help to resurrect you in the tortured hearts of others.«
Wherever we discover life, we can help it »to its feet« and in the process find in ourselves and others God Himself, the Lover of Life.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 4th, 2022
Moving from Ice to Fire
Several days ago I had the pleasure of listening to Navid Kermani read excerpts from this latest book. He spoke of faith in warm, rich language. He spoke of poetry and metaphors, of storytelling and the asking questions, as profound yet gentle experiences of religion. In the course of those two hours, I sighed several times, with pleasure, as well as with relief.
For quite some time, I have been unsettled by the growing penchant for using what I call the language of ice for the human experiences born of fire. This occurs when cold, analytical, heartless and bloodless language is employed to describe those things in a human life that should awaken the fire of passion, commitment, courage and adventure. It happens when we refer to the painful deaths of innocent children in a war zone as collateral damage. The ice of that language is purposefully chosen to dampen the fire of outrage and resistance that normally arises when injustice and barbaric cruelty confront our hearts. Yet, this also occurs when we use terminology like »faith communication« to replace the passionate, spirit-soaked language of the psalmist who says:
»But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.
My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day,
for their number is past my knowledge.
With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come;
I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.
O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might
to another generation, your power to all those to come.«
(Psalm 7, 14-18)
Surely no one believes that using the language of ice to describe the experiences of fire will not do serious harm to the human heart.
I recently had such an unpleasant encounter during a teaching session. To illustrate a point, I used the example of a kiss. No one can explain precisely how a kiss works, but that has never stopped anyone from enjoying the effectiveness of kissing. At this point, a participant interrupted in order to contradict me. She pointed out that modern neurophysiological studies have given us a deeper understanding of the neuro-chemical processes that are in involved in kissing and can explain why we react as we do. I was, to put it mildly, unimpressed.
I do not deny that the modern sciences can explain many things to us, but that was not my point. Whether we understand what neuroscience can tell us about kissing or not, the kiss still works. And furthermore, if a kiss is nothing more than a chemical process in the brain, why do kisses have such different effects on different people? Why do kisses then depend on whom is kissing us? Why can kisses express so wide a range of emotion, from love to exasperation, from joy to grief? Knowing the basic rule of chemistry that the same chemical combination always creates the same chemical reaction (if you throw a match into a cup of gasoline, it will always explode) how can we then explain, that there are so many and so varied reactions to a kiss? Dogmatism is not just a fault of religion and theology. It is just as prevalent when science, philosophy or politics tries to claim a final and definitive explanation of the Mystery. Every attempt to define Mystery is an attempt to control and confine it. It is like to trying to hold and control the form and movement of fire. Such attempts are always arrogant, dangerous and doomed to failure.
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks brilliantly diagnoses the underlying problem in this encounter. »It has also been an age in which we have turned to scientists – geneticists, neurophysiologists and sociobiologists – to explain the human condition. Science is an immensely powerful tool in understanding nature, but a very weak instrument in understanding human nature. To put it more precisely, it systematically misunderstands who and what we are. Science speaks of causes, not purposes. It understands events caused by things in the past, but not acts and decisions motivated by a vision of the future. It is good at dealing with the body. It is out of its depth in dealing with the mind, or what an earlier age called the soul. It has little to say about the ideals that give meaning to a life.« (p. 3, Celebrating Life)
I have a deep and abiding appreciation of what science has done and continues to do for our world. But unlike the cross-examiner of my classroom, I will not be joining the ice-cold world where scientific analysis is king. That was the way of Athens, the city of the Greek philosophers. However, it was never the way of Jerusalem, of the city of the biblical storyteller. Jesus accompanied people and their lives with stories rather than explanations: »Jesus spoke all these things to the crowds in parables. He did not tell them anything without using a parable«. (Mt 13, 34) In the Gospels there are 37 parables and more than 220 questions. Jesus left people with questions, rather than merely giving them decisive answers.
I cannot but recommend to you the way of the story, the way that opens doors and breaks a path to the human heart. Analytical answers give us definitions, but stories point out untried possibilities and untrodden paths. Definitions come to conclusions. Stories invite us to carry on and explore further. On long dark nights, when their hearts are troubled, people gather around the fire to hear the stories. It is time to come in from the cold, to move from ice to fire.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 1rst, 2022
Regarding the weight of life
Do you recognise this experience? Many things weigh you down, some things are unsolvable at the moment and can only be endured and borne, but at the same time there are also pearls in every day. However, we often do not hold them in our hands to look at them gratefully, but give our full attention to the heavy loads that are gaining more and more weight. We see the problems increasing and the hardships growing, in our immediate surroundings and far beyond. In the evening, we brood for a long time over so many things that still need to be done, and in the morning, the tasks and worries assail us again as soon as we wake up. It is no wonder that when we meet someone who asks us how we are, we cannot say »Good!« There are simply too many burdens!
Perhaps a small »pearl« will give us pause today. I recently found it in the form of a short story from an unknown source:
A young man came to an old sage.
»Master«, he spoke in a sluggish voice, »life is like a heavy burden on my shoulders. It presses me to the ground and I feel as if I am going to collapse under this weight.«
»My son,« said the old man with an affectionate smile, »life is light as a feather.«
»Master, with all due respect, but here you must be mistaken. For I feel my life weighing on me day by day like a burden that weighs a ton. Say, what can I do?«
»It is we ourselves who put burdens on our shoulders«, said the old man, still smiling.
»But...«, the young man wanted to object.
But the old man raised his hand, »That 'but', my son, alone weighs a ton.«
When asked how I am doing, I no longer want to moan and stammer: »It's going well - actually, but...!«.
I resolve to fast from my »but« and shed some excess weight.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 28th, 2022
Hearing and Hoping
Our program »May you be Sheltered!« was born in the first days of the first lockdown in March 2020.
Now, for a good four weeks, we have been experiencing the frightening and inhuman war in Ukraine and many of us feel the shock of this looming every larger over the fears of the pandemic.
Today, as at the beginning of the pandemic, we are again in danger of succumbing to the overabundance of news, images and speculation, of losing ourselves in it, of losing our sense of scale and proportion. Once again we hoard, this time flour and oil, panic leads to hoarding and inner emptiness is pragmatically covered up.
But there is another way. The actions of the Good Samaritan, as Erik presented them to us, are a great incentive for us not to focus self-centredly on ourselves, but to see with the eyes of the heart and do exactly what we are able to do and what helps to alleviate need.
Another biblical companion for this time is the prayer leader of Psalm 85, who gives us a wise path through difficult times in his words:
»Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly.«
The prayer leader teaches us to practise the basic attitude of the ancient »Sh'ma Israel«, the »Hear, O Israel«. He makes the conscious decision to do so, he wants to hear what God is saying, and so he hears: The Lord proclaims peace and warns against folly. Let us not lightly pass this by! For a very long time, a certain indulgence has taken hold of us. This can lead to a foolish way of life, when we have forgotten to distinguish the essential from the unessential, when we have smothered our true longing with external things, when we think we have everything in our hands and are no longer able to endure periods of thirst. Psalm 85, however, widens and deepens our view of what is truly sustaining, which we can experience in a living relationship with God:
»Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky. Yes, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way.«
Because we live in a more comprehensive, greater reality, it is necessary to open our hearts to the connection between heaven and earth, so that the grace of the Lord, His mercy, His kindness and our faithfulness can meet. This alone gives peace and salvation. If we can make these words of the Psalmist our own by reading them again and again and letting them sink deeply into us, then we will sense that they are words of hope, that they point to possibilities of life that cannot be done by us, but are given to us and want to be received - whatever burdens us. Then we can see signs of this reality every day.
It was the same for a young woman who went through the »hell« of leukaemia and its treatment with her 5-year-old son. She struggled again and again in faith for precisely this hope. Hope »is perhaps the strongest of the virtues, because in it dwells the love that gives up nothing and the faith that sees the day already in the dawn. « (Fulbert Steffensky)* So she practised hoping again and again, learning to act, even in the hardest times and sometimes in the smallest steps, as if salvation were possible, indeed that what she was doing made sense. And she succeeded not only in accompanying her son well, but in keeping for herself a loving, hopeful heart that became neither resigned nor cynical nor hard. »The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase« is her experience of the hardest years of her life. She experienced streaks of light and moments of happiness, recognised paths and providence. Her gratitude grew - and remained, as did the peace in her heart.
To keep a loving, hopeful heart like the young mother in her crisis, Pope Francis will today, with deep trust and great hope, entrust Russia and the Ukraine to Mary's heart in our crisis. This great woman has also walked a long road in which she kept a heart of hearing and hoping.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 25th, 2022
* Quoted in: Katharina Weck, »Der Chemoritter am Küchentisch«, Neukirchen 2019
Living like the Good Samaritan II
3. Cross over to touch a wounded life
In the parable, the Samaritan is the only one who understands what this situation, this hour, demands of him. »He went to him«. A Samaritan needs to move to the wounded side of life. This is the only way two such different worlds can meet. And if we look closely at the parable, the Samaritan is the only one in the story who changes from one side of the street to the other.
Martin Luther King Jr., himself deeply versed in the way of the Good Samaritan, speaks eloquently to this moment. »Like the Good Samaritan, may we not be ashamed of touching the wounds of those who suffer, but try to heal them with concrete acts of love. A Good Samaritan is not simply one whose heart is touched in an immediate act of care and charity, but one who provides a system of sustained care.«
The good news of these days is for me the clear and decidedly under-reported reality, that there are many, many good Samaritans in the world providing that system of sustained care. In so many ways, in so many places, people have crossed over to touch the woundedness of life. They are giving of their time and money, opening their homes and letting the war-ravaged take a place among them. They are sorting clothes, welcoming refugees, transporting food, driving the lost to destinations of safety. We are also seeing the Church at her very best; close to the people, aiding others in every way possible with all the resources at her disposal, and unwilling to leave them behind. The Christian faithful, laity, religious and priests have all refused to seek safety, but are staying behind with their people, sharing their hunger and thirst, sharing their fear, anxiety and uncertainty. This is ever the way of Good Samaritans. You cannot touch a wounded life without paying a price.
In the parable, Jesus goes to great lengths to name the price of touching the wounded side of life. Oil, wine and money: this is what it costs the Samaritan, and these were resources for which he had other plans. Shelter, care, helpfulness: this is how the Samaritan reacts meaningfully to the situation of violence and cruelty. Loving action, accompaniment, sharing the journey to the place of healing and haven, and refusing to leave the beaten stranger’s side: all of this was part of the price the Samaritan paid so that the victim might live. It is a story being played out countless times by the Samaritans of our days.
4. A Samaritan never forgets, that he is deeply affected, but he is not the victim.
This is perhaps the greatest danger of the war for us. The scenes we have witness have left us troubled, worried, upset and distraught. But we are not the victims. We have been deeply affected, but we are not the victims of the bombs, the terror and the dislocation. It is wise and necessary to speak about what this war and this devastation is doing to us, but we must be ever vigilant that we do not end up making this about ourselves. This is a critical moment in which we must not turn in on ourselves. The Samaritan does not pause to tell us how exhausting and troubling all these efforts were for him. He is not the issue. The man left for dead is the issue. We are not the issue. The war ravaged, wounded, and assaulted people of the Ukraine are the issue.
To be a Good Samaritan is to live within the tension of helpfulness and helplessness. After all, this so active, helpful and dynamic character of the parable also has limits to what he can accomplish. He has neither the time nor the means to seek out the brigands, stop their evil-doing and bring them to justice. He does not have the power to secure the road and to make it safe for all future travellers. Nor does he bring to an end all violence and greed on the stretch between Jericho and Jerusalem. These are things that he is helpless to change. They lay beyond his power. They lay beyond his reach.
But the helplessness he feels on one level does not prevent him from being helpful in the places that lay well within the purview of his power to aid and assist. What he cannot do does not deter him from doing what is possible within the given circumstances.
And there is no greater gift the Samaritan has to offer than this. Our real enemy in this war is resignation. Every war achieves its aim when it can breed resignation in us. Then we are filled with the sense of futility that nothing that we say or do can make a difference. That futility, in turn, cements in us a sense of inevitability that leads us to believe there is no point in offering any resistance. Then war rolls over us, and takes possession not only of our lands and institutions, but over our souls. Once you break the spirit of a people, beating their armies is child’s play.
The people of the Ukraine, the protesters in Russia, live the way of the Good Samaritan before our eyes. They refuse to let their spirits be broken. They resist on every level available to them. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk speaks comfort and courage to his people every day. President Zelensky never ceases to cajole, plead, intervene, encourage and negotiate. Men and women find ways to do what is possible under these dreadful conditions to make life possible for one another. If the direct victims of this unjust war refuse to give way to resignation, then surely we, who are affected, but in no way the victims of this crime against humanity, can do no less.
To be in the position of being able to help and heal is a privileged place to be. We are not helpless. We have everything that so many of our brothers and sisters have had brutally taken from them: opportunity, resources, shelter to share and haven to offer. Steadily viewing what we cannot directly change or influence will not save one life, shelter one refugee, nourish one starving child, stop one bomb from falling or one gun from being fired. That not how we live like a Good Samaritan. That entails crossing the road.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 21rst, 2022
Living like the Good Samaritan I
Since the beginning of the war in the Ukraine, many people have found themselves struggling with the impact this war is having on them. Naturally, this is to be expected in times that trouble us deeply and leave us with abiding uncertainties. However, there are also deeply unhealthy and dangerous reactions. Too many people spend far too much time consuming every bit of news offered on the very latest developments. To be interested and well informed is valuable and laudable, but that is not what they are doing. They are becoming spectators of a war, and consumers of news about that war. This, however, does not make them men and women of solidarity. It merely leaves them with an ever deeper sense of helplessness, paralysis and resignation.
Fortunately, we have a story for this very problem. Jesus tells it to us in the Gospel of Luke. It is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Normally we refer to this parable in order to say, that we should be Good Samaritans, but we pay little or no attention to what exactly this way of living entails. This very famous story has vitally important things to say about how to respond in a healthy way to the grief, pain and violence we encounter on the roads of life.
1. We must see what is happening on the other side of the road
This is not self-evident. On the other side of the street is a life markedly different from our own. Like the Samaritan, who comes across the man who lies half beaten to death on the other side of the road, we must not forget, that we begin this story by standing on the safe side. We are suddenly confronted with violence, aggression and death through this war, but we are encountering it from the safe side of life, where we are well cared for, secure and comfortable. It is very easy to let our side of life blind us to the reality that other people are forced to live. Just as in the parable, we are suddenly in contact with a world that has been foreign to us until the images of news broadcasts and social media brought them into our world. Now, like the Samaritan, we are confronted by a world of greed and violence. We can clearly see a world marked by blood, self-serving decisions, and terrible injuries. Hardships and injustice are no longer vague concepts, but hard realities. And there are people lying half dead on the ground.
Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks calls this the gift of religious vision. He says: »(Religious vision) does not show you something new. It shows you the things you have seen all along but never noticed… Our culture has given us a very selective vision, one that renders invisible much of what is around us.« (Celebrating life, p. 3). The lives we have lived have rendered invisible what is now unfolding before our eyes. Although there have been wars raging in the world for years (we need only to think of Syria) they have been cleanly and clearly separated from the world we shape and form. The Samaritan is confronted with a world in which a man, until now a complete stranger, is lying on the ground as his life is bleeding out. On our side of the road, we are accustomed to talking about faith, love, justice, care, salvation and healing. But it is on the other side of the road where they have become for us a living, existential necessity. And now the faith, love, justice, care, salvation and healing we speak of so lightly have become an existential challenge.
2. We must allow what we see to affect us.
Although we must see what is happing on the other side of the road, seeing is not enough. Luke makes this point more than once in the parable. The Gospel storyteller twice states that although people saw what was happening on the other side of the road, it did not prevent them from simply moving on. »Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side«.
Seeing and passing by is a great temptation. We can watch the news and then simply pass by move on to our preferred pastimes and pleasures. What we see need not affect us, slow us down or change our course.
To live from the wellsprings of the Samaritan is to break this cycle of seeing and passing by. »But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, we was moved with pity«. He allows what he has witnessed to move him, to affect him.
We need to pause for a moment and take note of a detail on this story that is off great significance. No one in this story heads out into the world to seek out suffering, injustice, brutality and victims of violence. No one goes out with the intention of seeking out this encounter. Luke points out that it is by chance that the priest sees him. The Samaritan is traveling, his destination and route were certainly determined by other considerations. But he allows something to interrupt the smooth flow of his life. The same is true of us in this moment. None of us was planning to confront a war, let alone went out looking for one. But now that it is happening, we are faced with the question of all surprises in life: will we allow it to interrupt the smooth flow of our plans and the routes we would normally take, or are we merely annoyed that it is unsettling the otherwise unquestioned comfort of our lives?
To be continued.
Erik Riechers SAC, Vallendar, March 18th, 2022
Mothers
In these weeks of horror, which has broken in on Ukraine and is becoming ever more terrible, the images of mothers and grandmothers shake us daily. They tear our hearts apart just looking at them, how much more these women suffer in the existential distress that has come upon them and their children.
Then I found this drawing by Käthe Kollwitz about »Mothers«, created shortly after the First World War. To protect, carry, shelter, and even to hold close - all this flows from the hearts of these mothers. Need and fear are great, there is no reason to smile, for anyone.
Later she discarded this page and printed another version:
The mothers now form a fortress, so to speak, their bodies unite to form a protective wall for their children, who should live and not be sacrificed.
In her diary she wrote:
»I am working on the ›Mothers‹. [...]Yesterday I decided to try to rework the war sheets in lithography. [...]I have drawn the mother who embraces her children, it is me with my own children born in the flesh, my Hans and my little Peter. And I have been able to do it well.« - Käthe Kollwitz, Tagebücher, 6. Februar 1919 (Bilder und Zitat: www.kollwitz.de)
That day was Peter's birthday; he had voluntarily answered the Kaiser's call to war service at the age of 18, against her will, and had already fallen in Belgium in October 1914. It was five years after his death, before she was able to tackle it at all, before it was possible in her lasting grief to »do (it) well«.
She became a pacifist, designed the famous poster »Never again war!« in 1924, and processed her pain over the years in the sculptures »Mourning Parents«. This couple became a monument at the military cemetery near Dixmuiden in Belgium.
For me, Käthe Kollwitz embodies the strength of suffering, but also the endurance and expressiveness of a mother who neither denies nor steels her mother's heart, but lives with that heart, however hard it is.
Jesus' way of the cross is lined with such women. Andreas Knapp has written sensitive poems about these encounters. I recommend one of them to you:
Jesus encounters his mother
long since weaned
and yet remains forever
flesh of her flesh
Transfusion of pain
for the transmission
less than a glance suffices
unlimited
the reach
of maternal love
from: Mit Pauke und Salböl, Gedichte zu Frauen der Bibel
(With tambourine and anointing oil: Poems on Women of the Bible
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 21rst, 2022
The Two Friends
Today I give you a short story. At a time when so much terrible and hurtful things are happening, it is important to ask what we will hold on to.
Two good friends were once walking together by the sea. They got into an argument about something, and soon they didn't even know why. But in the course of the argument, one of them made a remark that deeply hurt his friend. Saddened, but without saying another word, the latter took a stick and wrote with it in the sand: »My best friend hurt me today.« For quite a while they sat in silence, looking out from their dune onto the water. Wind had risen and began to sweep across the sand dunes, slowly but surely blowing away the writing. When even the last trace had blown away, the scribe slowly undressed to go for a swim in the sea.
Suddenly he was caught by a strong current. Desperately, he swam against the undertow, but he did not manage to get out on his own. Then his friend plunged into the water without thinking, fought his way to him and was able to save him with the last of his strength. Breathing heavily, they both lay on the beach. After some time, the rescued man rose with the little strength he had left and began to hew into the rock: »Today my best friend saved my life.«
His friend watched him and asked in amazement, »When I hurt you, you wrote it in the sand and now you carve it in stone, why?« »When painful things happen to me,« his friend replied, »I want to write this in the sand so that the winds of forgiveness and the waves of understanding can unfold a new story. But when I experience love and friendship, I want to engrave it in stone so that it may live on for all time, blown by the wind, washed by the water.«
When we look back upon these weeks and months: What will we write in the sand? What will we chisel into the stone?
Erik Riechers SAC, 11. März 2022
»Strength and honour are her garments; she mocks the threatening future.« (Proverbs 31, 25):
The way of the upright woman - confident and beautiful
How many women are currently fleeing the inhuman war in Ukraine! They have to leave their husbands behind and try to save their children, the elderly and themselves by going to the West. The pictures of those arriving in Berlin and elsewhere bring tears to my eyes and at the same time make me admire them. Even though many are bent, there is so much strength in them. Bravely and courageously, they seize the only opportunity they see to survive.
For over 100 years, March 8th has been International Women's Day. In 1975, the United Nations made it a »Day for Women's Rights and World Peace«. Always and everywhere, it is women in particular who, in their concern for life, are especially weighed down by wars. They bear the cross many times over: in families they lose their husbands to war and try to make shelter and life possible for their children somewhere and somehow. What a burden!
Luke also tells us about a depressed, even bent woman. She caught Jesus' eye and heart in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He saw that she could no longer walk upright. »When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, ‘Woman, you are freed from your disability.’ And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.« (Lk 13, 12 f) Now this woman can celebrate the Sabbath. Upright and self-aware, she can praise and extol the God of life. We humans are called to walk upright. God wants us confidently standing on our feet. He wants us all to shape the earth as his partners. From this, many are drawing strength right now to set out and trust in helping hearts and hands in foreign lands. They show us their dignity in their setting forth toward life.
Recently I saw an article about the Mexican peninsula of Yucatan, which recounted the tale of women who try in all simplicity to live in harmony with nature, especially while preserving the culture of their ancestors, the Maya. One of these women is barely 30 years old. She designs and sews lingerie from recycled fabrics that she dyes in a natural way. She then presents them in her online shop with ordinary women from her surroundings, not professional models. When asked about this, she talked about how small and insignificant she felt for a long time and how transformative it was for her to realise that her own self-confidence is elemental to her way of living. She had to practise it and now she imparts it to the women she photographs herself on the beach for her shop. Because, she says: »There is no more beautiful woman than a confident woman.«
Hilde Domin once quoted the Renaissance philosopher Pico della Mirandola: » Holding one's head high is the mark of being human.«* We don't have to hold it up under strain, with clenched teeth and always in resistance. In a way, we can hold it up easily and naturally because we are aware of our belovedness and our dignity. Looked at by God, we can look at each other and perceive ourselves in our beauty. In this way we can meet each other with dignity - in everyday life and at the borders!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 7th, 2022
* Hilde Domin: Gesammelte Gedichte, S. 225
»Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?«
Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my pleas for mercy! In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness! Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! I have fled to you for refuge. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God! Let your good Spirit lead me on level ground! For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble! And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant.
(Ps 143)
War has drawn close to us.
It rages in our vicinity and also affects many families who live with us.
It shakes us all and changes us.
Standards are shifting, priorities are being set anew. And something new is on the move in the land and within human hearts. It reminds me of the words of the Prophet Isaiah: »Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?«
So we experience that people rise spontaneously in worship when a prayer for the people in Ukraine is announced. No one has to ask them to do so - they rise up to God and pray for peace in an upright posture. They are aware of the urgency and of what they can and cannot do themselves.
We see Pope Francis calling believers and non-believers to pray together for peace on Ash Wednesday: »And now I would like to appeal to everyone, believers and non-believers. Jesus taught us that the diabolical senselessness of violence is answered with the weapons of God, with prayer and fasting. I invite everyone to make next March 2nd, Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting for peace.« (www.vaticannews.va)
Solidarity and closeness of heart are shown in many ways in these days of abandonment and terror of innocent people before brutal violence.
They are also shown in turning to the true Lord of life, to whom we so often wanted to elevate ourselves. Never have I read so often in comments on Instagram about praying. Perhaps we only suspect a trace of God - but we follow this trace that rises from the depths of our hearts. Then ancient prayers take on new meaning, they give us a language that is often missing in this great crisis. The Psalms of David, who knew threat and war, also give voice to our prayers and hopes.
So let us pray for the people of Ukraine and for all of us with the great hope in our hearts that God will do what we cannot.
I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise;
I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.
All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord, for they have heard the words of your mouth, and they shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord.
For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.
(Psalm 138)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 4th, 2022
A Hill of Crosses
Since the day of the invasion of the Ukraine and the suffering, pain, destruction and death it has wrought, I have done two things. First, I have turned to a beloved passage from the prophet Isaiah.
For You have been a refuge for the poor, a stronghold for the needy in distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like rain against a wall, like heat in a dry land. You subdue the uproar of foreigners. As the shade of a cloud cools the heat, so the song of the ruthless is silenced.
Is 25, 4-5
The reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah speaks of one of God’s deepest desires for his people. He wants to restore unto us what has been taken or lost, be it shelter, security, or comfort.
As I read these words and then prayed with them, they resurrected a story in my heart. For many years I accompanied an elderly man named Vitus until his death. Every Friday afternoon I would visit him and he would, sooner or later, tell me the stories of his homeland.
Vitus was a son of Lithuania, a small Baltic country that lost its independence in the Second World War. The country was terrorised by Nazi tyranny and later Soviet terror. On June 14-15, 1941 the Russians loaded 38,000 Lithuanian leaders, intellectuals and peasants in cattle cars deported them to Siberia. Over the next ten years one in every ten Lithuanians was sent to Siberia. The Church was viciously persecuted in a country that was 85% Catholic. The bishops were all imprisoned or killed. Half the churches were destroyed, closed or desecrated. Half the clergy were killed, imprisoned or exiled. All religious orders, publications, and institutions were suppressed. It was a radical subjugation of a people, their culture, their language and their faith.
Yet, Vitus and his countrymen and women had a remarkable response to this decade’s long terror campaign. They shared the heart of God and yearned for restoration. They hoped that freedom would be returned, that religion would be set free, and the nation restored. Most impressively, they brought that deep hope for restoration to expression in the form of the cross.
In the north of the country, the hill of crosses was born. It is an almost unimaginable sight. 55,000 crosses of every size and style were erected upon this hill, covering every square centimetre of it as a memorial to all that was lost, and as a plea for restoration. In the spring of 1961 the Soviet government bulldozed the whole thing down, burned the wooden crosses, melted down the iron ones, and buried the stone ones. Overnight there were new crosses. The Soviets tried everything, even flooding the field around it and blocking all the roads, and still new crosses came. Finally they gave up in 1985, and shortly thereafter Lithuania was restored to freedom and democracy.
When I look at the faces of the Ukrainian people on the news, I remember Vitus. A new chapter of suffering has been opened and a new generation of believers will now struggle to live the story born of faith, of hope, of courage and of perseverance. Yet, most importantly, I see in these men and women the influence of a heart that was moulded to yearn for restoration.
Throughout our lives, we know the ache for restoration. Like every human being, we have choices to make in the face of the trials and tribulations which life brings with it. We face disappointments. We know unsatisfied hungers of the heart. Upon the landscapes of our lives, we will also need to erect our own hill of crosses. Over and over again, we need to set a sign of faith in the restoration of all that is momentarily lost to us. Over and over again, we need to wager on a God who would restore unto us all that was beautiful, true and good, but also lost for a short time.
The hill of crosses in Lithuania was a powerful sign to the authorities that the present moment does not make up the meaning of the future. The faith of this hour is a clear and potent sign to the power of death that this present hour of grief and sorrow, loss and sadness, does not constitute the meaning of all our tomorrows. Beyond the hill of crosses, there was freedom. Beyond the hill of crosses there was restoration. Beyond these days of loss there will be restoration.
Deep at the heart of our faith, lies the desire to have all that is life-giving restored to us from the grasping claws of death. Even deeper at the heart of faith lies a greater mystery yet. It is that wonderful and awe-inspiring revelation that the reason why God restores us from death to life, is because he wants life restored as badly as we do. The words of the prophet Isaiah led us into this reflection. Allow his sparkling words to lead us out. “And in that day it will be said, »Surely this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He has saved us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.« (Is 25, 9)
Erik Riechers SAC, February 28th, 2022
»Where are you staying?«
I was ordained by Archbishop Joseph MacNeil. He was for me a model of what the biblical stories expect a shepherd to be, kind, unassuming, generous with his time, close to the people and genuinely happy to meet the people entrusted to his care. In the years after my ordination, I crossed paths with him often. On occasion it was in the parish when he came to confirm the children. But most often, we encountered each other in hospitals and nursing homes. And every time we met there, he took the time to say to me, »I am always glad to meet a priest in a place like this.«
Unfortunately, I never thought to return the compliment. I wish from the deepest recesses of my heart that I would have said to him, »I am always glad to meet a bishop in a place like this!« I have been a priest for nearly 33 years, but he is the only bishop I have ever met in nursing homes, hospitals, soup kitchens and even a prison.
In John’s Gospel, two disciples of John the Baptist ask Jesus the question, »Where are you staying?« The place where Jesus stays is not a geographic location, but a place of conviction. The places where Jesus stays, where he lingers and perseveres, the place he refuses to leave, is the rock-solid conviction that everything necessary for the life of those who are called by God is already given and is within us. He knows what is in us and he names it: »The kingdom of God is within you« (Lk 17:21). This conviction is the place where Jesus stays, because it is the place where our God always stays. Our God steadfastly holds that we are loved and wanted, that our lives have value, dignity and meaning. We humans often doubt this, but God stands by it. Jesus sees blessedness, salt and light (cf. Mt 5) in the weak, the poor, the sick, the downtrodden and the broken. Thus, he stays with them, so that they might liberate the power of blessedness, salt and light which they carry within themselves, develop these gifts as a contribution to the life of the world and then risk living it out for the sake of faith, love and hope.
I recently was fascinated by a passage in a book by Marco Garzonio, an Italian journalist, psychologist, essayist and academic, as well as the president of the Ambrosianeum Cultural Foundation in Milan. He pointed out that the tradition of the Church in Milan always held, that the head of the Ambrosian Church is poor. This was considered so important, that the archbishop of Milan does not have a church to himself. Not even the Duomo, the cathedral. In fact, the cathedral belongs to the Veneranda Fabbrica (Venerable Factory of the Duomo of Milan), an autonomous association, jealous of its statutes and of the independence it has enjoyed for centuries. It is even independent of the Holy See.
But if the archbishop does not own the splendour of the spires, the furnishings, the works and the treasures of the Duomo, he does enjoys an ancient privilege: he is the parish priest of the Ospedale Maggiore, the General Hospital. It is referred to as the Casa Grande, the great 'house', which receives and shelters the city's sick. This is the place where the people expected their archbishop to be staying, and thus, the place where they expected him to be found. This was the place where they expected him to live like a shepherded, in the midst of the most vulnerable part of the flock, in the citadel of suffering and pain. Or, to turn it around, this way of answering the question »where are you staying« would mean, if you can find the places where the vulnerable dwell, the hospitals, old people's homes, institutions for the handicapped, suburban ghettos and prisons, you will find the where the archbishop can be found.
This was a way in which the Milanese translated the Gospel into a concrete manner of living. They understood their shepherd as one called to genuine and existential service and clearly recognised the precise nature of his responsibilities. The shepherd was like Jesus, the good shepherd, who lived in a covenant, a grand relationship of dialogue and partnership. He lived in this relationship with those who are weak and afflicted, but who know because of their shepherd that they can count on the strength of the intercession and presence of someone who brings relief and comfort.
I do not believe that this biblical instinct of the people of God is confined to the good citizens of Milan. Everywhere in the world the people of God are aching for good shepherds, and they know where they would like to find them. They know the place where their shepherds should be staying. But often, far too often, they do not find them there. It leaves them sad and alone, and later that turns to anger and rejection when they realise where their shepherds are staying and how they spend their time.
And that is why I continue to regret that I never told Archbishop MacNeil in those hospitals, nursing homes, soup kitchens and in that prison, »I am always glad to meet a bishop in a place like this!«
Erik Riechers SAC, February 25th, 2022
Living with Tensions
Many years ago, a woman, who was very sure of herself, told me that her brother never comes to see her parents when she is there because he knows what she would hold against him about his way of life. His »fault«? He is divorced. In her conservative Catholic worldview, that was bad and simply could not be. She believed she knew exactly what was good and bad and she seemed very content with her way of dealing with it.
We know similar behaviour when we write ourselves off after a failure or a wrong decision and just dismiss it as being too stupid or something of that kind.
Why is it so difficult for us to endure tensions? This is a question that arises again and again. We tend to seek and prefer black-and-white solutions, but this does not do justice to reality with all its shades of grey. We are quickly exhausted by the realities of life and tend to complain. We find it difficult to accept the various and often very different facets of our lives and to endure that there are burdensome, difficult areas and at the same time beautiful and light sides. We struggle to accept that everything is contained within our own lives in its full spectrum.
Isn't tension a principle of life? We are stretched into a tension between birth and death. We are within tensions within relationships, in tasks and duties.
Without the tension of our physical forces and mental abilities, we would not be able to achieve anything. We practise tensing our muscles from the very beginning. We turn to the world by being curious about what is coming, how something will develop or look, whether something will happen.
Without the tensions of life, there would be no stories at all!
Tension is something elastic, alive and lives from the alternation between tensing up and relaxation. If you are always tense, you will be in pain. We all know this physically. Muscles that are tense for too long become hard and stiff. And if our worries, our ambition or our perfectionism always keep us tense - we also say: »tightly held« - we also become immobile and lopsided. It's as if we take on blinkers and block out whole dimensions of our lives.
On the other hand, those who prefer to keep everything nice and relaxed, light and easy, fluffy, so to speak, will hardly mature because they try to avoid the challenges.
The biblical messages, on the other hand, not only withstand life's many and varied arcs of tension, they also tell us that our God can be experienced precisely in them. That is why Gotthard Fuchs can write:
»Authentic spirituality does not slice reality in half and also takes the bitterness of the everyday as an invitation to transformation and growth.« He points out that maturation, »renouncing cherry-picking and perceiving the whole of reality«. (from: »Mut-Proben«, Patmos 2021, pp. 108-109)
Between the one-sided, harsh judgements of others or ourselves and childish ideas of pampering lies the fullness of our lives. Let us enter it wisely and courageously. And let us become gentle, just as I would have wished it for the woman toward her brother at that time. In order to grow and mature in balance between rigidity and relaxation, we need gentleness, that »highly powerful, tension-strong attitude«. (loc.cit., p. 81)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 21rst, 2022
A Path of Renewal
I recently witnessed a liturgy in which pompous grandiosity was front and center. From the start, the focus of attention was not the Word and not the community at prayer, but the celebrant. At one point, a server actually lifted up and carried the cope of the celebrant as he walked around the altar to incense it.
Immediately a biblical word sprang to mind. »And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.« (Mt 6, 5) The self-referential world which Jesus so feared can also be found among us today.
I asked myself, where Jesus would ever act in such a manner. Where would he have another person tip toe around him as he walked, reducing and demeaning the other to the role of servant, if not a slave? The Jesus of the Gospel pages strips himself of garments, girds himself for service, kneels on floors, and washes feet.
In John’s Gospel, the evangelist lets us in on Jesus secret: »Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.« (John 13, 3)
Jesus knew that he enjoyed the trust of his Father, because he placed all things into his hands. Jesus knew who he was, before God and before others. He knew where he came from and where he was going. That is the secret, because then there is no need for pomposity and self-aggrandizement. These are always the instruments of a heart that wishes to camouflage its shallowness and emptiness. Such hearts, because they do not really know who they are, where they come from and where they are going, resort to grandiosity and pomp, because they need to disguise the fact, that they are hollow.
Lip service to the Gospel will not save us in the hour of crisis. The path of renewal will demand more than putting on a better show. The call of these days is as old as the biblical story. We must move from a Christianity of habit and custom to a Christianity of conviction, reflection, choice, and decision.
Conviction is more than custom. It is born of the inner processes of the deep heart, that struggles through real life until it comes to a conclusion with which it can live. You can always tell when conviction is born. It is the moment when we are not merely touched by what we see, experience and encounter, but are moved by it. If we are not moved to some action, and be it ever so small, it is not a conviction.
Reflection is the moment when we go deep, when we ask about the meaning and purpose of what we are doing. Unlike habit, which simply maintains the status quo through mindless repetition, reflection poses questions as to the true significance of what is taking place.
Choice is an inevitable part of authentic faith. We have grown accustomed to the process of simply taking on the faith handed on to us by the generation before us, without really making it a choice. We have relied on the concept of inheritance, rather than personal choice. This process has broken down. An authentic use of the word “tradition” means we would use it as a verb, rather than a noun. Tradition is the act of passing on and giving people a reason to choose what we hold precious and dear. We have been very insistent that people should believe, but what reason do we give for making this choice? What stories do we tell about how we came to choose the path of Jesus, the way of the Gospel? Among all the opportunities and possibilities offered to people in the world, the way of faith is one choice we can make. It is not inevitable. The days in which social pressure will keep our churches full are long gone. It people come, it will only be because they choose to come.
Decision is the moment when we actually make the choice that will guide and direct our lives, our actions, and our behaviour. It is not about mood and emotion, but about taking a stance.
The result of all this is found in the precious line of John’s Gospel: »Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.« (John 13, 3) For Jesus, faith was about conviction, reflection, choice, and decision. That could be the path of our renewal as well.
Erik Riechers SAC, February 18th, 2022
Words carry life
These weeks I have been reading Hilde Domin's biography on and off. It makes me realise how much life she had already lived before the words of her incomparable poetry began to grow out of her. I am not only thinking of her lifetime; no, her life was unbelievably dense due to external and personal circumstances in a wide range from the enjoyment of life and love to flight, losses, homelessness and deep pain.
She perceived everything sensitively and intensively and gave it a language, especially in letters. But when everything seemed to break away from her, new words found their way, poems literally burst out of her. She later wrote to her brother about this time: » That was when I the poems were given to me. I put my foot in the air and it bore me.« (Marion Tauschwitz; Hilde Domin. Biografie, S. 229)
This makes me think. Don't we all suffer - consciously or unconsciously - from too many empty words? Whining about not finally being able to live like we used to, ever more inundating gibberish, talking about nothing! What would happen if we kept more silence Perhaps this could lead to the source of new words and we would move tentatively towards true exchanges about the depths of our souls and he real treasures of our lives. We could practise genuine living and listening and waiting for what grows and matures within us. We could discover how little of all that we hold as ever so important is really necessary. And perhaps we could slowly understand and at some point tune into what Hilde Domin, who knew exile and return and homelessness, put into words like this:
With light baggage
Don't get used to it.
You mustn't get used to it.
A rose is a rose.
But a home
is not a home.
Say no to the lapdog object
that wags at you
from the shop windows.
It is mistaken. You
do not smell of staying.
One spoon is better than two.
Hang it around your neck,
you may have one,
for with the hand
it's too hard to scoop the hot stuff.
Sugar would run through your fingers,
like comfort,
like the wish,
on the day
when it becomes yours.
You may have a spoon,
a rose,
maybe a heart
and, perhaps,
a grave.
(From: Hilde Domin, Sämtliche Gedichte, 2009)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 14th, 2022
Stand where you can see the horizon: Sentinels of the Morning II
In the book of the Prophet Isaiah, there is a very brief story about the relationship between a sentinel of the morning and the people.
One is calling to me from Seir,
»Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?«
The watchman says:
»The morning comes, and night as well.
If you would ask, do ask,
turn back, come.«
Isaiah 21,11-12
If you like, this is akin to a job description for sentinels of the morning.
The people approach with a question: »Watchman, what of the night?« It is not the same as asking the time of day. When people inquire as to the length of the night, it is a question about fear and insecurity. They want to know how much longer they will have to endure the darkness and how long they need to wait unto the light returns to their world.
Yet, why ask the sentinel? This has to do with the way in which a sentinel works and where he or she does that work. The sentinel can be found upon the walls of the city. They stand there, because it is the vantage point from that allows them to see what is approaching the city they guard. Therefore, they can also see the horizon, which is indispensable if you wish to tell time by the motion of the stars and the moon. It is also the place the sentinel looks to in order to ascertain the first stirrings of light on the fringes of darkness. The first hint of morning is always found on the horizon.
In this first part of the story, we see a basic approach to life with which every sentinel of the morning must contend. It has to do with the walls and the advantages and disadvantages they bring to our lives.
The obvious advantage of a wall, is that it offers us protection. The walls we build shelter us and keep what is threatening and frightening outside and away from us. We feel safe and secure behind the walls we build.
Yet those same walls come with a price. The disadvantage of walls is that they while they protect us, they also block our view of the world around us. In particular, they severely limit our far-sightedness. When we hide behind walls, we cannot see the distant scene and, above all, we can no longer see the horizon. And as I have already noted, then we cannot see the stirrings of the new day. That means, we do not have the ability to know how the night is progressing, hence the question of the people: »Watchman, what of the night?« It also means, that even after the first sings of light and hope appear on the horizon, the people behind the walls will have no idea that it is coming. They will live in darkness without knowing that there are already clear signs that it is coming to an end.
But the sentinels of the morning know. It is not an accident that they are the first to know. It is the direct result of a choice they have made. They have chosen to leave behind the security of the walls in order to gain the advantage of taking a wide and encompassing look at the world beyond them. It is a risky business. After all, the first people susceptible to attack are those who can be seen, who stand exposed. These are the sentinels of the morning. Yet, they are willing to take that risk in order to see what is coming toward them, be it an approaching enemy of the first rays of dawn. They refuse to hide behind walls. Instead they want to see the horizon. Their reward is that they will always be the first to know that the light is rising and the night has started to die. They are, of course, the first messengers of hope for the people cowering behind the walls. Yet in Psalm 30,5 we can encounter the spirit that suffuses the sentinels of the morning: »weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.« They are the first eye witnesses of dawning light, and therefore, the »joy that cometh in the morning« will touch them first.
To be a sentinel of the morning is to make a fundamental choice about where we will stand in the world, about the place from which we would forge and fashion our lives. We see it all around us, people barricading themselves behind walls of anger, hoping somehow that their indignation at the corruption and abuse of the world will somehow shield their hearts from more pain. People build high walls with conspiracy theories, hoping that if they can explain the world as they wish to understand it, they will be protected from the anxiety of uncertainty and from the confusion of the world around them. Walls can be erected with the stones of indifference, making us believe that if we do not care, we cannot be hurt. Yet, in this cold-hearted calculation they never include the terrible price of isolation and loneliness which they not only create for others, but which they suffer themselves.
No matter how we build these walls, they will not allow us to see the signs of a new brightness, warmth and life that is arising in the world. Sooner or later we will feel the question arsing in our hearts: »Watchman, what of the night?« Yet, if everyone is behind the walls, there will be no one left to answer the question.
That is why I prefer to live like a sentinel of the morning. I like it atop the walls. It is my place, my chosen place, from which I would view the world. I would not live in ignorance of the coming of the morning. I am willing to take the risk of being more exposed, and less protected, of living with more intensity and having to undertake the arduous and straining task of scouring the horizon, because I always want to be among the first who are touched by the joy that cometh in the morning.
And I am willing to be a sentinel of the morning, because I feel that there must always be someone who is able to answer the question born of darkness and weighing heavily on walled in hearts: »Watchman, what of the night?« They need sentinels of the morning, because without them, the biblical story of hope will not be heard: »The morning comes, and night as well. If you would ask, do ask, turn back, come.«
Erik Riechers SAC, February 11th, 2022
»Encouragement in sorrow and suffering«
Under the blessed wish »May you be sheltered!« we have long encountered one another here. In March 2020, we did not know how our lives would develop and change under Covid19, what consequences we would have to deal with, what this »story would do to all of us.
However, we were sure, that we would remain protected in all the uncertainties and dangers that God's loving gaze would watch over us that He is greater than all our worries and troubles and greater than anything that may happen.
Even without the threat of a virus, we all know the concern for people who are dear to us and entrusted to us.
Almost 30 years ago, I was impressed by a grandmother who told me about her many years of worry about her grandson who had slipped into the drug scene and seemed to get lost again and again in his addiction. It was shocking to hear what this woman had endured in her love for this boy, how deep and also well-founded her concern was and how seemingly unbearable her helplessness was. But her heart's desire would not let her give up. She used different words then, but she always wished him, the grandson, salvation, blessing and protection. Everything she had experienced and learned in those difficult years, she later passed on so that others could benefit from it, even live from it. She wrote books and gave lectures.
When we worry about specific people, we usually cannot stop thinking about them. We hope that nothing bad will happen to them and perhaps - as my mother did for her children and later her grandchildren - we keep a candle burning as a sign of solidarity and as an expression of the request for protection for the loved ones.
But sometimes we also undergo times of anxious fear. Our possibilities to help are limited, we may not be able to do anything at all for our beloved. Then the worry can really »eat us up«. Many a person has become ill in such times of anxiety-inducing worry.
Then we need help. Someone has to help us find the right balance again between myself and the one I care about, between my life and his life, and finally between my possibilities, which are always limited, and God's possibilities, which are inexhaustible.
We need people who can see more in what we tell than we ourselves can in our dimmed vision. If they see the signs of God in it, they can help us to let go of those we are afraid for and entrust them to God's heart and hands. Then we learn to say: »Stay sheltered!« and experience that this is also a blessing for us. Then, what we can do ourselves will be enough and the confidence will grow that God is doing His part. We learn to entrust our loved ones to Him and also ourselves. We don't drop out, but we change our view.
We need people at our side with a wise heart.
It is not for nothing that the Bible dedicates an entire book to wisdom, this »breath of God’s power« (Wis 7, 25) It is said of her that she leads us to the virtues. »For she teaches self-control and prudence, justice and courage; nothing in life is more profitable for mortals than these. And if anyone longs for wide experience, she knows the things of old, and infers the things to come; she understands turns of speech and the solutions of riddles; she has foreknowledge of signs and wonders and of the outcome of seasons and times. Therefore I determined to take her to live with me, knowing that she would give me good counsel and encouragement in cares and grief.« (Wis 8, 7-9)
We gain a wise heart gradually, through companionship and through practice. Let us practise accepting God as the sheltering guardian of all our loved ones. In this way, we can walk through sorrowful, worrying times together.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 7th, 2022
Sentinels of the Morning
In Psalm 130 there is an image that easily slips away from us if we do not pause and ponder. »My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.« Here the prayer insists that the soul has a desire for the coming of the Lord into its life that is even greater than the desire a sentinel has for the coming of the morning. The image is powerful, but only if we can answer one question: how powerful is the longing of a sentinel for the coming of the morning? How important is the arrival of new light into the world for a person who keeps watch throughout the night?
The weight of waiting through long nights is hardly news to us. At the moment, the news overflows with that story. People are longing for the long night of Corona to come to an end and are worn and desperate when there is still no clear end in sight. The headlines are full of the stories of yet more discoveries of abuse in the Church, together with the chorus of horror, anger, and indignation that always follows upon such reports. This long night of shame, helplessness and fury has lasted for so long, and there is no end in sight yet. The political problems of the land go on unabated, even as governments change. The extremes are on the rise, antisemitism is resurfacing everywhere, civil discourse has given way to tirades and vitriolic attacks, and the care for the common good is being unravelled in the face of an unrelenting and unfettered individualism. The dark hours of the night are long and wearisome.
But the biblical storyteller of Psalm 130 is not joining the chorus of those who lament the length of the night. Instead, he places himself into the role of a sentinel, a person who is ever alert to the coming of the morning. It is the role of a person, who refuses to succumb to the despairing role of bemoaning what ails the human soul. Instead, this person is on the lookout for hope, for a new perspective on the horizon, for signs of light that is aching to come back into the world.
This encounter with the biblical story raises a question in me. What role do I wish to play in the great drama of salvation as it is unfolding in the world? The temptation is to join the litany and chorus of despair, to sing from the song sheets of the night. It is a temptation that is all around us. Every single day I encounter it in the people I encounter. They are fragile, tired, and, as the result of many and varied experiences, unmotivated. All too often, they are surrounded by people who will join them in bemoaning the sorry state of the world and their personal part in it.
But that is not consolation. No hope can ever be born that way. That is merely misery enjoying company. There is no perspective in this scenario. From this place of despair and resignation there is no place to go.
The sentinel of the morning chooses a different tack and, thereby, takes a radically different approach to life and its long nights. The sentinel of the morning consciously is on the watch for signs of hope. The sentinel of the morning is trying to discern God's plan for the future, to try to understand the priorities for the future of the People of God, to walk the new paths and follow the untrodden ways.
That can only happen if there is a conviction left deep within the heart of the sentinel, namely, that there is more to the story than what we have experienced. It is an old biblical call of our God, reminding us to stay alert, because there is more to come, and it will bring us divine goodness and light. That is the experience we call faith. The storyteller of the Letter to the Hebrews says it this way: »Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.« (Heb 11,1). Paul reminds us that a sentinel of the morning believes God’s promise during the dark nights before we see it fulfilled. »For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?« (Romans 8, 24)
For my part, I refuse to join the litany of despair, even while I feel the sting of it in my bones. I am no more immune to what long nights do to the human heart than anyone else. I feel the weariness and the sadness as keenly as everyone else. The disappointment and the betrayal of trust is as disheartening to me as to all my brothers and sisters. But I refuse to have this conversation without God. I refuse to spend all my time talking about the night or, even worse, to the night. So I mount the walls and keep watch for the coming of the day. I do it every time I sit down to write another encouraging word. I do it each time I still down to accompany a person through the troubled waters of their lives. I keep watch for the morning in every homily I write and preach. »My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.«
When I pray, I take up the image of Isaiah: “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest. (Isaiah 62, 6)
I pray for more sentinels of the morning. But that is another story altogether. I will gladly tell it to you next week in my next reflection.
Erik Riechers SAC, Vallendar, February 4th, 2022
What comes so easily . . .
Almost 30 years ago, a father wrote in his 10-year-old daughter's poetry album: »The best thing we can do in the world is to do good, be happy and let the sparrows whistle.« The girl loved this sentence and she liked to write it herself in other albums. Probably all of us know it and because it comes so easily, we tend to dismiss it as childish, a pious postcard saying or simply trite.
The author of this saying is celebrated and honoured today in the monastery of Benediktbeuern and everywhere where the Salesians of Don Bosco live and work, namely Don Bosco. Today is the 144th anniversary of the death of this northern Italian priest, gifted educator, youth pastor and founder of the order, and I pause today at this sentence and look for its supporting foundation.
Don Bosco had the clarity and the courage to declare something as the »best thing« we can do. That no longer passes our lips very often in our world of indifference, egalitarianism, and the motto »everything is allowed – everything is good«. We often no longer dare to name the qualitative differences of what we can do, together with the possible consequences, which can be beneficial and supportive or deadening and harmful.
As one such »best thing«, Don Bosco fist recommends doing good. This is a call to action and this in turn leads us right into the message of the Bible and into the life teachings of Jesus.
»Do this, and you will live«, say Jesus to the lawyer who wishes to inherit eternal life and who knows the words written in the law: »You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.« (Lk 10,27-28) Jesus say that life is acquired through doing. At the end of his conversation with Nicodemus, who visits him at night, he say: »But whoever does what is true comes to the light«. (Jn 3, 21) How we live in action shows whose spiritual child we are. As images and partners of God, we are created with the ability and the mission to act well and thus to preserve and shape life for ourselves, for others, for the creation entrusted to us. If in the story of creation God repeatedly says that he »saw that it was good«, our work can and should also be creative, constructive, creating new worlds and lovingly caring.
Don Bosco then counts being cheerful as one of the best things we can do. Of course, this has nothing to do with being funny or even silly. Rather, it is about a basic attitude that the little book of Nehemiah already recommends to the people of God who have returned from the Babylonian exile to the destroyed city of Jerusalem. With great effort they rebuild the walls and, moved to tears, listen to the instruction of the Lord, the Torah, which Ezra recites to them. When he sees their tears, he tells them: »And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.« (Neh 8, 10) - and then they celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles as in ancient times. Being joyful has to do with this joy in the Lord. For this is the message that runs through the Bible from beginning to end: God is with his people, he is faithful, he shows ways and gives strength, he is in us and around us. So rejoicing in HIM has substance and may always gain the upper hand in our lives.
And finally, Giovanni Bosco advises to let the sparrows whistle. Let them be – is what I hear here - don't scare them away or be bothered by them. Rather, they can be a reminder to you: »Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.« (Mt 10, 29-31) With these words, Jesus encourages his disciples as they are sent out, painting a picture of God's inexhaustible care for us that is both memorable and expressive.
So the more I think about the thought from the poetry album, the clearer it becomes to me: what comes across as so easy only has this lightness because it is deeply founded.
But what happened to the ten-year-old who grew up with this sentence? It is never on her lips. But for a long time now, I have noticed how she is able to tackle things instead of ranting, how she gets involved when it matters. How often family, friends or colleagues were amazed at how creatively she looked for solutions and how nothing was too much for her in an »emergency«. At the same time, she is carried by a deeply hopeful and positive attitude. She has a certain cheerfulness that is good for herself and the people around her. She is probably not even aware of how much she lives from the words her father once wrote down for her. She simply fills them with her life.
So in these unstable times, I greet you today with Don Bosco's advice: »Stand with your feet on earth and dwell with your heart in heaven.«
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 31rst, 2022
What happens when God sets us free?
In the turmoil and conflict of the Corona crisis, there has been a great deal of talk about the freedom of the individual. An often heard statement is: Freedom means that no one can tell me what to do. In so many cases, the case is made for a freedom from any and every obligation that does not suit us. But there is nary a word about a freedom for something, be it for a just cause, the common good or for service to the weakest and most afflicted in our ranks. It is a troubling and dangerous development.
The stories of God offer us an alternative, because once he sets us free, he tells us exactly what to do with that new found freedom.
But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said, »Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.« And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach.
In this powerful and dramatic story from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 5, 17-21), we encounter a story of liberation. Prison doors are opened by an angel. People who are incarcerated are led out of prison by the messenger of God. Who does not dream of being liberated when they experience the narrow walls of their own prisons? Some of these prisons are built on the outside, made of stone and steel. Others are erected on the inside, forged of fear, self-doubt and the lingering sense of inferiority. Relationships can become prisons, as can families and communities. Either way, these are places that suffocate hope and breed resignation and despair.
Prisons always play two roles. On the one hand, they lock people up to punish them by depriving them of their liberty. On the other hand, they protect the people who are outside in the free world from those who are inside. To the people on the outside, a prison is a place where they safe lock away those people who either disturb or threaten our order and peace. Prisons are also complicated in that way, because they are used by just societies to punish criminals and protect society, but they are also used by tyrants and dictators to silence their opposition and intimidate the dissidents of their countries.
Normally, when a person is released from person, society has become convinced that they no longer pose a threat to others. Convinced that they will no longer disturb the peace and quiet of the people, they are finally allowed to live in freedom again.
That makes this story all the more interesting and challenging, because it shatters that pattern. »Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.« The story makes it perfectly clear that God has sent the messenger to open the gates, lead out his imprisoned friends and release them back into the cut and thrust of life to do exactly the opposite. God breaks them out of prison in order that they will stand out, not to blend into the faceless and nameless masses. He sets them free to that will be active proclaimers of disturbing stories. The people whom God sets free are not to disappear inconspicuously into the crowd and go into hiding, but to go into the temple (Jerusalem's most public place) and »and speak to the people all the words of this Life«.
This is not about a freedom so that we can hide, but a freedom to show up. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once said, »To be free is nothing, to become free is everything!« Here prison gates are opened for us to walk into the heart of life. We should stand up for what is in us, what has formed and shaped us, and what makes us live. After all, if we cannot do that, are we not in a prison?
This experience is not foreign to us. At some point, and probably more than once, we have been freed from prisons. Messengers of God have opened to us the gates to life which we were unable to open for ourselves. They have shown us the paths to freedom and accompanied us to the threshold of life.
But as liberated people, we have to go to the temple. We have to go to the centre of life and proclaim »all the words of this life«. All the words of this life means, we have to proclaim the name of the God who opens prison gates for us, who has carried us through bondage, and who has walked us through the maze of prison passages back into life. And proclaiming all the words of this life means that we also proclaim the purpose for which we have been set free. Our lives have not been set free so that we might return to our private little fiefdoms, but so that we may appear in the temple and become a messenger of God to others. And so it starts again, for when we show up like this, we will be the ones who start to liberate another set of prisoners.
Erik Riechers SAC
Paderborn, January 28th, 2022
»Blessed by all things«
Our understanding and perceptions of the world that surrounds us are sober and emphasised by reason. Unlike people in earlier times, we know where thunder comes from and how a volcanic eruption in the southern Pacific can trigger a tsunami in Peru. We can make snow slopes ourselves. We all use highly complex things that people have thought up, developed and manufactured. We deal with them quite pragmatically and discard them when new developments produce better things.
That's fine, but such an approach can shape and define us in such a way that it affects the way we perceive everything in life: technically, utilitarian and mechanistic.
Everything has to be useful, serve a purpose, we want to understand it and it should work. But next to it, behind it, sometimes in it, there are experiences of life that elude utility
What is at play when our breathing stops? Or when it goes faster? Is it not a miracle - breathing?
Don't we sometimes marvel at something that is whispered to us - perhaps marvel at the trust that is being placed in us right then? Or our own voice becomes a whisper in the face of an overwhelming experience.
Why do tears sometimes come to our eyes at the sight of a landscape, a picture or a face? Or why do we exult at what is happening right before our eyes.
Can't the touch and closeness of a person turn a dull day into a day of joy?
How do we feel when a long-suffering person opens his heart before us and entrusts us with his inner treasures? All of a sudden we get an inkling of the depth and eternity of the soul.
Don't we know the urging of thoughts when we look for solutions and help for loved ones? It can be astonishing what our thinking is capable of.
Do we pause now and then, looking back, because we realise that it was not we di not carry ourselves through a difficult time? There was a power dwelling in us that points beyond us.
Everything we encounter can be a blessing. Everything we experience and absorb can unfold a blessing power.
That is why I love John O'Donohue's Morning Prayer, in which he says, raising himself up:
»I arise today
Blessed by all things,
Wings of breath,
Delight of eyes,
Wonder of whisper,
Intimacy of touch,
Eternity of soul,
Urgency of thought,
Miracle of health,
Embrace of God.«
We can sensitise ourselves to perceive and absorb a deeper dimension of life. And we can speak of them in retrospect.
Even if we don't notice it, we are permitted to trust: in every second there are more blessings woven in us and around us than we can imagine. Is this »carpet« not a solid ground on which we can stand and walk?
It is my wish for all of us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 24th, 2022
To Bless one another
Today I ask a little question that has grown in my heart - especially in the aftermath of Erik's impulse on Corona fatigue: Can't we simply and consciously bless one another again and again? In Latin, to bless is benedicere, and it means to speak well. Without denying what burdens us, without pretending that the pandemic with all its limitations and risks does not exist, I want to change my point of view. I want to say good things to the other. To do this, I have to perceive (again). I have to see and hear them and then think about what is good for them and what increase in life I specifically wish for them. I look for words and images that express this, move them in my heart and bless a person with them.
When my grandson was born, a friend gave me the lyrics of a song by Reinhard Mey.
The whole song is a grandfather's blessing at his grandson's cradle. In one verse it says:
»Always a lucky penny in one of your pockets,
Always a serene breath at the finish line,
Always full of trust, yet immersed in all waters,
Always a hand's breadth of it under your keel.
That through all perils a guardian angel may accompany you,
That a beacon may guide you with a sure light.
Always a best friend be by your side
I would like to be the oldest of them all.« *
Is that not beautiful? Breath and trust, the protection of heaven, guiding light, friendship and happiness are the gifts he wishes for the human child, and he is ready to cooperate.
To whom could we sing a few verses of this song? When we seek opportunities to bless one another, we change our minds and widen our hearts.
And the blessing will be upon us all.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 21st, 2022
* from R. Mey, »Fahr dein Schiffchen durch ein Meer von Kerzen«
Corona Fatigue
At the moment we are all very tired from the long days of the pandemic and the many, often confusing sets of rules and regulations that come with it. This pervasive weariness has been dubbed »corona fatigue«.
This is not the first time in the long history of salvation that the People of God suffered through such moments. When they arose, the Prophets spoke of hope to them, reminding them that such days will pass and the People of God will experience new and more delightful moments. The prophet Jeremiah does precisely this when we speaks these words to God’s people in crisis.
Thus says the Lord: »The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit.« (Jeremiah 31:2-5).
The opening lines of Vatican II’s constitution on the Church in the Modern world begins with a powerful reminder. »The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.« It reminds us that, as the People of God, we are not exempt from the griefs and anxieties of life. But we will also not excluded from the story of joy and hope.
To phrase it like Jeremiah, we are a people who will survive the sword of this virus and its many implications. We will find the presence of God (grace) in the midst of this wild and untamed experience. Rest will be found again as well as the time for our pleasures and pursuits. We will be rebuilt as well as rebuild what was broken. Will have the time and the opportunity to create new things in the days after the crisis. In many ways we are already returning the places and times of the merrymakers. Most assuredly, we will plant and reap. We shall enjoy the fruitfulness of life on our tables and in our cups.
But at the moment we are still deeply immersed in the long days of the pandemic and the many, often confusing sets of rules and regulations that come with it. And while we are still experiencing Corona fatigue, we could already pose a question for the future. Will we remember what this fatigue did to us, how it made us feel and how it evolved out of the long hard journey of moving through a dry and barren experience of life?
I do not pose the question as an exercise of historical memory, but as a practice of the memory of the heart. It is a very old exercise. Just ask Moses and the House of Israel. What is one of the most frequent exercises that Moses places upon their hearts? He calls upon them not to forget what it was like to live and move through the days of the longest crisis, the time of slavery in Egypt.
You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow's garment in pledge, but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this. When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat your olive trees, you shall not go over them again. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you shall not strip it afterward. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this. (Deuteronomy 24:17-22)
The task is to remember what we went through and then to make sure we do not forget, that there are many who continue to endure the same things. We are in a privileged place, because we know their pain and loss from the inside, having endured it ourselves. In the great story of God, the Lord reminds us to consider what we must leave for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widows, because the experience of having our hunger and need forgotten is not foreign to us. Not only is God not inclined to let us become selective in what we remember, he also does not indulge us by letting us chose whom we remember.
The days of restoration are coming. I will be as relieved as everyone else when the worst of it is behind us. But I do not pray that I will then forget it all and leave it in the past. That would be a waste of a perfectly good crisis. It is a dangerous thing to use the good life as a a sedative. This Corona fatigue can be a spur, something that drives us to greater sensibility and compassion, to seek a greater justice. For our fatigue will pass and fade, but that will not be true for everyone. The refugees are still left to languish the hellish places like the refugee camp Moriah on the island of Lesbos. The homeless still shiver on our streets, the poor still have no access to clean drinking water and the foreigners are still locked down in quarantines of rejection, exclusion and discrimination. Racism still infects scores of people and its spread can be as infectious as the virus. Every day new hot spots of antisemitism explode onto the scene, making it unsafe for our Jewish sisters and brothers to attend a religious service without armed policemen to guard and protect them.
It will be so easy to forget our Corona fatigue and say »That is not our problem«. But while we are enveloped in this fatigue, while we hate the feel of it, the suffocating isolation it creates and the chains of limitation it lays upon us, we should maintain a living memory of the heart. This was once our problem and we should recall the constantly repeated reminder of our God: Remember the vulnerable ones, because we were once them.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 17th, 2022
The Legend of the Evergreen
Let me tell you a story of the Cherokee tradition entitled: Why Some Trees are Ever Green
When the plants and the trees were first made, the Great Mystery gave a gift to each species. But first he set up a contest to see which gift would be most useful to whom.
»I want you to stay awake and keep watch over the earth for seven nights«, the Great Mystery told them.
The young trees and plants were so excited to be trusted with such an important job that the first night they would have found it difficult not to stay awake. However, the second night was not so easy, and juts before dawn a few fell asleep. On the third night the trees and plants whispered among themselves in the wind trying to keep from dropping off, but it was too much work for some of them. Even more fell asleep on the fourth night.
By the time the seventh night came, the only trees and plants still awake were the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the fir, the holly and the laurel.
»What wonderful endurance you have!«, exclaimed the Great Mystery. »You shall be given the gift or remaining green forever. You will be the guardians of the forest. Even in the seeming dead of winter our brother and sister creatures will find life protected in your branches.«
Ever since then all the other trees and plants lose their leaves and sleep all winter, while the evergreens stay awake.
The story addresses something that has been lost in our observance of life, but which is very much alive in the biblical stories. When everyone else is losing their watchfulness and vitality, we must exercise the defiance of the evergreens. Like these trees, we need to defy the cold and darkness that threatens to strip us bare or lures us into deep sleep.
We have our own version of this legend of the Cherokee. In the first Letter of John we hear the author tell a story that is born of watchfulness and fruitfulness.
»That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us - that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.« (1 John 1, 1-4)
But how was the community of the beloved disciple able to write these words about the word of life? They had to practice what the evergreen trees did. If we want to speak about what happened to the word of life from the beginning, then we have to be attentive from the very start. We cannot tune in at a later date and hope to know anything about the origins and wellsprings of our experiences with this word. We cannot be latecomers to the depths of spiritual life. If we would recount what our ears have heard, then we must resist the urge to fall asleep, because only those who stay awake hear the whole of the story this word of life has to tell. If we would tell a tale of what our eyes have seen, then we must defy all the things that extinguish attentiveness and make us blind for the essential, the real and the genuine. It is impossible to tell a story about what our hands have touched, if we have not appeared and been present to the touching places. For the word of life took on flesh and bone, had a name and a face, and could be touched in Jesus Christ. The word of life, can be touched if we show up in the places where flesh and bone need care and healing, guidance and comfort. The biblical stories were told in one generation, but they are lived in every generation with the names and faces we encounter and confront on a daily basis.
The legend of the Cherokee ends with these words: »Ever since then all the other trees and plants lose their leaves and sleep all winter, while the evergreens stay awake.«
While we are facing the long winter of the crisis, I prefer to stay awake, because I there are wonders to be experienced in this wintry season. I would not miss them.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 14th, 2022
A heart that trusts
A telephone conversation at the turn of the year with a friend, with whom I have been connected across all external distances for decades, left a mark on me, in my thinking and in my heart. Over many years, her great subject has become the human heart, and not just the organ. She is a storyteller of the heart, which we should leave in charge, of the heart in which God dwells and which is much wider and bigger than we can imagine. We like to emphasise what we think we have within our grasp, what we think we can penetrate and master with our minds. My friend practices daily to listen to her heart and to trust it. Her voice sounded calm, loving and joyful - a sound of trust, I thought to myself. We did not avoid our heavy and burdensome issues in this hour and kept returning to trust in our heart, in the divine within us.
A person of this kind once expressed his thoughts on this in this way:
»If the trust of the heart were the beginning of all things ..., if it preceded every small or great undertaking ..., you would go far, very far. . . .
If the trust of the heart were the beginning of all things - who would then still say: Why am I on earth at all?
Sometimes the trust deep within us is swept away by shocking events. Every human being experiences fear in his or her own body. Listen, wherever you are, to the whisper of Christ within you: 'Trust of the heart ... rest in peace with God alone. Are you afraid? I am here.«
It was Brother Roger and I found his words in my files. Trusting the heart as the place of the divine in us is lined to the confidence that grows in the heart. We could then dare, trust, look confidently at our projects and begin.
But Roger Schutz also knew - as we do - our hesitations and our barriers. He does not conceal them and counters our emerging inner resistance:
»But - you will say - the environment in which I work, the doubt prevailing in all my surroundings, an entire past pull me infinitely far away from faith in God.
Faith is not a theory. Even if God remains the incomprehensible one - it is important to put your trust in him.
To entrust yourself to the Holy Spirit at every moment and, if you have forgotten, to abandon yourself to him anew. In the silence of your heart and even in your deserts, the Holy Spirit speaks to you, sometimes with a single word.
Should you let yourself be overcome by discouragement and doubt when you are disappointed in your expectation? The Risen One is there. Recognised or unrecognised, he lights a fire in your darkness that never goes out. ...
If you could fathom a heart, you would be amazed to discover the silent expectation of love in its deepest depths..«
(from »Vertrauen wie Feuer«, 1984)
At the end of our conversation, my friend spoke of this deep, infinitely wide love that accompanies the other and lets them go their way, under whose »heaven« we can look back and lovingly leave behind what was, and which makes it possible to have such a heart-to-heart exchange.
I found a pearl in the evening hour of December 30th, which I carry into the new year.
Thank you so much, dear friend!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 10th, 2022
The Magi are still on the Move II
- Discern the truth. The Magi find truth in the Scribes, but they are also fed lies by King Herod. Learn to listen and discern. What we hear is not all truth, just as it is not all lies. They are mixed together often and it is the task of genuine and mature God seekers to constantly work at telling them apart, rather than to expect the world around us to do it for us.
- Reconnect to the guiding star. »And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was.« When things become a little clearer and you can see a path opening before you, a way forward, do not hesitate to reconnect with your original inspiration. The wisdom, direction and guidance of the Scribes does not replace the star. It enhances their journey. But their original inspiration, the star, guides them to their destination.
- Let yourself be overwhelmed with joy at the gift of progress. »When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy.« Celebrate a journey well-travelled, adventures endured, travails overcome, and the hard work of coming safe thus far. The story is not nearly over at this point, but we need to celebrate milestones and not just final accomplishments. Celebrate the small victories, the small improvements and the simple steps you have attained. Otherwise we will miss out the fullest joy of this journey.
- Enter the house. The danger of so much of our lives is that we love to maintain the neutral role of the observer. The Magi did not walk over to the windows and take a peek at what was happening in the house. Don’t think for a moment you can stay outside the deep experience. Be a part of what is happening, enter into the swirl of conversation and encounter. We do not learn to swim at the side of the pool. We need to wade into the waters
- Pay homage. »And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.« When we stand before the mystery we have sought and have yearned to encounter, we will be faced with a basic challenge. Have I found the One in my life who is so precious and of such value and that I would bend my knee before him? It is a telling moment, because it is filled with the recognition that we stand before someone greater than ourselves, and at the same time we know that this relationship will not diminish us. When we bend the knee and pay homage to the child, we are not debasing ourselves. We are showing that there is a relationship to God in which we are not afraid to be smaller than someone else, and can be entirely assured and comfortable even when we feel overwhelmed, deeply touched and authentically moved.
- Open your treasure chests and leave something of yourself behind. »Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.« Generosity is a basic and foundational response to discovering the mystery of God. In a world in which we frequently ask »What is in it for me?«, the encounter with the living God will also be recognised in the moment that awakens the question »How can I make a contribution?«. And religion is not exempt from this temptation. Poorly lived and falsely understood religion often produces people who only come to ask God for favours, healing, direction, relief or blessing. A deep and abiding spiritual life will always include opening our treasures and offering God something of ours.
- Return home by another road. Avoid the old pitfalls. Do not simply return to business as usual. Be cautious about returning home via Jerusalem, because there is always a King Herod who will be willing to turn our new found hope to ashes, to tear down what so recently kindled love in our lives and to kill that, which gave birth to generosity and awe in your hearts. New experiences of God should lead us to new paths through life.
Many years later, a young woman who attended that evening wrote me to tell me she had gotten married and she had just given birth to their first child. She was writing, because she really wanted me to know that she had never forgotten that evening. She named her first born daughter Stella. That is the Latin word for star.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 7th, 2022
The Magi are still on the Move I
Nearly 25 years ago, I was asked by group of young people whether I would be willing to spend an evening with them to answer their questions about faith, God and the Church. So we met on the evening of January 6th in one of their homes. At one point, I was asked about how biblical stories could touch, inform and guide our lives. Thinking of the feast of Epiphany that falls on that day, they used as an example the tale of the coming of the Magi. The young people of the group asked me if I saw any relevance of the story of the Magi to what they termed as »the ordinary and real life of people«. These were sincere people their inquiry was earnest. And yet, to their ears, this story sounded more like a fairy tale for children than a help for Christian living.
I could easily understand their puzzlement and even uncertainty as to what to make of this story. If we take it seriously, we will discover a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom that will enrich our daily, practical spiritual life in manifold ways. But I must warn you as I warned them; taking the story seriously is not the same thing as taking it literally. It is a story filled with metaphors and images that wish to speak to us of God. Yet, they need to be interpreted, not just read. This is the serious and hard work of encountering a biblical story. The text will always remain silent until a serious reader appears, and the seriousness is always found in the willingness to interpret the text.
So I would share with you what I shared with those young people on that cold winter night so many years ago. Here are a series of simple lessons for life that I gleaned from years of immersion in this story of the Magi. Perhaps they will be as helpful to you as they have been to me.
- Look up, not just around. The Magi are willing to keep an eye on the things of heaven, not just to observe what is happening around them. We tend to look around, look right through people, and look right past others. Look up and wonder at the stars. Look for words and gestures and signs that are born of heaven rather than the prevailing currents of wisdom swirling all around you. Look for the signs that come from above, instead of the ones we simply give ourselves.
- Follow the star. When we find something that comes from above, that inspires us from a place greater than ourselves and the world in which we move, follow it. Let it set us in motion. See where it leads us. The greatest danger of the spiritual life is to believe that star-moments of revelation are giving for personal viewing pleasure and nothing else. If it does not get you off the couch and onto the road, then it only touched you. But God is moving through our world to set us in motion.
- Move beyond home. Go beyond the familiar places, encounters, conversations and faces that normally surround you and fashion your experience. Enter into unfamiliar experiences. Venture into undiscovered country. The home-experience can only confirm what you already know. The lands beyond the familiar can show you horizons of hope that can challenge you to grow deeper.
- In life, as with the star, do not lose hope just because you briefly lose sight of what you are following. The Magi briefly lose their way and ask for directions in Jerusalem. But the minute they set out in the general direction revealed to them by the scribes, lo and behold, they see the star again and entrust themselves to its guidance. That happens in life. We become distracted, are overwhelmed by other matters or are caught unawares by unforeseen developments which then consume all our time, our strength and our attention. We never lose the star. On occasion, we merely lose sight of the star.
- Do not be afraid to ask for guidance. The Magi first ask King Herod how to find the child, and then are passed on to the scribes of Jerusalem. There is neither shame in being lost nor in asking for directions. It is a dreadful shame to be stuck in a moment of lostness and disorientation merely because we are too stubborn or arrogant to ask for a little help to find the way.
- Listen to wisdom, even if it is not home-grown. The answer of the scribes is born of the great revelation of the stories of the First Testament. These are unfamiliar stories to the Magi, strange to their ears and unknown to their minds and hearts. But they are full of wisdom and direction to friend and stranger alike. Like the Magi, most of the grand biblical stories are not home-grown for us. But they will speak to us as directly as they did to the Magi, if you give them a chance.
To be continued.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 5th, 2022
When images lead into the depths – what the search for images taught me
I want to look for real pictures.
No glossy photos.
No advertising photos.
Nothing posed.
Nothing perfect.
They should be real,
make me wonder,
make me linger,
make me think,
touch me - perhaps move me.
They should be real.
Are we not blinded by so much pretence,
that stays outside,
on the surface,
that doesn't nourish us?
Such images do not keep
what they promise.
I want to see real pictures.
Advent has revealed this desire, this longing to me.
Day after day I searched for an image for the respective biblical metaphor in our Advent series » And the almond tree blossomed «. First I let myself be guided by the metaphoric image of the day and usually I quickly found a large number of pictures to go with it. But only a few were meaningfully expressive. Most were vacuous and merely reflected the surface of what I was looking for. Then I delved into the whole Bible passage and looked at the metaphor in its context. This changed my searching and I found images with a deeper meaning. I saved the strongest of them - but I wasn't finished yet. For now Erik's text came to me. I read it attentively, contemplated it and then let my pre-selection of images take effect on me. Only then did that, which was truly appropriate and fitting crystallise. Sometimes it was immediately clear, other times I wavered between one image and another. And now and then I had to » drill « deeper and bring in everything that had already unfolded in order to find an image worthy of the biblical image.
How many gates I saw, windows, clothes, pictures of feasts, tents and lamps. But they spoke nothing of God. They merely wanted to entice people to buy something or demonstrate what someone had afforded. They seemed empty, like a husk.
But when pictures show something of the darkness made bearable by a lamp, of clothes that tell of mourning and rejoicing, of tents that can be expanded at any time, then they train our eye for the deeper truth of reality. Then they speak of authentic, real life that is worth gazing at - long, lovingly, and attentively.
The biblical image made it impossible for me to be satisfied with superficial images.
I want to look for real images!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 3rd, 2022
A New Time
Take the new time
into prayer
it needs it
By no means are
the prevailing idols
more human than the
old God of Sinai.
At least HE
- in only 10 words –
told us where the path lies. And
when HE sees injustice
HE does not look away
When I think of Lady WISDOM
I hate
my indifference
and the chatter
of the constraints
of the markets
Before the medial lies
I read HIS
oft-unheard WORD
about solidarity
with the hungry
And ask for insight
and the bread ration
those for this day
W. Bruners
Open Invitation
The eighteenth-century Neapolitan crèche
on exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago
captures Christmas.
It has over 200 figures,
including 41 items of food and drink.
The usual crèche suspects
are woven into the bustle of the city.
The baby Jesus gestures to the King of Naples.
The wise men are next to the bartenders,
shepherds mingle with merchants,
and the sheep share pasture
with horses, cattle, chickens, dogs and cats.
Jesus is born among people,
busy with the duties and pleasures
of the earth.
So take a lesson.
Invite company
into your crèche.
Put in a picture of Uncle Fred.
(I know he doesn’t deserve it!)
Find the crystal turkey you were given
for always hosting Thanksgiving
and nuzzle it against Mary’s side.
Put a photo of little Jack and baby Peter in the manger –
a selfie with Jesus.
St. Joseph will look better
if he is back-grounded
by that family picnic picture –
the one with little Isabel picking her nose.
The sheep, the ox, and the donkey
will welcome your pets.
Get everyone in.
Incarnation means
the sacred can surprise us
through the people and events
of our ordinary life,
a life always more than we know.
John Shea
And the almond tree blossomed: How religious images speak to us of God
December 24th, 2021
Darkness: Sister, speak to me of God.
Through the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Lk 1, 78-79
The image of darkness may strike you as a strange way to end out Advent series. Yet it, too, speaks to us of God. The problem is not the image, but the one-sided relationship we have to it. Let us begin with the negative experience of darkness. There are two basic experiences we have with darkness.
First, humanity is imbued with a fear of the dark, because darkness magnifies our basic fears. When we are within its grasp we often feel that it will never end. Thus it is when crisis casts its dark spectre over our lives in the form of illness, accident, loneliness, or separation from people we love. What we find tough is not the darkness itself, but its seemingly endless duration. Anyone who has had to wait through a night in a hospital or next to the phone knows that the darkness can slow time to a crawl.
That is because darkness shrouds things in ambiguity. And when we are unsure, we tend to the worst case scenario. An otherwise harmless pain that plagues us during the day, awakens fears of cancer in the waking hours of the night. According to our age, it is either monsters or burglars who prowl outside our homes and scratch at the window in the wee hours of the night. Yet, in the brightness if dawn we are reminded not to leave the cat out all night, or to finally trim the tree whose branches tap against the house when the wind stirs. Darkness magnifies fear.
Secondly, darkness masks true dangers and makes them look harmless. The moment it grows dark, we no longer can easily estimate how dangerous things are. The path looks clear and safe, but that is because the darkness hides the curves and holes in the road. In the dark you look out on the wide open fields, but you do not see the barb-wire fences and ditches. If darkness magnifies fear in the first instance, then it makes true dangers appear harmless in the second.
Yet, the biblical view of darkness is more nuanced than we think. The biblical stories do not demonise the darkness. Of course, this darkness is dangerous, but is just as surely a sign of God's presence as is the light. Or may God not be present throughout the perils and dangers of life?
Darkness brings the demons out of hiding. When the luminous distractions of the day are over, we suddenly see what we repress. With the coming of the night, slower, quieter and more disturbing processes come to light. In the darkness doors are opened that remain closed during the day. Behind these doors are certainly very frightening things, but also very amazing things. In time we learn that these doors all lead to the same room of encounter with God. »I create the light and make the darkness, I bring about salvation and create disaster.« (Is 45:7)
When we speak of light and darkness, one would think that two different gods had created them. To be an authentic human being means that we live in sunshine and moonlight, with sorrow and with joy. To want a life with only half of these things is to want half a life. The fullness of life includes the experience of darkness.
If we turn away from darkness on principle, and do everything we can to avoid it, because we never know what might be in it, there is a danger that what we are running away from God. Abraham has a critical experience of God in the darkness. Abraham is in the dark about his own future. He tells God that he has not delivered on a key promise: You have given me no offspring. God does not argue with him but leads him out into the night and lets him look at the night sky. (Gen 15:1-5) Then he tells him to count the stars. This, however, could never be done in broad daylight. Darkness plays an important role in Abraham's decision to rely on God.
Later, God comes to Abraham's grandson Jacob in the middle of the night after he has fled from the family he had betrayed. When he could go no longer, he lay down on the ground in the middle of the land and fell asleep, dreaming a dream that came like a vision.(Gen 28:10-22) The night vision plays a key role in Jacob's decision to believe in God.
If we start noticing the many important things that happen at night in the Bible, the list grows. Jacob wrestles with an angel in the night and comes to a limp, a blessing and a new name. His son Joseph dreams such dreams in the night that he attracts Pharaoh's attention and moves from the dungeon to the palace. The Exodus from Egypt happens at night. God parts the Red Sea by night. Manna falls from heaven on the desert at night.
Most importantly, the deeply beloved story of the birth of Jesus Christ is a story of the night. The prophet Isaiah tells us that »the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.« (Is 9,2) But what will we be missing, if we never walk in darkness and dwell in lands of deep darkness? The shepherds out in the field were keeping watch over their flock by night when the angel of the Lord pays them a visit and they are enveloped in the glory of the Lord. The Gloria of the angels is a night serenade. The fist decision to go and see the child is made at night. Perhaps now we can hear what the prophet Isaiah says about God and darkness: »I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name.« (Is 45,3)
The darkness of biblical storytelling is both dangerous and divine, but it contains the presence of God. There is even a special word for this darkness coined for it in Hebrew, a word used exclusively for God: araphel. This heavy darkness reveals the living presence of God and at the same time veils it, just as the luminous glory of God does. Both are signs of his mercy: darkness and light are partners in the work of revelation. This is what the singer of Psalm 139 realises: »If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.«
Darkness, where are you taking me?
On the last day of Advent, let us pray with Gertrud v. Le Fort.
»Not only the bright day, but also the night has its wonders. There are flowers that only grow only in the wilderness, stars that only appear on the horizon of the desert. There are experiences of divine love that only come to us in the utmost abandonment, even on the brink of even on the brink of despair.«
Erik Riechers SAC
December 24th, 2021
The heart: Sister, speak to me of God.
And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.
Mal 4, 6
In the imagery of the biblical narrative, the heart is the place where divine love and human frailty meet. The heart is the point of relationship, the point of contact and the point of encounter between the God of love and the human being with his wounds. The heart is the place where the human being (»as I am from God«) and God (as he really is and not as I imagine him to be) meet.
That is why encounter, touch and relationship are the three ingredients that make up the heart.
Anatomically, the heart is hidden in the cage of the ribs, and this cage is again covered by muscle and skin. The heart cannot be seen; but it pumps blood (the life principle in the Bible) and is the source of life. If the heart is injured in any way, then the whole person is affected.
The heart is the metaphor for the relationship with God, and this relationship is the invisible centre of the person. This relationship cannot be seen; but it pumps blood (the principle of life in the Bible) and it is the source of life. If this relationship is damaged in any way, then the whole person is affected. When this relationship is suitably ordered and formed, then spiritual life flows. If, on the other hand, it is not well ordered, then the result is death (the loss of what constitutes life).
This relationship (the heart) is the ultimate relationship and the pervasive context of every other relationship (with creation, with neighbour and with myself). That is why the whole person is affected when it is not right.
That is why it is so important in biblical stories that we tend to the heart. If I do not appear at this place of encounter, touch and relationship between human frailty and divine love, then I am turned in on myself. Malachi speaks of the hearts of fathers tuning to their children and the hearts of children turning to their fathers. But that never happens when fathers and children no longer show up at the places of relationship. I have met fathers so obsessed with the perks and privileges of their lives that they were no longer able to distinguish what is coherent and authentic from that which is insignificant and perhaps even meaningless in their relationships to their children. Or consider poor Eve. Before her unfortunate conversation with the serpent, she is not even hungry and has no need to eat from the tree. She allows herself to be persuaded and talked into it something she originally neither desires or needs. But because she does not show up at the place where her human frailty meets the divine love of her Creator, she has no interlocutor in God who can also question, explore and test what she has been told.
Because neither Adam nor Eve appear at the place of encounter, touch and relationship with God, they cannot clarify anything. This leads them to disguise themselves and hide, because they believe they are no longer allowed to be as they are from God, and they avoid the encounter. And yet again that leads to them not showing up when God comes.
God is very concerned about the heart (the relationship) because his first question after the episode with the tree is: Where are you? This question carries the longing for encounter, touch and relationship.
After the Adam and Eve narrative, the Bible makes it clear to us that the heart (the relationship) is the special care and concern of God. But the heart is also what God is willing to fight and struggle for.
If we avoid the heart as a place of encounter, touch and relationship, then the heart will become hard or stony; then the heart of the fathers will never turn to the sons and the heart of the sons will not turn to their fathers. But if we appear in the place of the heart, then the heart will be of flesh, soft and receptive.
And there is an iron rule: the only deadly sin against the heart, the place where divine love and human frailty meet, is not to appear.
Heart, where are you taking me?
The heart is the place where divine love and human frailty meet.
»Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.« (1 Cor 4:5) God knows the hidden heart. Will we appear at the place where invisible but existing issues are discussed with God?
»And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit ...« (Rom 8:27) Will we appear to search the heart (relationship)? Do we want to know what our relationship is really like?
»God who tests our hearts«, is how Paul describes him in 1 Thes 2, 4. God tests the heart, because he is never indifferent to what happens to our relationship. Can I say the same about myself?
»This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me« (Mk 7:6) Do I want an authentic relationship with God or is a superficial version enough for me?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 23rd, 2021
One reclaimed: Sister, speak to me of God.
'Therefore I will allow him to be reclaimed by the Lord.
As long as he lives, he shall be one reclaimed by the Lord.'
And he worshiped the Lord there.
1 Sam 1, 28
There is a lot of talk about the community today. All manner of people are telling us about the needs of the family, the problems of the society and the struggles to maintain the common good. What all of them have in common is the firm belief that the community is important, and that we must do something to alter the steady course of deterioration from which our communality seems to suffer.
But, if community is as important as we say it is, then why are we so hard pressed to answer a simple question: WHY? Why is the community so important? Why should we preserve it at all costs? Why should we fight off the forces that threaten to destroy it?
In today's image there is a basic lesson about the members of the community. As far as God is concerned, we are not the possessions of one another. We are the one to be reclaimed. We are on loan to one another and God has entrusted us to one another for safekeeping. People, and the relationships we have with them, are not our possessions to do with as we please.
This safekeeping is God's cure for two forms of negligence and sloppiness in our relationships. Imagine that parents entrust their child to you for a time. Knowing that they will return to reclaim the child makes you more cautious and more reverent in your attitudes, because you know that the life entrusted to you is precious in their eyes.
First or all, you will be sure not to ignore or neglect the child. In that moment you will ensure that this life is not condemned to loneliness: »It is not good that the man should be alone« (Genesis 2,18). Loneliness is bad for the human heart. Cut off from others, we cannot know our unique talents and gifts, we cannot find affirmation for that which is good and strong in us, and we cannot find correction and healing for those things that fester in our soul.
In loneliness we come to the place where we are convinced that we must do it ourselves, make it happen on our own, and bring up from our own depths every courage and strength that is needed.
Loneliness is therefore a place of despair, because it is also the place where we realize that we cannot do it by ourselves, make it happen on our own, or find the necessary courage and strength that is needed in our weariness and desperation.
The community that knows we are entrusted to one another for safekeeping, that we are on loan to one another by a gracious God, shatters the curse of loneliness by being the place where we are not alone, where we can share, where we can be together, where we can lean on one another, and learn from one another.
To know that the child in my care will be reclaimed by its parents is like knowing that all the relationship of my life will be reclaimed by God. It moves us to live with a greater awareness of responsibility. What is on loan, what is not my possession, is always treated with a certain caution and care, because I know that I will be held to account on the day, when it is reclaimed.
Secondly, once someone is entrusted to my care we do not simply go separate ways. The child left in our care is not let alone in the basement while we go off to a party. Today we venerate the idea that everyone should go their own way. But if all are going their own way, then no one is left to go together. It is fine and good to find our own way in the world: the child must look for his/ her niche in the society, the spouse must still find a personal and unique way of loving the other in the marriage, and the parents must find their place and role in the world when the children leave home. But nowhere does it stand written that we must do these things alone, apart and away from one another.
When we live under the awareness that each person in our lives is one to be reclaimed by God, then the community is the place where we seek together, where the many seekers help each other find the way, where the unique needs of each person are part of a common cause. When God comes to reclaim the lives entrusted to our care, we will desire to return them to him in the best possible state. They were loaned to us for a time, but never ours to keep. And it should be a deep desire of our hearts to return them to God in as good a condition, if not better, than the moment he places them in our safekeeping.
Therefore, God’s desire to loan and reclaim his beloved people should make of us a community in many ways and on many levels. This common experience of being people who will be reclaimed by the Lord, should be blessing on all our houses. Therefore, we must step cautiously with the lives entrusted to our care. When the Lord come to reclaim his ow, we do not wish to be known as the architects of loneliness, exclusion and separate development for others. We must never fail to recall the essential blessing at the heart of the community: God has given us to one another for safekeeping.
One reclaimed, where are you taking me?
How aware am I of the privilege of my relationships, of the fact that they are all on loan to me and will be reclaimed by the God of all life?
How aware am I of my responsibility for the people who are entrusted to my care by the God who wants them back unscarred, unbroken and well-loved on the day he reclaims them?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 22nd, 2021
The window: Sister, speak to me of God.
My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice.
Song of Songs 2, 9
Many years ago, while I was a university student, the news reports were filled with stories about a brand new school that had just been opened. For reasons I no longer remember, the architect had created a school, a place of learning, with no windows. The school authorities gave many press conferences explaining the concept of the building, primarily emphasising the idea, that the lack of windows would prevent outside distractions and thus enhance the learning of the students. The students gave their own answer to their new school building. They spray painted window frames on the walls and took photographs of themselves posing by them as if they were looking into the building.
This school without windows reminds us of a basic insight. Windows are inseparable from walls. To understand what they wish to say to us, we must first reflect on what our walls signify.
Walls are built when we have spaces of our lives which we want to protect. The walls of our houses protect our living space from wind and weather, as well as from predators, those of the four legged kind and those of the two legged variety. The walls also protect us from prying eyes, keeping our privacy safe.
Windows are openings set in walls. The minute we place a window in the wall, two things happen.
- They open the closed spaces of our lives to the outside world, giving us more access to the world we normally shut out with our walls.
- The utter safety the wall offers is diminished, because now the world beyond our walls has easier access to our closed spaces of life and can more easily look into the world we normally shield with our walls. It is considerably easier to break a window and enter a house than it is to break through a wall.
Windows are a privileged place of encounter. They are a place of exchange between the two worlds of the outside and the inside. The minute we put a window in a wall, three things occur.
First they let in light. The very image of a windowless room speaks to us of a place without sunlight. Secondly they let in fresh air. They give us a greater view of the world, more access to the movement, sound and colour of the world.
Thirdly, they let things out. We open windows to let the hot, stuffy and stale air out, so that we can breathe easier. Unpleasant smells are dissipated, making the space in which we live far more comfortable.
In the Song of Songs, the image of the window emphasises in a special way, this privileged place of encounter. The window allows the lover a glimpse of what is happening within the home of the beloved.
It becomes a symbol of the accessible heart, the heart that is willing to give another person a glimpse of what is happening within it. Just as we can construct a windowless room, we can also build a windowless heart. Most of us have known this experience of the windowless heart in people who have, for whatever reason, shut their hearts off entirely from the outside world. None ever knows that is going on inside them and they never grant a hint or a glimpse of their inner life.
Windows are places of tension. There is the person on the outside looking in through the window, as well as the person on the inside looking out at the world. This is the image of the window of the heart so beautifully employed in the Song of Songs. For the person on the inside, windows take away a little of their security, because they breach the solid unbreakable wall. As soon as we give a person a view of our inner life, we are more vulnerable. They see more than the outward show we put on and which we control. A window into the heart is always linked to a loss of that perfect control. But it is also a place of surprise, something we should not so readily overlook or forget. Once the person on the outside is granted a window into our heart, they can also be surprised by unsuspected depths and beauty found in us. They can see a tenderness that is not hinted at in our exterior gruffness. They can discover our passion that is not apparent on the outside and a loving kindness that is otherwise shielded. Equally surprising for those who glimpse through the window of the beloved, is to discover how much pain we bear, how much sadness and grief are to be found behind our walls. A glimpse through the window of hearts, can make the person on the outside more understanding, more compassionate, more caring and less judgemental.
The other side of this tension lays in the fact that windows give us a glimpse of a world larger than the space we are protecting, allowing that space to be blessed and enhanced by what comes from the world outside. When windows of the heart are opened, the person on the inside allows things to enter in that can bring new and wider perspectives. Once the person on the inside opens a window in the wall, they can also be surprised to discover that they eyes that now see them as they are really are not filled with condescension, rejection or contempt. The person who opens the window to the lover on the outside, can make the breathtaking experience that they are loved and understood. The lover who finally gets a glimpse of what is happening inside the house may have compassion and care shining in their eyes. The window is a privileged place of encounter between us.
Window, where are you taking me?
The image of the window in this tiny excerpt from the Song of Songs is trying to speak to us of God. He is the the lover waiting to look into our hearts.
Where will we place windows where until now there has only been a wall between us?
However, our God is also the beloved who opens His heart to give us a glimpse of what is throbbing within His heart.
Where will we be the lovers of our God and glimpse through the window to see what is happening within His great heart?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 21st, 2021
Treasuring in the heart: Sister, speak to me of God.
But Mary treasured up
all these things,
pondering them in her heart.
Lk 2, 19
Sometimes people tell me about powerful experiences in their lives, impressions that have made a deep impression on them, inner enlightenment that has surprised them. However, if they do not treasure these experiences in their hearts, they very quickly lose their power, become »heartless«, so to speak.
The image of the Bible that works against this is found in the way Mary lives: »But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.«
Treasuring and pondering the things of life in the heart consists of three steps:
- We need to absorb and take in life experiences instead of letting them pass us by without a trace. When we do this, we prevent ourselves from becoming mere consumers of life, trying to taste everything without really enjoying any of it.
- We must hold these multiple experiences in tension and endure these tensions (sometimes agonising tensions).
- Finally, we need to carry our life experiences until they can be transformed into something that is not heartless. To live like Mary is to take these experiences of life into ourselves and shape them through compassion.
When we treasure and ponder our life experiences in our hearts, we discover that the dream we have for ourselves is often not being lived. Each of us carries within us a dream of fullness. Maybe we are aware of it, maybe not, but this dream belongs to us.
Again and again we need to stop and check the state of this life dream of fullness. How do we actually live in the face of our dream? What are we willing to do in fact to turn this longing for fullness into reality? And then we need to undertake the necessary changes. Inevitably, this will lead us to let go of some things and embrace others.
That is exactly what Mary does. She looks back on the experience of her last year, keeps everything that happened in her heart and reflects on it. We almost always assume that she looks back on these last months of her life with a light, joyful heart. For my part, I can only say that I cannot believe that. For what experiences did Mary have to keep united in her heart? An unexpected pregnancy; a relationship crisis with Joseph; the suspicion and mistrust of family and friends; her favourite cousin Elizabeth's husband being struck dumb for months; a forced journey to Bethlehem, far from home and kin; the experience of being shut out, excluded from warmth and dignity while giving birth; the fact that strangers instead of friends come to visit; and the painful reality that she has nothing but dirt, cold and poverty to offer her child when he comes into the world.
Mary treasured all this in her heart. And I can well imagine that she longed for more fullness. For this human drama of renewing life and dreams (whether Mary's or ours) is God-woven and Spirit-soaked. Our heart connection to the God who wants to multiply our lives creates this dream. The longing for the fullness that guides and directs us is nourished by God's love for us, for he cannot readily accept when his people languish without fullness.
To treasure and ponder in the heart means, that our Advent project must always be to actualise this longing for fullness. The longing within us that makes us restless, hungry, thirsty and longing must become flesh. We must not kill it with indifference and superficiality. We must not suffocate it consumerism and ceaseless entertainment. We must not dull it or anesthetize ourselves against it with thoughtless and mindless pursuits. Whenever we experience the moments that startle us, unsettle our self-assured living, shatter our peace of mind, tickle our fancy or trouble our souls, we must treasure and ponder them in our hearts.
Treasuring in the heart, where are you taking me?
If we treasure our life experiences in our hearts, whole new questions can awaken in us:
Is what I am filling myself with really what I long for?
Where do I really stand in the drama of faith that unfolds in the biblical stories?
What is a biblical story allowed to unleash in me?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 20th, 2021
The woman in labor: Sister, speak to me of God.
Therefore shall He give them over
till the time the woman in labour bears her child.
Micha 5, 2
Recently I was privy to a gentle conversation between a mother and her daughter. Her daughter was beginning to consider having a second child. Nearly a year had passed since the birth of her firstborn, and every experience of being the mother to her son was filled with warmth, delight and blessing. What had caused her to hesitate for a time was the memory of giving birth.
The experience of the woman in labour has played a role from the earliest moments of the grand biblical narrative. In Genesis, Eve is warned by God, that part of the new and different life beyond the Garden of Eden would be her painful experience of child birth. »I will terribly sharpen your birth pangs, in pain shall you bear children.« (Gen 3, 16). We are accustomed to thinking of this banishment from the garden as a punishment, and therefore we consider these sharpening of the birth pangs to be part and parcel of the comeuppance for the misadventures of the first earthlings with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the story is not about revenge or punishment. It is about education. It is about God helping his children to grow into maturity.
The problem for Adam and Eve in the garden is that they have known life from only one side, namely as a gift. Everything in that garden has been prepared by God and graciously, generously, ungrudgingly given to them. Then as now, this brings a problem with it. Because they have never been directly involved in the task of bringing life into the world, they do not come to a deep appreciation of the value of the gift of this life. Adam and Eve are like children who ask their parents for money to buy something. For a long time, the parents will foot the bills. Yet, at some point, these parents will tell their children to earn the money they want. This is not a punishment of their children. This is not because they have stopped loving their children or no longer wish to share their wealth with them. It is what parents do in order to teach their children the real value of money. Once they go out and earn some money, they learn what Adam learned: »By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread.«(Gen 3, 19) Until now, the bread they eat, the life they enjoy, has been earned by the sweat of their parent’s brow. But once they laboured for it, it changes their appreciation of what money means.
From the depths of this story, the image of a woman in labour speaks to us of God. It is about the pain and cost and value of bringing life into the world. It is wonderful but easy to hold and cradle the life another has brought into the world for us. But what price are we willing to pay in order to bring life into the world? Biologically this is a price only women have to pay. But spiritually, it is question aimed at the heart of every human heart. Will we be willing to give birth to new life, even when it is painful and laborious?
Micha says that we are given over till the time the woman in labour bears her child. It is a poetic way of telling us, that we will be lost souls, lost to the deepest meaning and purpose of life, until the day we ourselves are willing to learn the real cost and value of participating in the work of bringing life into the world. The poetry of the image should not deafen us to the hard truth it speaks. It is about a fundamental posture toward life.
Too often that posture has been skewered. Far too many people have only a sense of personal entitlement. They believe that life is owed to them, whether by God, the state, their family, their neighbours or their friends. At the same time, they make no contribution of their own to the life of the world. While expecting everyone else to make their lives easier, richer and freer, they do not lift a finger to enrich, ease or liberate anyone else’s life.
In spiritual direction I come across this frequently. People tell me that they asked God for something and are now annoyed that he did not fulfil their request. Here a confusion of roles has taken place. They talk about God, but describe Santa Claus. Santa Claus is the person to whom you hand over a wish list and then expect to deliver. God is not a wish fulfilment fantasy. God offers us partnership and wishes us to participate with Him in the boldest and most beautiful of his works, namely, bringing new life into the world. The people who complain bitterly, that the life they want is not served to them on a silver platter, are the same people who are unwilling to make painful choices, meet painful challenges, and take on painful labours in order to bring that life into the world. A confrere of rich pastoral experience and tremendous wit once warned me about such people while teaching me the craft of spiritual direction. »They will always stretch out their hands, but you will never find any stretch marks on the hearts of those people.«
Jesus himself takes up this image: »When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.« (John 16, 21) Jesus knows the experience, because he knows the cost and value of bringing life into the world. He, too, was filled with sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemane when his hour came. But after his resurrection, he was filled with joy and peace and flooded the world with what his suffering, death and resurrection had brought into the world.
The young mother considering a second child has come to this place of awe and wonder. Reveling in the gift of her beloved son, she is filled with reverence at the blessing he brings to the heart of his parents and all their clan. But that reverence is born of the pain of bringing new life into the world, a pain not so easily forgotten. Because of it, she knows the deepest and truest value of the life of her son. She has stretch marks on her heart.
Woman in labor, where are you taking me?
On this Advent day, what life will I bring into the world?
What painful forms of growth am I avoiding?
Which painful experiences of growth am I willing to embrace?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 19th, 2021
Giving a name: Sister, speak to me of God.
And this is the name
by which he will be called:
‘The Lord is our righteousness.'
Jer, 5, 8
When I celebrate a baptism, I always have to pause at the beginning. It begins with the question: What name have you given your child? Before we inquire about faith, God, and the readiness for baptism, we inquire about the naming. No one enters the church without a name, because no one can enter into a relationship with God or with his people without a name. Everyone has a name before God. Anonymity in the house of God is impossible.
This image of naming plays a big role in biblical narratives. It is part of God's great enterprise and is simply part of it if we want to become true human beings. Because as soon as we give someone a name, we lay the foundations for building a relationship. We know this power of naming when children find a stray dog and bring it home. If the parents don't want to keep the dog, then they try to do everything they can to avoid the children naming the dog. Because once the dog has a name, the children have already established a relationship with the animal.
As adults, we also know this connection between relationship and naming. If we work in the company for a long time but no one on the executive floor knows our name, then we know where we stand. The person who refuses to ever call me by my name makes it clear enough to me that no relationship is desired here.
This great desire to build a relationship is a heartfelt desire of our God. When we read the great creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis, we see a constantly recurring rhythm: as soon as God creates something new, the naming follows. After God separates the light from the darkness it says: »And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.« (Gen 1:5) After God calls forth the dry from the water it says: »And God called the dry Earth, and the gathering of the water he called Sea.« (Gen 1:10). By naming, God establishes a relationship with his creation.
God shares this desire to build relationships with his people. For no sooner has he created Adam than he introduces him to the art of naming. »Then the LORD God formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and just as the man as a living being would call them, so they were to be called. And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to all the beasts of the field.« (Gen 2:19-20)
Later there will be many stories in which people's names are changed. Abram will be called Abraham, Sarai will be changed to Sarah and Saul will later be named Paul. This always happens when a person's mission changes. When the mission changes, it is because God entrusts more responsibility to his people. The greater responsibility is always a sign of the deepened and broadened trust that God places in his people, and that, in turn, is a sign that the relationship has changed. And that calls for a new name.
This image of naming speaks to us of God, because naming is part of bringing something into being. As soon as a name is given, we know that this person should play a bigger role and participate more in our life.
Naming is also a big theme of Advent. When God gives a name to something, we should not rename it easily.
Zechariah's neighbours and relatives want to do just that: they want to name the newborn life in their midst as they know and understand life, as it fits in the usual and expected ways. »There is no one in the kin who is called that!« By this they are saying, »We don't name children in our family that way. It was never like that! It's not a tradition with us.« In other words, everything should remain as we named it a long time ago. We don't let our naming be changed easily.
Zacharias then (finally) provides clarity: his name is John. He, who himself had a fixed name and place for everything and even did not want to let messengers of God interfere, makes it clear to his relatives that God is bringing about something new here, and the new needs a new name.
God also gives us new names for the life we carry within us to the world. But as soon as we feel that He is bringing about something new in us, weaving and shaping it deep within us, then we want to name it in old images, with old language and with old names.
Because we are afraid of the kinship and its judgement. We notice that there is something new in us, but we don't dare say it. We are afraid to step out of line. But if we don't give the new in us a name, then we don't dare to have a new relationship with what is in us.
Name giving, where are you taking me?
Where are people and relationships in my life that I have not yet given a name?
Where will I give the new realities growing in me (feelings, impulses, ideas, desire) a name so that it can live?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 18th, 2021
The lamp: Sister, speak to me of God.
John was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.
Jn 5, 35
Late one evening, a storyteller appeared in the local pub. After telling the crowd a riveting story, the pub owner ushered him to the table closest to the fire and served him a fine meal together with a glass filled generously with a fine drop from the fruit of the barley.
While the storyteller ate, a rather heated conversation began between a young man and his mother. The young man, freshly back from the university and his medical studies, was informing his mother that he had broken with the Church, given up the faith and no longer would be going to Mass with her. The mother was insistent and kept telling her son, that she would light her lamp and pray for him. Each time she told him this, his tone grew more aggressive and his words more condescending. He began to ridicule the faith of his mother, informing her in haughty tones that he had thoroughly studied this faith and found it was something only peasants can believe, something for people without intellectual acumen. Every word struck his mother, and often she recoiled from the pain of his harsh and wounding statements. But each time she leaned forward and said; »I am going to light my lamp and pray for you.« Her intellectually superior son scoffed at these words and said, »You and that idiotic lamp. As if lighting that lamp or one of your candles had anything to do with it. I am a man of science, and not of silly superstitions.«
The storyteller rose from his warming place by the hearth and walked over to the table where he pulled out a chair and sat down. The sad eyes of the mother welcomed him while the angry eyes of the son challenged him. »Can I help you?«, he asked.
»No«, replied the storyteller, »but I can help you. There was a man who was a lamp. He name was John. And he was as wonderfully stubborn as your sweet mother.«
The young man groaned. »This is none of your business, old man. And no one invited you to take a seat. So just shut your mouth and shove off!«
The pub owner overheard these words and was at the table in a flash. »Pay your tab and get out. This man is a seanchaí, one of our storytellers. You will not speak to him that way in my pub. You are no longer welcome here.«
But the storyteller laid his hand on the arm of the fiercely enraged pub owner and said, »Forgive him for my sake. Being superior to everyone else in the world is exhausting work and it has frazzled his nerves and addled his mind a little. There is no harm done.«
The other patrons of the pub began to laugh, for indeed every eye in the place was now trained on that table. The storyteller gave a sly smile and then turned in his chair to look back into the pub.
»My friends, let me tell you a story about lamps that was told to me by a friend, who heard it from a friend who told him that the angel Gabriel himself told it to him.
One day, while God was admiring the beauty of his people, the angels returned from one of their regular tours of the earth. Ah yes, He does love to keep an eye on us. They spoke of all the trouble they had seen, the tears of loss and grief, the pain of so many broken lives, and minds and hearts. It seemed to the good angels, that great darkness lay heavy on the hearts of God’s people.
God look at his earnest messengers and his eyes shone with the light that gave birth to the stars. ‘Bring them lamps. Make sure each of them has a lamp to light, a lamp to carry with them through very darkness they traverse.’
One of the angels said, ‘Lord, would it not be more helpful if you just turned the sun on all the time. Never let the sun go down on them. Banish the darkness permanently and let them have perpetual light.’
‘Herald, do as He says!’ The voice of the speaker was loud, booming, a voice that could be heard even in the wilderness. The speaker was dressed in a lovely flowing camel hair robe that shone like gold in the light of heaven.
The eyes of God wrinkled with pleasure and delight at seeing the man his Gospel writing namesake once called a burning, shining lamp. ‘Would you care to explain to my messengers, why they should bring our people lamps, my old friend?’
And the voice that lived in the desert, speaking softly to the lost while shaking the walls of great cities and the hearts of arrogant kings, echoed in the silence of their listening.
‘Listen to the Lord. He has always given lamps to every person struggling through the dark places. Lamps are a special kind of light, more precious than the light of the sun. For the light of the lamp can be borne to places where the light of the sun will never reach. Even when the sun shines, its light cannot touch the windowless places. It cannot penetrate the caves, the underground caverns, the dungeon cells deep in the bowels of the earth. But lamps can carry light to all these places. Darkness fears lamps, for they bring light to places it normally claims only for itself.
Lamps do not banish darkness. But they bring light enough to push back the shadows. Then the night can be navigated, paths can be found and followed. People can live in darkness if they can move through it, and that is why they need the lamps. That is the moment when hope is restored, long before the solution is found and the goal is reached. You can live in hope in any darkness, if you know you can find your way through it. And you can do it if you light a lamp.
I know this truth, because I lived this truth. I lived it in the desert. I lived it in Herod’s dungeons, where the light of the sun never comes and prisoners forget what the face of the sun looks like. And because I knew the secret of the lamp, I became one.’«
Back in the pub the storyteller paused. »There was a man who was a lamp. He name was John. And because he was a lamp, he knew the secret of the light it brings.«
Then he turned to the young university student and said: »John was a bright and shining lamp. So is your mother. She listened to your haranguing caustic tones, and yet she still desires to bring light to dark places your learning has never illuminated. When she lights her lamp for you, she is simply telling you that she loves you enough, not to give you up to the darkness.«
He rose to return to his table. Then he turned once more to the young man and said. »There was a man who was a lamp. What kind of man are you?«
Lamp, where are you taking me?
On this Advent day, where will I be a lamp and bring light where it otherwise does not reach?
Where will I be a lamp, a light that helps others navigate their darkness?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 17th, 2021
The enlarged tent: Sister, speak to me of God.
Spread wide the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your dwelling be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.
Is. 54, 2
I have had the good fortune to know a man who spread wide the place of his tent. He started out by raising a tent on his farm for large family gatherings and events. It was the place where his clan held their picnics, birthday celebrations and family reunions. At all other times, it was available to his children as a place to play.
This tent was a work in progress. It kept growing over the years. When I asked Daniel about it, he told me: »When we had more children, I made more space. Our family gatherings started growing with all the marriages and births. So we had more spouses, more nieces and nephews coming for our celebrations, so I made more space. Then my children started going to school and joining sports teams, and they made a lot more friends, so I made more space. And my wife and I have met many people and made many more friends, so I made more space.«
He looked at the large tent and smiled. »When I look at that tent, it reminds me that I am blessed. I have been given the honour of having enough people in my life who want to be with me as much as I want to be with them. I have the privilege of being able to hold a gathering. But once I knew I was blessed, Father, I had to stay flexible and to make the space.«
His wife Annie later told me, what she saw when she look at their tent. »I see my husband’s heart.« When I asked her about this this lovely association, she simply replied: »Like the tent, it’s always growing, Father, it’s always growing.«
It is my sincere hope that by telling you this story, you have already come to the conclusion that this is an extraordinary man. If he were not, he would not have spread wide the place of his tent.
It is not a common experience. We buy tents, ready-made. If we want or need bigger tent, then we buy a larger one. But the nomadic people who populate the pages of the grand biblical narrative always knew, that tents were not ready made, but tailor made. They were provisional and adapted to constantly changing circumstance of the people who lived within them.
I often encounter people who decide to renovate their homes. Usually they do so in order to gain more space for their possessions. They create more storage space, build more cupboards and larger closets and expand the garage so that two cars can park there.
But this image of spreading wide the place of your tent is about making space for more room for people, of opening up a place for guests, of creating the possibilities for a greater hospitality and a wider encounter. When the image speaks to us of God, it asks us: Will we make space for more life?
To enlarge the tent we have to do four things.
- We have to think about what kind of space we are willing to create. Are we making space for one more or ten more? And once we know who else will enter our tent, how much space are we willing to grant each person within it? Cramming everyone together in a corner will require less room than a spacious and gracious welcome
- We have to invest to make the space of our tent wide. We have to spend more, knowing that our cords will have to be longer and that we will need considerable more tent clothe. Without that investment we cannot have the space we want and need. Making space is always a matter of investment, especially in terms of my time and my strength, the ultimate resources of a human life.
- We need to let the curtains of our habitations be stretched out. Of us it must be said: »Like the tent, their hearts are always growing.« Before we are willing to create bigger tents, we have to expand and widen and stretch our hearts. Working within the old parameters is not what this image is talking about. It requires us to do more than manage the previously available space more efficiently. It is about making space for more life to happen, flourish and thrive. And the warning of God is: »Do not hold back!«
- We need to strengthen our stakes. The space we create for others needs to be fastened down that it will hold. Holding a garden party simply means making a temporary provision. We move a few pieces of furniture to make it happen and then restore everything to its original state when the party is over. But this image asks us to create something lasting, dependable and reliable. This is more than momentary. This is the space we must be able to return to over and over again.
Enlarged tent, where are you taking me?
Where will I create a little more space for life and love in my life?
How will I maintain the flexibility and adaptability of a tent, so that there is a space in my life for the surprising, growing and ever-changing possibilities and gifts of God?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 16th, 2021
Heavens that shower down: Sister, speak to me of God.
Shower, O heavens, from above,
and let the clouds rain down righteousness.
Is. 45, 8
The heavens are out of reach, out of our immediate control. We do not command them, form them or fashion them like we do the soil of the earth. With the things of the earth we are used to playing an active and vital role of partnership: plowing sowing reaping. But when we look to the heavens, we are looking toward the place where different rules apply. Because in the heavenly experience there are things that cannot be seized, controlled and grasped. They can only be given and we can only receive them.
The image of the heavens being asked to shower down righteousness is one of great tension. We are not merely creatures of the earth staring up to heaven. That is a gross oversimplification. The story of Genesis 1-3 tells us that we are born of the earth, but that we stand between the heavens and the earth. There are things placed entirely into our hands (all the trees of the garden, including the tree of life) and there are things we need to wait for until they are given to us (the fruit of the tree of good and evil).
We have lived in that tension until this day. We tend to define everything by our achievement and the accumulation of things. This, in turn, leads to a mentality that invites us to claim our rights and suggests that »God helps those who help themselves«. The problem is obvious. What happens in the moment when we cannot help ourselves? The image of the heavens raining down justice is therefore radically counter-cultural. It reminds us that there are times when we must patiently wait for life to be given to us, even when we are parched. It reminds us that we need to be receptive to gift rather than obsessed with seizing whatever we want. What the heavens give us is good, but it is a gift and we need to learn to respect it as such.
The image of the heavens that shower us with life from above leads us back to this healthy and necessary tension between active participation and waiting receptivity. The people who request the heavens to open are standing between the heavens and the earth. The heavens are swollen with promise and life. We ask the heavens to open up and share with us. It is an image of gift and an image of release. We ask because we are on the earth and this is a place that is not always swollen with promise and life. We ask the heavens to open when we are in places that are dried up, barren and with very little hint of promise.
Therefore, it is not surprising that from the earliest days of our Christian faith and storytelling, we saw and loved in this image what we saw and loved in the birth of Jesus. As people of faith, we experience in Christ’s coming as an opening of the heavens. This experience is carried through all of the Gospel stories. People approach Jesus and ask that the heavens rain down healing, aid, comfort and sustenance. To paraphrase John the Evangelist: If we have seen Jesus, we have seen what open heavens look like. And since Jesus, we know our father and his loves to open the heavens to us.
In the person of Jesus, the heavens rained down righteousness. In him we given a glimpse of who this God is, what he loves more than anything else (that would be us) and what drives him (infinite love and mercy).
But this opening of the heavens also gives us the first and formative impression God has of us. When the heavens open and gifts shower down, this God reveals that we are his beloved by birth and creation, not by achievement and moral perfection. All our work, success stories and accomplishments cannot teach us this. They have taught us that we are loveable only when we can provide some evidence that we are worth loving. Love because I am beautiful. Love me because I am successful. Love me because I am upright.
But when the heavens open and shower down righteousness, they so not because we are beautiful, successful or upright, but because we are loved. When the heavens open we are stripped of the illusion that we can provide everything for ourselves, but at the same time are blessed with the revelation, that out lives have value, dignity in the eyes of God. That is why the heavens open.
This is the righteousness that showers down. This is the righteous that we need, because this is the relationship that does justice to our relationship with God and God’s love for us within that relationship. To be righteous is to do justice to all our relationships. That means, we must do justice to our relationship to God, to our neighbour, to creation and to ourselves. It is precisely because we do not receive gifts that our lives become hard, we dominate each other, and we cannot relate well. And part of doing justice to all of these relationships is to wait in trust until life is given to us as a gift.
Heavens that shower down, where are you taking me?
On this Advent day, will I exercise the first and most important religious virtue of all, the sense that everything is gift, that nothing is ours by right?
How will I practice receptivity that waits and reduce my impatience that seizes?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 15th, 2021
Clean lips: Sister, speak to me of God.
Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder.
Zef 3, 9
I assume that, like myself, you spend very little time thinking about lips. Like many important elements of life, they simply are there and serve their purpose without fuss or bother. That, however, does not mean that they are insignificant, but merely taken for granted.
In biblical storytelling, lips represent speech or language. Together with the images of »mouth« and »tongue«, they are part of a series of images that speak to us about our ability to speak. But not all language is verbal. Not everything we say is articulated in words. There is also our body language, and it speaks volumes.
Lips are doorways to revelation. Think of a person showing a thin-lipped smile. If purse your lips, you are expressing a different emotion that when you are chewing or biting on your lips. Quivering lips speak of overwhelming emotion, while lips that are tightly pressed together demonstrate an unwillingness to reveal anything of that is happening within a person. The ways in which lips move or form themselves can reveal if we are genuinely happy, angry, sad, disgusted, surprised, scared, or contemptuous. Try expressing a range of emotions without moving your lips. Try smiling without moving your lips.
When it comes to the spoken word, our lips are the chief instrument of speech. Lips help us to formulate our words, to pronounce the clarity and sharpness of sound. Try speaking without moving your lips. Even more telling is to watch a person who is without hearing reading the lips of another and to realise that lips well used can open a world of communication.
Deeply situated in the biblical imagination, lips are also seen as special place of this process of communication and revelation. They are like a doorway, a gate. All healthy human life flows from the inside to the outside. That includes our speech. Before a word is ever spoken, it is forged in the deep and hidden places of the heart. But in order to reach even one human ear, those lips must pass by our lips. Thus, the lips are a critical last checkpoint before the revelation of the heart enters into the world, the last place before the interior life of a human being passes into the world. Thus, the lips are the place where decisions must be made.
There is good reason why the Psalmist prays: »Set a sentinel at the door of my lips«. (Ps 141, 3). We need a sentinel to watch over what is sent into the world. Very serious decisions are made at the door of our lips, because here we choose which words are sent out and which are not. Yet, words create worlds. When the Psalmist writes in Ps. 16,4: »The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips«, he is making the decision not to support ways of living that cannot lead to life, because they lead away from God.
The plea »Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!« (Ps 17,1) makes it clear that what is allowed to pass my lips is trustworthy, open and genuine, and therefore can be relied upon. This opens up the possibility of real relationships.
In Psalm 40,9 the story states: »I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O Lord.« Here the lips become the gateway at which we decide not to hold back the truth we know, the life we have within us that we need to share with the world.
But if we set no guard at our lips, words can pass which we later come to deeply regret. »They angered him at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account, for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke rashly with his lips.« (Ps 106, 32-33) Here Moses allows the bitterness that has formed in his heart (inner life) to flow past his lips into a world, where their rashness causes him even more grief. Indeed, words create worlds.
Clean lips produce cleansing, purifying results. Isaiah tells a story about God in which these words appear. »I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,« says the Lord, »and I will heal him.« (Is 57,19) Clean lips are the place where God creates the fruit that can bring peace to a people, near and far, and offer healing to their lives. The words that pass our lips create worlds, but not just for others. We too live in those worlds. Clean lips will create a world in which we can live without all the clutter and refuse with which we often fill the space between us. During the days of this pandemic, we have suffered more than enough from the consequences of this dangerous Corona virus. But so much of what has passed by the doors of human lips, has intensified our suffering, shattered the bonds of the common good, deepened our fear and insecurity, induced panic and incited people to folly and even violence. Because these are the fruits of unclean lips, they are not the fruits of the spirit of the living God. Let our lips be clean, and then encouragement, consolation, help, support, hope, kindness and healing will pass through their gates into a waiting world.
Clean Lips, where are you taking me?
On this Advent day, let us take to heart the words of St. Paul to the Ephesians:
»Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.« (Eph 4, 29)
Erik Riechers SAC
December 14th, 2021
Plowshare: Sister, speak to me of God.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords
into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Is 2, 4
Outside the United Nations in New York there is a bronze statue by the Russian sculptor, Evgeniy Vuchetich. Now a greenish-blue through years of oxidation, the statue depicts a large man with a hammer in his right hand. He is swinging the hammer above his head and is about to bring it down upon a sword he is holding in his left hand. The already curves blade of the sword makes it fairly clear that he is transforming the sword into a plowshare. It serves as an image of the desire of the United Nations to transform war efforts into peace making.
Many viewers of the statue will not realise that the statue is based on a word of the prophet Isaiah. »And they shall beat their swords into plowshares.« An instrument meant to wage war is transformed into an instrument meant for farming. An instrument that is used to end lives, is now an instrument that is used to feed lives. An instrument of violence is reshaped into a tool of service.
It is an image of transformation rather than of replacement. The iron of the sword that is hard and unbending is still needed for the plowshare, otherwise it cannot create furrows in hard earth. The sharpness of the sword’s blade is not dulled, but reemployed, given a new purpose. A dull blade on a plowshare makes the instrument utterly useless.
The image of the plowshare speaks to us of God. When God looks at what is at the disposal of his people, he sees life-giving possibilities where we often see death-dealing ones. A plowshare opens the earth up, makes it receptive for seed, and prepares it for sowing. A plowshare makes the rich soil accessible, that good earth which carries life-bearing and life-sustaining potential beneath the hardened and crusty surface that covers it. It gives the rain a greater chance of gently permeating the rich depths instead of streaming away across the impenetrable hardness of the surface. Unlike a sword that seeks to damage, destroy and inflict pain, plowshare do not seek to damage the soil, but to unfold its possibilities. They do not seek to destroy the fields, but to prepare them for a purpose that will bring forth life. They do not seek to inflict pain on the soil, but to break through the hard parts to unleash its truest meaning and purpose.
If we cast a cautious glance at the sword, we see the same material and the same sharpness of which the plowshare is forged. But when do we reach for a sword? When the death-dealing possibilities seem more viable than the life-giving ones. We take up swords, when we harden ourselves to the outside world. We use them to enforce solutions that we cannot otherwise entice from people whose hearts we deem to be closed, inaccessible and unreceptive to any other logic than violence and brute strength.
The image of the sword being beaten into a plowshare is an image of transformation. It symbolises the desire to put an end to war and convert the means of destruction into creative tools for the benefit of all the human family. But as Isaiah very gently reminds us, it is not God who beats swords into plowshares, but human beings. If you look at the statue outside the United Nations, you will not see any sign of God. And yet, Isaiah insists that this is not merely a human endeavour. It is the result of a partnership with God.
The prophet starts by telling us something that God will do before this transformation takes place: »He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples.« First God will come and render judgement, give verdicts and resolve disputes. And when this happens, it will awaken in human hearts a mighty transforming desire.
This would not be our instinctive reaction to judgement. That is due to the fact, that we see judgment exclusively as the moment when God seeks retribution for our misdemeanors and wrong-doing. Judgement for us is about shaming, about giving others their come-uppance.
But God does not judge that way. His judgement is not about seeking our humiliation, not about shaming us, but about seeking our untried possibilities and our untested potential. A people who have the ingenuity and strength to bend metal until it creates death, also carry in themselves the ingenuity and strength to bend metal until is releases avenues to life.
The image of the plowshare speaks to us of God. It tells us that whenever we feel the urge to forge a sword into a plowshare, God is already at work within us. The statue in front of the United Nations shows the man, the hammer, the sword being reshaped. What is invisible to the eye is the heart of the man. That is the place where God works. The heart is ultimately the place where everything is decided.
In the 2. Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation we pray with our sister the plowshare: »Even more, by your Spirit you move human hearts that enemies may speak to each other again, adversaries may join hands, and peoples seek to meet together. By the working of your power it comes about, O Lord, that hatred is overcome by love, revenge gives way to forgiveness, and discord is changed to mutual respect.«
Plowshare, where are you taking me?
God sees more potential in us than our anger, violence, cruelty and hardness suggest. Will we let ourselves we moved to transform the instruments of anger, violence, cruelty and hardness into instruments of forgiveness, healing, kindness and gentleness?
If my tongue was like a sharpened sword, will I forge it into a plowshare that opens hearts and minds with thoughtful, understanding, and supportive words?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 13th, 2021
In our midst: Sister, speak to me of God.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: »Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save.«
Zef 3, 15-17
Twice in this short passage, the prophet Zefania employs a simple but potent image: God desires to be in our midst. This is relatively straightforward language, but often and easily altered to say something other than what the image which to tell us about God.
God prefers to be in our midst. The image does not say, he wishes to be at the center of to be the central focus. It is not God’s desire to be the middle around which everything is built. He desires to be in our midst. The image speaks to us of God and it is a surprising conversation. Because we as a people, as a community of believers, are the reference point. The place where God wishes to dwell cannot be found until you find his people, and then penetrate to the very midst of their communal living.
To be in our midst to be in the thick of things, the central, throbbing, pulsing middle of our shared life. If God lives in our midst, he comes to the place where everything in our daily life is happening. In our midst there is turbulence, panic, negotiation, barter, love, commitment, hectic, chaos and engagement. In our midst you will find the very best of what we are, the very worst of what we are, and everything in between. To be in our midst to immerse yourself into the teeming mixture of what constitutes us as a people of God.
What is not to be found in our midst you are the places of privilege. These are always cleanly separated from the place where the majority of simple folk live and work. To be in our midst is to discover the place where there is no tidy segregation. In our midst we are all jumbled together. This is the place of the people, nor merely of the elites.
The midst of our people is also not a well-settled and stable place. It is constantly in motion, constantly in flow and, therefore, constantly changing. That is due to the fact that the matters which occupy us and with which we choose to deal are constantly in flux. A God who wants to be in our midst must be mobile, flexible and adaptable.
It is an ancient desire of our God in our midst. Unlike the God’s of the ancient world, he did not want to live on a mountain top or in a special temple. During the long hard journey of the Exodus, he chose to dwell in our midst, and since we were in the middle of the desert, that is where he went. And he pitched his tent in the middle of the camp.
Yet, God’s desire to dwell in our midst was not always shared by his people. Kings wanted to build God a house, to erect a temple high on a mountain. Although they wanted to build a house of splendour and grant it a place of honour within the city, it still was a place of isolation. A cage is still a cage even if it is gilded. The God of everyday life, who once lived at the very heart of his people, was now banished to a hilltop, far from the daily hustle and bustle of the common, ordinary living. In an extraordinary place people came to do unusual und uncommon things. But the God who loved being in our midst, wanted to make justice, goodness, service, love, mercy and reconciliation the things of everyday life. No matter how often we speak of these moments in a temple, they never actually take place there. Justice, goodness, service, love, mercy and reconciliation take place in the midst of his people. That is where they are needed, that is where they are lived out in flesh and blood.
In John's prologue we find this image again. The translation reads: »And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us«. Literally translated it says: »And the Word became flesh and camped in our midst«. While it is often easier to keep God at the margins of our life, the image speaks to us of a God who is never satisfied until he is the midst of our life. Distance always opens an easy excuse for us. But closeness changes us. A God who is far off, distant and remote is a God also easily ignored in the throes of ordinary life. But a God who dwells in our midst, is a presence that challenges us and accompanies us where we spend the greatest part of our lives, namely, in the ordinary.
God in our midst, where are you taking me?
Where do I try to keep God on the margins of my life instead of welcoming him to the very midst of the life I share with others?
Will I welcome the justice, goodness, service, love, mercy and reconciliation of God in our midst and allow them to take on a greater role and a wider space in my daily life?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 12th, 2021
The ears of the deaf: Sister, speak to me of God.
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Is 35, 5
The ears of the deaf is an image with which we are very familiar. People who are hard of hearing are commonplace and we have many forms of interaction with them.
This image speaks to us of God in a diagnostic fashion. God has a heartfelt desire. He wishes to cure the ears of the deaf. To have deaf ears to be unreceptive. Yet, in biblical storytelling, it has a still deeper meaning. It speaks of the fact that we are unreceptive to that which is not yet ours, that which is strange, unfamiliar or unknown.
We have our own experiences of having deaf ears. When someone talks about our favourite topic, our hearts desires, or our pet peeves, our ears perk up. It becomes even easier to hear what is being said, when the speaker is telling us what we want to hear. When the message suits us. Then we are readily receptive to what is already in us, what confirms our opinion, strengthens our position and supports our bias.
The resistance of deaf ears comes up when we should open ourselves and receive a message, thought or opinion that seems strange, unfamiliar and unknown to us. Unlike the merely physical ailment of deafness, which occurs whether we like it or not, this is a form over which we exert real control. We choose to whom and what we will be receptive and offer a listening ear. When my father was quite old, he needed a hearing aid. He finally bought one which was quite advanced. It even had a small remote control with which he could raise the volume or change the settings of the hearing aid for special services, like hearing the television, or listening on the telephone. This hearing aid helped my father overcome his physical ailment of deaf ears. But his use of the hearing aid also took on the biblical meaning of deaf ears, because whenever my father’s hand slipped into his jacket, we knew he was using the remote control to turn off or tune out whatever or whomever he did not want to hear. We all have a remote control like that. It is called the human heart. It is the place where receptivity is decided in the end.
There are several reasons why people are deaf in the biblical stories as well as in the human narratives. Sometimes our ears are blocked. Something stops us from being open, hinders us from being receptive. Perhaps there are old stories of wound and scar which do not permit us to hear beyond old pains. Traumatic experience, unresolved conflict, and pain that has simmered beneath the surface are ways that our ears become stopped. This image speaks to us of God, because God wants to unstop the ears of the deaf. He does not want a life like that for his people.
Sometime we develop or foster the ears of the deaf through distraction. There are so many things going on, so many voices, all talking at once, so much background noise, that we cannot hear anything distinctly. We can drown out what we do not want to hear. Small children sometimes do this when they do not want to hear a message from their parents like »It is time to go to bed«. They start to hum or sing or chatter out loud, simply to drown out the voice they would rather not heed. Adults are only slightly more sophisticated. They turn up the television or the radio, raise the volumes on the earphones, or attend loud parties and gatherings. I once accompanied a woman on a personal directed retreat. After every session she would leave the house, go to her car and turn on the radio as loud as possible. When I realised what she was doing, I approached her and gently asked her why she was doing this. I have never forgotten her answer. »Noise keeps the demons at bay!« She was distracting herself from the painful but necessary impulses that were arising out of the biblical stories. They were never demons, but she was so afraid of the voice of God telling her to face what she wanted to avoid, she used noise as an anesthetic. God does not want a life like that for his people, because in this case the ears of the deaf are a sign of a people on the run, of frightened hearts in flight.
At other times, the ears of the deaf arise when we are resistant. Sometimes we simply do not want to hear something, and then we turn off our receptivity. Perhaps we are too exhausted or drained to deal with it. Perhaps we are overburdened and simply cannot bear the thought of yet another problem or issue demanding our attention. God unstops the ears of the deaf, because he does not want a life like that for his people. When we exercise deafness as resistance, we are working on assumptions. We resist, because we assume that being open and receptive will do us no god, bring us ill tidings and new burdens. But how often have we been wrong. How often have we need surprised to discover that the message also brought light, relief, deeper perspective and even healing.
The ears of the deaf will be unstopped by our God, because he does not want an unreceptive life for his people. Deaf ears means we are unable to be part of the conversation. It creates a world of exclusion and a loss of connection. Then we are outside of the loop and isolated from others. It is a common experience with our elderly confreres who are hard of hearing. It is hard work to keep them a part of the conversation, to repeat what has been said, to speak in unpleasantly loud tones and to remind them to wear their hearing aids. But we do it, because otherwise they cannot participate in our conversations and deliberations and then they are no longer part of our living community life. In those moments, we share the desire of God. We do what is necessary to unstop their ears, because we do not want a life like that for our beloved brothers.
Ears of the deaf, where are you taking me?
On this Advent day, where will I deliberately exercise a new receptivity by reading a new book by an unknown author, listen to a conversation about matters that I usually drown out or open myself to a topic or theme I would rather ignore?
Where will I help to unstop the ears of the deaf in others, so that they are not shut out and excluded from the flow and life of our conversation?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 11th, 2021
The River: Sister, speak to me of God.
Oh that you had paid attention
to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
Is. 48, 18
The language of the images, symbols and metaphors of the biblical stories do not come easy to us, because we are a society of technical and therapeutic language. We have immersed ourselves so thoroughly in the realm of declarative and explanatory language that we have become symbolic illiterates. But since images, symbols and metaphors are language of the soul, we are also rapidly become religious illiterates.
In the struggle to rescue and resuscitate the language of the soul, we have natural allies, and these are the poets. They suffer as deeply as the biblical storytellers, because poetry is suffused with images that try to speak to the soul.
My friend, John O’Donohue, was that most remarkable mixture of poet, philosopher and theologian. If you want to understand what the image of the river means, all you really need is this line he wrote.
»I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.«
Isaiah would smile in recognition of a fellow poet if he read these words. The image of the river speak to us of God, by reminding us if we live according to the rich life instructions of God, our lives will unfold unto surprising experiences.
Rivers unfold. They start small and grow into their magnificence, strength, breadth, depth and length. Opening ourselves to the life instructions is the beginning of our personal unfolding. A river cannot unfold if it is not open to tributaries. It has to welcome the contributions of small streams and unassuming creeks. A life cannot unfold unless it opens itself up to all the tributaries carrying living water. We need to take up the deep religious wisdom of mentors, masters, teachers and friends. We need to open ourselves to the experience that stretch us unto growth and deepen us unto loving kindness. We need to take in the stories of God and the stories of faith, and, of course, we must welcome the storytellers who bear them to us. Paying attention to the commandments of God means paying attention to all these people and places and possibilities. And then our lives will grow in their magnificence, strength, breadth, depth and length.
As a river grows through its openness to receiving more life-giving waters from many sources, this leads to a new surprise of unfolding. Because a river then discovers that it is not merely a recipient of new life, but the bearer of new life. It takes that life into itself and carries it on to new places and people who are thirsting for that life. If today we heed His voice, we will be just as surprised to discover that we are the bearers of more life. The wisdom we graciously receive, the love we weave into our blood and bones, the justice we integrate into our lives and the mercy we absorb into our very being, carry life to others. Everywhere we go, everywhere we flow, people will come in contact with the life we carry within ourselves. In ourselves we will carry to them goodness that can touch hearts hardened by pain, truth that sets free from illusion and self-deception, hope that opens horizons long forgotten or never known.
A river is not stagnant. It moves and goes places far beyond its origins, while never being separated from the spring from which it starts. When we live like a river, this too becomes a surprise, an unfolding that astonishes us. Because if we live life according to the wisdom of our loving creator, our lives will not just grow, but they will take us places far from our starting point, but never sever the tie to our origins. We will tell the stories of God to the next generation without forgetting the generation that told them to us. We will meet new people without forgetting the people who brought us safe thus far. We will come to new places, encounters and experiences, without losing contact to our roots, to the places that formed our hearts, the encounters that accompanied us unto greater fullness and the experiences that made us authentic.
Finally, rivers fashion landscapes. They do not just pass by, but they form the landscape they pass through. A life well lived in God, will surprise us in this manner as well. We do not just pass by. We shape the worlds through which we move. We have an impact on the human landscapes we touch. A life that truly unfolds according to the design of God unfolds into a surprising, life altering effectiveness.
It was that way with John O’Donohue. After every encounter, people simply felt better about themselves, more secure in their own skin. It is that way with John Shea. After an encounter with him, people felt stronger, better equipped to deal with the daunting part of their life. It was that way with my mother. I never left her presence without feeling more loved. And it can be this way with us. Do not underestimate yourselves, my friends.
River, where are you taking me?
On this Advent day I will pray: »I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.«
Like a river, I will listen and take in the stories of God in all things, in myself, in the other, in the whole of creation and in all of Scripture, so that I might hear and head every story God wishes to tell.
Erik Riechers SAC
December 10th, 2021
The Treshing Sledge: Sister, speak to me of God.
Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff; you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. Is 41, 15-16
Today we come to an image that is no longer a part of our daily life. But when Isaiah spoke these words, the image instantly sprang to life in the hearts of the listeners, because a threshing sledge was part of their common experience. It was a series of large wooden planks that were fastened together. Holes were made on the underside and then sharp rocks were wedged into these holes. The harvested wheat would be brought to the threshing floor and these boards were dragged over the wheat. The sharp rocks would gouge and twist the stalk, separating the grain kernels from the rest of the stalk.
The image speaks to us to a process of separation. The threshing sledge separates that which is truly life-giving from the chaff. The image speaks to us of the ability to distinguish that which gives nourishment and true sustenance from the useless and the superfluous things that make no contribution to satisfying our hungry hearts. And this image speaks to us of God, because it tells us what God would like to make of us. He wants to make us people who can differentiate between what is genuinely essential and what holds no life in it. This is no insignificant ability. Put simply, without a threshing sledge we would starve. If we are unable to separate the wheat from the stalk, then we cannot grind it in flour and bake our bread. And if we are unable to separate wheat from chaff, then we will keep being attached to the wrong thing, the element that cannot feed and strengthen us. The gift of being a threshing sledge is the gift of being able to win that which gives life from the midst of everything else that does not.
Isaiah makes it clear that this is a task of some considerable weight and scope. Mountains and hills of experiences need to be winnowed. This ability to separate the life-giving from the superfluous will be needed over and over, because the amount of confusing and mixed experiences are as high as the mountains and as plentiful as the hills. It is not something we do once and then can afford to leave behind. This is a momentous task.
When God makes us into a threshing sledge, he is turning us into a people of discernment. We would love to simply take everything at face value. But we constantly need to separate what is true, beautiful and good from the mountains of shallow proposals, advertising and lifestyles that cannot lead us to them. This is no easy task. Like a threshing sledge, we need to go over the things laid before us over and over to discover the kernel of life that we need.
The days of the pandemic have made this practice of the threshing sledge all the more urgent. While making serious decisions about the common good and the health of nation and its citizens, we are forced to ask the question: If we cannot have it all (which we have become so accustomed to that we think it is our birth right) then what is essential. There is a clamour for Christmas markets, sporting events and large social gatherings at our favourite watering holes. The urge to travel and take exotic vacations remains uncommonly strong. But are these things the essentials? Are these the things that carry the kernel of life in them? More importantly, why is the protection of our fellow human beings not the core conversation in our society? Why is the care for the well-being of others not the central issue? Individual rights and personal freedoms are trumpeted from the roof tops, but there is little talk of personal responsibility and the obligation to care for the common good.
As pleasant as our entertainments and distractions are, they are not essential. When we speak of going to the movies or travelling to the sunny south as if they were as important as life-support for dying patients, we have lost this gift of being a threshing sledge, a gift God considers to be of vital importance. When we do not discern, then we become enraged by the loss of our toys and games, while others are left without bread, lodging and dignity.
It cannot hurt to be reminded of the rich counsel of Vatican II. »It is imperative that no one...indulge in a merely individualistic morality. The best way to fulfill one's obligations of justice and love is to contribute to the common good according to one's means and the needs of others, and also to promote and help public and private organizations devoted to bettering the conditions of life.« (Gaudium et Spes, Art.30) If we are going to be the sons and daughters of Vatican II, then we need to be threshing sledges. Otherwise we will become the kind of people what Oscar Wilde wrote about in his novel »The Picture of Dorian Gray«: »Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.«
Threshing sledge, where are you taking me?
Will I take the time to thresh through the many suggestions being made and separate what is truly important for my life from the rest?
How will I keep in mind what is genuine essential?
How will I form a focused heart in myself that that is not mindlessly distracted by the peripheral?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 9th, 2021
Eagle’s Wings: Sister, speak to me of God.
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Is 40,31
The biblical stories have a great fondness for the image of the eagle. When Isaiah uses the image of the eagle's wings, he makes it speak to us of God in two ways. First, it speaks to us of God's strength. Secondly, it speaks to us of what God uses that strength for.
Of course, this is an image of strength. When Isaiah sees the symbol of eagles' wings, he sees the strength of God given to those who have lost their own. »But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint« (Isaiah 40:31).
Isaiah is part of a great conversation in which the image of eagles' wings speaks to us of God. By far the greatest part of the image is the experience being carried. It is a sign of strength and able to bear much weight, as Moses wrote, »You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself« (Ex 19:4). This is further symbolized when Moses said of God »Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions« (Duet 32:11). The eagle can bear up the young eaglets on its pinions, which are the outer wings. This is basically what God did when He brought Israel out of captivity from Egypt and continued to bear her up in her wanderings in the wilderness.
Because the eagle could fly higher than any other bird, it could fly out of reach of the hunter’s arrows. But the image is deeper than this. If you are sitting on the pinions, the back of the eagle’s wings, then you are sitting in a place out of sight of the hunter, out of range of the arrow that could harm you. Should any hunter have an arm strong enough to shoot that high, the arrow could not touch you without going through the heart of the eagle. If you are on the wings of the eagle, then the eagle places itself between you and what can harm you.
It raises a deep question within us. We are so accustomed to thinking of our won strength and what we need it for, that we seldom ponder what would happen if our strength failed us. What would happen if our strength cannot carry us where we need to go? What happens when our strength cannot overcome the obstacles before us, cannot hurtle over the barriers in our way, cannot lift us off the ground when he have fallen? Especially hard to face is the question: Who will protect me from harm when I cannot do it for myself?
Recently I fell. To put it more honestly, I was felled by a bicyclist. Cutting a corner at great speed, he hit me so hard that it threw me to the ground, bruised knees, a black eye, scrapped hands and scratched glasses. The young man on the bike was luckier, because he landed in the hedge and was scratched but otherwise unharmed.
While lying on the ground I found I could not get up on my won. The palms of my hands where bruised and bleeding, so I could not put any weight on them. My pants were torn and my knees scrapped raw, so I could not kneel on them to help myself up. The young man was groaning over his mangled bike. A group of people praying at the nearby shrine briefly looked around the corner but then carried on with their prayers. But a group of young people who were attending a course in our house immediately came to my aid. They were the furthest from the site of the accident, but the first to come to my help.
It was in that moment that I experienced the deep meaning of this image of the eagle’s wings. Because two of them placed their shoulders under my arms and lifted me off the ground. I was surprised by their strength and how easily they lifted me up. I also remember the sense of relief washing over me and how the feeling of helplessness washed away.
The experience and the feeling of being lifted up stayed with me for weeks afterward. The memory has not left me since that day. But more importantly for me, it triggered an old story in me. I had given a retreat to a large group of Ukrainian Catholics in Canada. I was a small house of the grounds in which I lived and held the private conversations with those who wanted them between the spiritual reflections. It was a very hot summer and the people would wait for me outdoors, sitting on the grass of the rolling hills all around the little cottage. It was late in the afternoon and I came out to call in the last person before our evening prayer. She was sitting awkwardly on the lowest part of the hill, so I extend my arm to her and then pulled her to her feet. Then we had our conversation.
Weeks later I received a letter from this person. She wanted to thank me for the retreat because it had given her an experience that deeply touched her heart. But it was not about my talks, the liturgies or even the conversation we had enjoyed. It was about my helping her up off the ground. She wrote me that she was the youngest of three sisters. Her other two sisters were always the lovely attractive girls who were fused over by the boys and aggressively courted by them. They opened car doors for them, pulled out chairs for them to sit on, and were always attentive, courteous and hovering in the vicinity. She never experienced any of that. So when I extended my arm and lifted her to her feet, she was thrilled, surprised, touched and puzzled all at once. To be honest, I could not even remember the incident until she recounted it in her letter.
But I still have the letter. In one line she wrote: »Father, you raised me up. And for days I hummed or sang the hymn, ‘And he will lift me up on eagle’s wings.’ I do not really understand what you did for me in that moment, but I do know this: you raised me up. And I have been up ever since.«
Eagle’s wings, where are you taking me?
Whom will I lift up on this Advent day, past harm and helplessness?
Where have I been lifted out of harm’s way? Was I grateful for being lifted up and did I acknowledge the experience of God within the moment?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 8th, 2021
Clearing a way: Sister, speak to me of God.
A voice cries: »Clear a way for the Lord’s road, level in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.«
Is 40, 3-5
This most famous of the Advent images speaks to us about one the deepest longing and most heartfelt desires of our God. Clearing a way and levelling a highway speaks of the insatiable hunger of our God to find a path to his people. There is no need to break a path until you have a place you wish to be. The old paths, the already existing ways, have also lead us to places we wanted to visit and see, but these places die not lead to the unfolding of a new encounter, a new conversation and a new experience of God.
A new path is not needed until we are tired of the old locations. A new path need not be cleared as long as we are satisfied with the old ones and the places where they have taken us. Yet, who among us has not known the hunger and drive of which this image speaks? After being more or less content with our loves, relationships and work, we suddenly have a desire for more than what we have and what we have been living. We start to question the meaning and the importance of the way we are living. We experience a rising discontent, a sense that what we are doing is devoid of any deeper significance. Nagging questions no longer leave us in peace. »Is this all there is to my life? Does anything I do make a real difference?« We keep on going on the tried and well-trodden paths of the past, but they leave us feeling empty. They do not satisfy our hungry hearts.
This is a very unpleasant and unsettling moment. This image of clearing a road then speaks to us an astonishing truth, a liberating revelation. Help is on the way, because God is on the move toward us. It is not the common response to this moment in our lives. How often have we had the painful experience, that when our lives suffer a crisis of meaning, when we have serious doubts about ourselves and are questioning the most basic assumptions on which we have built these lives, that people turn away and head in the opposite direction. There is often a deep fear of these questions, because if we face them in others, they might suddenly cause us to apply them to ourselves. I painfully recount such a moment not so long ago. A good friend of mine was suffering from a great personal tragedy in her family. All the old paths were falling apart, no longer useful or helpful and clearing a new way was proving laborious, exhausting and painful. One day she overheard a remark made by a colleague of hers. The colleague remarked to a third party that she could not listen to my friend’s story for very long, because it troubled her heart too much. This experience makes me grit my teeth until this very day. My poor friend carried all the burden of that story, but she was unafraid of telling others about the clearing of a new way through a life that was falling apart and collapsing in tragedy and sorrow. It was the other woman who was afraid. She lacked the courage to face a story she was in no way forced to live. But the mere mention of clearing a way troubled her settled, sated and unquestioned life and posed a threat to her own peace and quiet.
My friends, help is on the way, because God is on the move and he is not heading in the opposite direction. He is heading straight toward us, to this uncomfortable place in which we find ourselves. He is not afraid to visit this place, to touch us here. It is the desire of his heart to be present to us in this moment of uncertainly and turmoil so that he can share it with us and change it with us.
Clearing a way and levelling a highway for God is the way in which we start to remove whatever obstacles are preventing this meeting with the God of our salvation. All of us carry within ourselves tired ways of thinking, unquestioned assumptions about life, and inherited interpretations about what is important and what is not; these are the old paths. They have brought us to the desert.
Help is on the way, because God is on the move. But if God is on the move, then change is on the way. Because clearing new paths and levelling highways always means that we have to alter landscapes, including the inner landscapes of the heart.
Clearing a way, where are you taking me?
As I clear a way for my God will I start to entertain new ways of looking at things?
Will I face my uncritical assumptions about life? Will I re-evaluate my priorities?
On this Advent day, will I level a highway by listening to the stories of God which do not affirm my every bias, which do not automatically approbate my lifestyle and way of thinking, and which even dare to call into question whether I am as happy and satisfied as I claim to be?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 7th, 2021
The Stretcher: Sister, speak to me of God.
And behold, some men were bringing on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his stretcher through the tiles into the midst before Jesus.
Lk 5, 17-18
Years ago, Bishop Reinhold Stecher wrote a beautiful book. It is called: »Werte im Wellengang: Ungewöhnliche Interviews« (Values in the Waves: Unusual Interviews). In the preface he writes: »I have chosen a few interviewees - not the easiest ones - with whom I have wanted to deal for a long time«. He then interviews expansiveness, music, wisdom, humour, light, etc.
Today I take my inspiration from this extraordinary shepherd and conduct an interview with the stretcher of the biblical narrative.
Me: I would like to welcome you to our series »And the Almond Tree Blossomed: How Religious Images Speak to Us of God«. I'm sure our readers will enjoy getting to know you a little better.
Stretcher: Thank you very much, Fr Erik. It is an extraordinary honour and admittedly a great surprise that you would like to do this interview with me. I am rather used to playing my role in the background. Normally I am hardly noticed.
Me: Yet you play an important role and even a recurring role in the biblical narratives.
Stretcher: (smiling wearily) Thank you for your words of appreciation. Indeed, without false modesty, I was touched by the hands of Jesus at the gates of Nain. But no less significant for me were the four admirable friends who took me in hand.
Me: I like the way you describe these people. Can you elaborate a bit on what role they played in their story?
Stretcher: Well, I have always understood my role as a privilege. In my extended family there are wheelbarrows, carts, and even some trolleys. It's in our blood to be load carriers. But I have always had the honour of carrying a special load. My relatives are there to transport goods. But I was chosen by God to carry the lives of his people when they are so burdened that they can no longer walk on their own.
Me: Not exactly an easy task.
Stretcher: (smiling) Indeed. But what I have always enjoyed most about my job is that I could only do it in collaboration and cooperation. I carry the burden of a person who can no longer walk, but others carry me so that this person's story becomes ongoing. Without this partnership, nothing works.
Me: An interesting perspective.
Stretcher: Oh, you gain that perspective quickly enough when you stay as close to people and their paralyses as I do. This experience made me more humble and respectful. And then I felt what an honour it is to share in such people's life experiences.
Me: When you say that, it immediately reminds me of Pope Francis. He very often calls us to stay close to people, especially the poor and the weak.
Stretcher: Yes, this man is such a biblical man, and very beloved among us stretchers. He likes to talk about the church as a field hospital and, as you know, a field hospital without stretchers is unthinkable.
Me: That's a wonderful thought. Now these men have taken you in hand and brought your paralysed companion to the house where Jesus stayed. Was that stressful for you?
Stretcher: It was burdensome and joyful at the same time. After all, the paralytic was allowed to rest on me and to feel that he was not falling, but was instead being caught and carried. When a person can accept that from me, it is one of the most beautiful feelings.
Me: Those men who carried you and their friend will probably best understand this feeling. In this story, you and your partners then come to the door of the house, but you can't get into the house.
Stretcher: That's right. The entrance is blocked by people who are fascinated by Jesus but at the same time stand in the way of the weakened person who wants to get to Jesus. So we climb up on the roof and uncover the tiles.
Me: That is quite adventurous and, to put it mildly, unconventional. The roof is not normally the place of entrance. Quite the opposite. The roof is built to keep out rain, wind and sun and other natural elements, not to admit paralytics. Finally, the paralytic lies in the middle of the room, right in front of Jesus.
Stretcher: (grinning) Not only the paralysed man. Me too. He was still lying on top of me. I was also in the middle of the room, right in front of Jesus.
Me: What was that like for you?
Stretcher: I was actually most impressed by the fact that he didn't look at this paralysed man first, but up to the men on the roof. He saw their faith. (Pause while stretcher's voice breaks with emotion).
Me: I just noticed how moved you are.
Stretcher: There was so much recognition in that look. His appreciation was not for the architect who designed the house. His praise was not for those who built the house. His recognition is for those who have the courage to change the house so that life can come into it. At that moment, a frail human being became the centre of attention. To this day, I feel it is the greatest tribute to my role and the role of all who are stretcher bearers. Because for us, this frail person was the focus all the time.
Me: And then your work was done?
Stretcher: Not quite. Jesus told the man, »Get up, take your stretcher and go home!« And that touched me most deeply. Because to Jesus, I was not insignificant. He should take me home with him, because he should never forget the role I played in his life and in his healing.
Stretcher, where are you taking me?
Me: In conclusion, could you give our readers something to take with them on their journeys through Advent?
Stretcher: I would love to. I take many forms. I am the word that carries the burdens of a person that sustains them when they are at a loss. But I need my partners, the people who boldly speak this word. Otherwise there is no saving story. I am the sustain gesture that allows a person to rest when their own strength fails and bears them up. But I always need my partners, the people who dare to make such gestures, even at unconventional times and in unconventional ways. I would simply like to urge your readers: Be my partners.
Me: Thank you very much for your time and this interview.
Erik Riechers SAC
December 6th, 2021
The Garment: Sister, speak to me of God.
Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting!
Bar 5, 1–2
The language of this image has become difficult to understand in today’s world. Unlike the days of the biblical stories, men and women of our time wear garments to express two things: individual identity and personality. Fashion, as we express it today, played no role in the time when garments first took on a symbolic meaning. For the ancient peoples, clothes served a very practical function. Our garments protect us from the weather, be it cold, rain or searing heat. Unlike animals, we have no natural protection against the elements, so garments do for us what fur and feathers do for animals.
When garments appear in biblical stories, they speak to us of many things. The garments we wear can, of course, reveal our status in the society. Kings do not usually dress like beggars.
When Baruch uses the language of the garment, he is pointing out a less obvious statement which clothing makes. The language of the garment in this story tries to reveal the state in which our hearts find themselves. The garments we don can conceal or disguise what is happening within us. For example, we can dress in in the same uniform as everyone else, while we distance ourselves from them on the inside, because we no longer identity with the group or its interests. How many children have worn the clothes like their peers so that they could fit in and belong? Yet, deep in their hearts, they know that they are still outsiders, that they are not genuinely accepted or wanted. On the other hand, garments can also reveal the deep and hidden realities of our hearts. When we wear black after the loss of the beloved, the colour we wear says something about the state of our heart.
Baruch knows the state of the heart of the people to whom he is writing. They are dressed in garments of sorrow and affliction. Grieving widows wear garments of sorrow when they mourn the loves and lives they have lost (Gen 38:14, 19). When people were deeply sorrowful for the wrongs they had committed and wished to express their regret, remorse and repentance, they wore sackcloth as a garment. (Gen 37:34; 1 Kings 20:31; Esther 4:1-2; Ps 69:11; Is 37:1). Affliction also had its garments, such as garments worn by lepers (Lev 13:45), which showed the wearers to be outcast.
But Baruch is suggesting that is it time to wear a festive garment. Like the wedding garment in Matt 22:11-22, this shows a willingness to enter into celebration where life and love is being feted. In the language of this image, a change of clothes denotes a change in the inner life. We should be making the move from desolation to joy, from brokenness to dignity.
This is an Advent practice. Garments speak to us of a God who asks us to exercise this practice. In our dominant culture, we are easily caught in cycles of negativity, nastiness and complaint. I have met a fair number of people who consider it extremely stylish to be hyper-critical about everything they experience. It is nearly always combined with a thinly veiled contempt for those who put on a garment of righteousness and celebration. The hypercritical consider them naïve, while they perceive their own smug criticisms to be a sign of sophistication.
I remember one such encounter in Belize. A group of villagers came to church to celebrate Sunday Mass. They travelled on foot to Punta Gorda and when they arrived, they disappeared behind the trees and bushes. Then the changed out of their dusty daily working clothes into beautiful, richly coloured garments of Sunday celebration, which they had carried on their backs. Only then did they enter the Church to celebrate the Eucharist. I deeply admired this exchange of garments every Sunday. An American tourist also witnessed this and commented to me. »They are only happy because they are too ignorant to know how badly off they are!« Here was a man with everything that life has to offer, but he was unable to take off the garment of sorrow and affliction. He, who had all the luxuries, could not celebrate the simple joys of the people around him. His world was filled with rich people who try to impress each other by the fact that nothing could impress them. The one person in the Church who had no great sorrow or affliction was unable to do what those who were marked by sorrow and affliction every day did with joy: they changed the garment to celebrate what was given and to rejoice in the expectation of what is yet to come.
The garment of this story speaks to us of God: It is time to celebrate what is given. It is time to rejoice that more life is coming, that new life is coming, instead of complaining that it took too long, it came too late, it is not enough, or that this new life should have come in another form.
Garment, where are you taking me?
On this Advent day, where will I take off the garment of complaint and put on the garment of celebration and gratitude for all to see?
How will I outwardly show my pleasure and delight in the gifts I have been given?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 5th, 2021
The Harvest: Sister, speak to me of God.
Then Jesus said to his disciples,
»The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few;
therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers into his harvest.«
Mt 9, 37-38
When we look out at the harvest, we tend to think of fruitfulness and plenty. That is why we usually thank God for the harvest every fall.
But this image is much more subtle than we imagine and if we do not listen carefully, we can miss what God is trying to say to us. This is an image where God speaks to us of potential and possibility.
When the harvest is standing in the fields, and it is plentiful, we see what has grown. However, it is never an accident if there is a harvest. They so not spontaneously appear. They grow under the guidance and care of people who invest a great deal of time and energy to ensure that there will be a harvest.
When Jesus looks up and sees a plentiful harvest, he does not erupt in jubilation but offers instead a warning. Where there is a plentiful harvest, there must also be labourers to bring it in. No one can live from a harvest if there is no harvesting, no labourers to reap those fruits of the field and bring them to places of safety for our future use. A harvest that is not brought in rots in the fields. Harvests do n not fill barns, larders or stomachs. Harvesters do that. No hunger has ever been stilled by looking at a field ripe for the harvest.
As a son of the Canadian prairie, the time of harvesting has had an indelible effect on my soul. Every fall I experienced how farmers were worried about bringing in the harvest. It was a time of hard work, making use of every day of good weather, working with great headlights to use even the night hours to harvest the wheat, and the constant race to finish before the winter snows arrived. Deep in my soul I learned a lesson that opens the language of this image of the biblical stories speak to me of God. These sons and daughters of the soil were worried and driven, because they knew that having a harvest does not mean that you cannot lose it through neglect and laziness. Harvest labourers know the wisdom of Jesus in their bones.
The image speak to us of God, because God has the desire that we will not only notice that there is potential and possibility in the fields of life, in the fields of our hearts, but that we will be the labourers who bring that potential and those possibilities in. Otherwise they will be wasted.
We need to hold on to what is ours, to that for which we have laboured. We have earned it and we should want to make the most of it. This is the wisdom of the Gospel because it is the wisdom of God. Do not waste your opportunities. The man or woman of the Gospel has a claim on their harvest. That means we should hold on to all our potential. We hold on to our knowledge, our experience, our talents, but also to our structures, customs and traditions that serve us and others well.
Yet, the image of the harvest is richer even than this perspective. For as soon as we have brought the harvest in, it poses a second question to us. How will we deal with our fullness, the fullness that is in our faith, in our Church, and especially the fullness that is in us? With whom will we share it? Will we, like the farmer in Luke 12, 13-21, bring it in and lock it in barns, or will we also set a table for others? If the first danger is to neglect the potential and possibilities that we should harvest, then the second danger is always the preservation of our possessions, of what is mine, no matter what form it takes.
The reason for this? The fear. In what does this fear lie? In that we believe we must hold on to everything because there will not be bread and life enough for all. And this fear makes us petty and narrow, narrow in our thinking, narrow in our interests, narrow in our actions and narrow in our hearts. Incessantly, then, we are driven by two questions of all barn-builders. How can I keep it to myself? How can I contain it from others?
We do not have to live like this. Jesus offers us an alternative. Instead of building bigger barns to hold it all back, set a table and invite everyone. Instead of hiding and defending our abundance, we can set a table richly from that abundance, we can trustingly share with others and care for them.
The life God has given us is full of potential and possibility. We should not waste it by neglecting to do the hard work of harvesting. But we should also not waste it by hoarding it, locking it away where only a privileged few can live from it.
Harvest, where are you taking me?
Where is there a fullness within me that I am not harvesting?
Whom will I share the fullness I have harvested on this Advent day?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 4th, 2021
The Stump of Jesse: Sister, speak to me of God.
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
Is 11, 1
The stump of Jesse is one of the most famous images of the Advent season. It resounds from our hymns like »Lo, er a rose is blooming« and shines forth in many works of art depicting a family tree that leads from David to Jesus. Since the Middle Ages there has been the tradition of the Jesse tree, in which the bare branches of a tree are adorned each day of December with an ornament depicting the great biblical story that unfolds from the creation of the world until the birth of Jesus Christ. But what is God trying to say to us in a stump?
Contemplation in biblical stories means that we are willing to take a long loving look at the real. Let us begin our Advent day by contemplating a tree, by taking a long loving look at its reality. Think of its grandeur as it stands there is all is magnificence. Note its beauty and its size as its branches spread. Look at those branches, the leaves they carry and perhaps the blossoms they bear. Then there is the shade it casts. There are people who seek refuge from the rain and heat under its boughs. There are birds that find shelter and a home in the branches of the tree.
Now contemplate what happens when that tree is reduced to a stump. This is the image that speaks to us of a great and significant loss. A stump is a tree stripped of its glory. The breathtaking grandeur is lost, the beauty ended. The space it once filled has been cut down to a fraction of its former size. Its branches are gone, so there is nothing left to uphold leaves, blossoms and fruitfulness. There is no shade left and the stump itself is now ever exposed. The people who once sought refuge under the arms of the tree are now left unprotected and exposed to the elements. The birds have lost their place of refuge and their home. The tree is no longer a place of consolation.
It is always sad to see a tree wither and die, but that is what nature eventually makes of trees. A stump is what humans make of trees. We cut them down. We reduce them to a shell of their former glory.
Now deeply immersed in the language of the stump, we can hear what God is trying to tell us. Left like this, the image would speak of a devastating, hopeless loss of so much that makes life worth living. But in the story of God, that image takes on a much different shape. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. Isaiah takes this image of devastation and speaks to us of hope. It is a lesson for the deep heart, reminding us that God can speak to us of hope in places where we expect to find only loss and destruction.
The stump of Jesse speaks to us of God, because it sets a tiny but powerful sign. Whenever we reduce the fullness of our lives to a stump, whenever we cut our lives down, it cannot extinguish the power of life that flows from our God, the breath of life that he has been blowing into us since the dawning of creation. The power of God to bring forth life cannot be broken, even when we are the ones who reduce trees to stumps.
This is also an image of defiance that unveils a God who refuses to let even massive loss and devastation to have the final word. The stump of Jesse is God language, because wherever we find those stumps, we will encounter God in the insistent, stubborn, resilient drive to break through into life.
Every summer I see people cleaning their sidewalks and driveways from the weeds and grass that sprouts through the cracks and the fissures of the paving stones. I see them kneeling there with knives cutting deep to scratch out the roots. I see some using small flamethrowers to burn them to ashes while others pour weed killer into the cracks. Do you know what I also see? I see those same people facing the same task one year later, and the year after that, and the year after that.
We can be brutal agents of destruction at times when life appears where we do not want it or where it does not suit us. That is also true of the life inside of ourselves. There are places of the inner life (longings, desires, and talents) that we have reduced to a stump, have destroyed because we thought them inappropriate or no longer necessary. There we will discover a shoot of hope and life breaking through, a branch stretching forth to bear a new fruitfulness. When you see it, you will encounter the mischievous grin that lights up the face of God as he effortlessly lets life resume where HE wants it. Advent is about the coming of God. Well, the stump of Jesse tells us about one of the most powerful ways in which he comes.
Stump of Jesse, where are you taking me?
Where have I cut down the fullness of life until only a stump was left?
Where have I experienced life beyond loss, a fruitful future beyond devastation?
When the shoots appear and the branches sprout in my life, I will reach out and stroke the face of God?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 3rd, 2021
The Gates: Sister, speak to me of God.
In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: »We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and ramparts.Open the gates that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.«
Is 26, 1-2
When gates or doors appear in a biblical narrative, they speak to us about the way we exercise control in our lives. And where the need for control is awakened in us, trust is the question. The greater the trust, the less we exercise control. But the less trust we have, the more we exercise control.
The gates are an instance of control. It is where people decide who and whether someone is let in. Gates are the place where we decide who we will exclude and not allow entry. Where do we put locks and bolts if not our doors? It is about control.
This exercise of access and exclusion happens every day. Open doors signal a willingness to be approached. The open door offers people space and time for encounters. In contrast, closed doors signal that we don't have time, that we don't want to be disturbed or that we don't feel like talking or meeting.
Here, however, the doors should be opened to allow access. The language of the image tells us that our God does not want to exclude us, but to invite us. He wants us to come in. Here is the God who creates space and time for his people. We are not seen by him as an annoying nuisance, but as longed-for visitors, guests and friends.
The people of Judah sing: »We have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and ramparts.« When we are afraid and feel insecure, we need control. Walls and ramparts give us protection. And God is ready to give us that protection. After all, he built us walls and ramparts. At the same time, these walls and ramparts take something away from us, namely breadth of vision and openness. If farsightedness and openness are lacking, then in the long run we only become more and more fearful and narrow, because we close ourselves off in our little suffocating world of protection. That is why God built gates in the walls and now he insists that they be opened. Otherwise we become the prisoners of our need for security.
In the days of lockdowns and contact restrictions, we talk too little about open gates. We need protection in a pandemic, but God never forgets the other side of the experience. What we do to protect health, personally and for others, should not make us prisoners of fear. Even at this time, we should seek ways to open the gates and give the sign to others that we are open to conversation and to their concerns.
Finally, the gates speak to us of an element of Advent that we easily forget. We speak incessantly of the God who is to come. But the image of the gates warns us that the God who is to come is far greater than what we are preparing for. In Psalm 24 we sing, »Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!« When we build our gates and doors, we think of what should pass through them. If we have a person with a wheelchair in the house, we make the doors a little wider. If we need the company's delivery hall doors to allow access to large shipping crates, we make the gates much higher. The psalmist's point is that in preparing for the King of glory we have underestimated his greatness. The one who is to come is greater than our imagination, greater than our narrow-mindedness, greater than our fearfulness and greater than what we were originally prepared to receive. If ever there was an important task in Advent, this is it: We need to expand our welcome, our openness and accessibility to God.
Ye gates, where are you taking me?
Which door will I open today so that God's people can approach me?
Which door will I leave open?
To whom do I signal my willingness to talk and meet today?
Where do I have to go further and adjust to a God who is surprisingly bigger than I imagined in my images of God?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 2nd, 2021
The Feast: Sister, speak to me of God.
On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
Is 25, 6
The image of a feast is inseparable from a richly laid table. A feast does not take place at a snack bar, nor is it a picnic. It is an image of generosity, because a richly laid table only comes into being when a person is prepared to give to others what he already possesses. A feast is about generosity that is not afraid to share, because what belongs to the giver he places at the disposal of all the guests. That which could nourish him alone is offered to everyone as food and satiety. That which he alone could enjoy, all can now savour and feast upon. No one holds a banquet who is afraid that others might take too much from him.
The image of the banquet speaks to us of a God who is not at all afraid to touch his people and their hunger. Here the image speaks to us of God, and it tells us: People, where I appear in a story, I speak of a God of gracious giving. This God happily grants you life.
In Psalm 23, the psalmist sings: »You set a table before me in the sight of my enemies«. In biblical narrative, the enemy is always recognisable by an attitude: the enemy is the person who does not grant life to others. But our God sets a table before us in the sight of those who would begrudge us all of it. He provides us with everything we need to sustain and enjoy life. He does this before the eyes of our enemies, that is, he publically shows his support for us and makes no secret of the fact that he is an open, giving and gracious God towards us.
At this banquet, the very best is also put on the table. God brings out the finest, the noblest that he has to offer and makes it available to us. It is »a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined«. He does not offer us cheap snacks. He does not set the table with that which costs him the least. The best, finest food is not fast food. In the film Go Trabbie Go, the family from the former East Germany comes to visit their relatives in the West. The relatives see who is standing in front of the door and the father says to his son, »Alphons, clear the table!« And immediately the richly laid coffee table is cleared away. The cake disappears into a cupboard. On the table come a pair of nuts and a bowl of shrivelled apples. The rich hosts are only afraid that the guests will take too much from them. Even worse, if they like it, they might want to stay longer.
In order to arrange a feast in this way, God shows a special love for us, because everything he offers requires a longer time to cook, more preparation and clearly more effort. When God sets the table, he is telling us that it is worth it for him to spend time, preparation, effort and great toil for our sake. And he hopes that it tastes good, because he doesn't want to get rid of us again as quickly as possible.
How does John Shea put it so beautifully and tenderly?
To Jesus
every person was a guest.
An invitation had gone out
from the heart of all life
to every heart within life
for does rain discriminate
or the sun play favourites?
His voice was the music of welcome
in the ears of rejection;
his presence a silver setting in the slum
with linen napkins on the laps of lepers
and delicate china cups
cradled in calluses,
their thin rims pressed between lips
thick and blistered with thirst.
Feast, where are you taking me?
Where and with whom will we practice a spirituality of generous and gracious giving?
On this Advent day, whom will make an offer in which it becomes clear that we are ready to make what is ours available to others?
For whom will we give the best of ourselves and not what is just enough?
Erik Riechers SAC
December 1st, 2021
And the almond tree blossomed: How religious images speak to us of God
In his book, Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis, recounts a very simply and short story. »I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.«
In his book Stories of Faith, John Shea wrote that Narrative Theology »watches the subtle moves of religious language in the formation of personality and community, cherishes the Bible for images more than thought«. But we will never really cherish the images of the biblical stories until we deeply believe that they speak to us of God.
But how do you cherish an image more than a thought? Rabbi Hisba once wrote: »A dream uninterpreted is like a letter (from God) unopened.« Since the stories of God and the stories of faith are rife with images, they are part and parcel of our conversation with God. But the conversation always begins when we start to interpret what God is saying to us in the images with which he graces our lives. Thus, an image that is not interpreted is like a conversation with God in which we are unwilling to engage.
Scripture is the deepest language of the soul. It is full of archetypes, metaphors and universal images. That is why a literal interpretation of scripture is extremely impoverishing. Decades ago, Joseph Campbell already saw this problem in his book, Thou art that. »Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.«
To leave the rich variety of images of the biblical stories without interpretation is to miss out on a gorgeous, lush and delightful part of the conversation with God. Our daily experience teaches us this. If a person says that they will watch out for us, we are pleased and comforted. But if a person says, »I will set myself as a watchman upon the walls of your heart«, this moves us into soul language and opens emotions and experiences that are deeper, warmer and more powerful than declarative language can ever be.
Religious language must awaken what is already within us, must reach our soul. The mystics have described it this way: When God places the soul in the body, the last thing he does is kiss the soul. For eternity the soul unconsciously remembers this kiss. And it cherishes everything (goodness, truth, love, beauty) through the dark memory of that kiss.
The days of Advent are rife with biblical images. That is because God seeks to draw us into a conversation of greater depth, warmth and comfort with him. Instead of leaving unopened letter laying around, we will open up an image every day, interpret it, discover layers of meaning and then open ourselves to the daily Advent encounters in our loves to which the image seeks to lure us. Of each image we will make the request: 'Sister, speak to me of God'. And when the images blossom, perhaps we will be reminded of this kiss of God and learn to appreciate again all that is good, true, loving and beautiful to be found in life.
Erik Riechers SAC
Vallendar, November 30th, 2021
Good Bye!
»May you be sheltered!« we called out to you for 16 months. So for 68 weeks we tried to stay in touch with you and with each other, sharing words of encouragement and reflection. All 300+ impulses are still available to you here.
So we ourselves are amazed and grateful how rich this time, so poor in personal encounters, was for all of us. This strengthens us in the faithful confidence that it is always worthwhile to courageously and creatively search for possibilities, even if everything seems so impossible at first.
With this in mind, we move on - joined with the encouraging wish: »May you be sheltered!«
Vallendar, July 14th, 2021
Rosemarie Monnerjahn und Erik Riechers SAC
Introduction
A song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
In Psalm 121 the word »shamar« is used six times in eight verses. The word is multilayered and means to shelter, protect and observe (honour) someone or something.
Shaken by the crisis of the Corona virus, many people are yearning to be shelter, protect and observed (seen). We take up this desire in the title »May you be sheltered«. Not just as something we wish to have for ourselves, but also as something we are willing to serve. In 1908 a group was formed in Palestine under the name »HaShomer«.This group served their neighbours as guardians and keepers of the Jewish settlements that were just being founded. They honoured them and protected them from attacks from those around them who did not wish to share the land with them.
Already in the first days of this crisis we have heard tales of panic buying and Corona Parties. In some people there is the dominant impulse of »every man or woman for him or herself« and »save yourself if you can«. As people of faith and the People of God we must set a sign against this mentality. »May you be sheltered!« should be our call in this time. Let us protect and keep one another. That is what this column wishes to serve.
As God asked Cain, »Where is Abel your brother?« He said, »I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper (shamar)?« (Gen 4,9) Our answer should be that we will be »HaShomer« for our brothers and sisters.
May you be sheltered!
Vallendar, March 21rst, 2020
Erik Riechers SAC
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
* Under November 2nd, you will find our further thoughts regarding »Breath for the long march«.
»May you be sheltered«: There and back again
In March of 2020 as the pandemic struck us, we in Siebenquell knew that we could not leave this moment unaccompanied. So we began the series of reflections »May you be sheltered«. Little did we imagine that we would still be working at it 16 months later.
We have been asking ourselves for some time, when the appropriate moment would be to end this accompaniment. With the gradual abating of the crisis, we think that the time has come to wind down this long and adventurous path.
When we look back we are struck by how our common journey has interesting and frequent parallels to a book we have often turned to in our work, namely, The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The often forgotten subtitle of the book is telling: There and back again.
Like Gandalf knocking on Bilbo Baggins door, an adventure came knocking on our door, unexpected, uninvited and unwelcome. Our response was similar to Bilbo’s: »We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them.«
But this adventure, like all genuine adventures, came looking for us. We had grown accustomed to thinking of adventure as something we choose, something we want and select, according to our desire and need. The biblical narrative, on the other hand, understands adventure as something that chooses (or even haunts) us. The true adventures of life break into our smooth stories.
As Tolkien so aptly puts it later in his trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: »It's a dangerous business, going out of your door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.« This is an experience that has hardly been foreign to us during these long months of Corona.
And these 16 months of »May you be sheltered«: have been an intense time of learning what it truly means not to live in genuine companionship. Tolkien had an almost pathological aversion to heroic images of the lone warrior. In his life, everything heroic he ever experienced he experienced in the community of companions. In the First World War he learned that people do not survive adventures as lone fighters. War propaganda always showed images of the heroic lone fighter, but in battle it was camaraderie that counted. Thus, Tolkien’s ever present rallying cry: Not without companions! There are no heroes in his books who go off without companions. And Tolkien tells stories again and again where they need, complement and enrich each other. There are no adventures in life that we can successfully accomplish without companions on the journey.
We have told this story, indeed, lived this story. Reaching out to you hundreds of times was never just a task we performed to keep you strong and resilient, but also to keep ourselves focussed, motivated and vital. We wanted nothing more fervently than to keep connected with our people. And we were good companions to each other as well, as we wrote and reflected and published during days that were dark, but would have grown too dark if we had attempted to manage them alone. The emails, the words of encouragement, the words of acknowledgment and gratitude we wrote to you, as well as the ones we received from you, were manifest examples of the deep biblical imperative: Not without companions.
In the course of his grand tale, Tolkien gave Bilbo and his companions their own proverbs and parables, as well as the words of sages and riddles. Throughout the book there are poems and songs. Often they are quoted as verses from an ancient and revered tradition, as what has been passed down by the storytellers from generation to generation. Tolkien is never concerned with hidden wisdom or secret knowledge attainable only by a select and privileged few. He always speak of what has long been revealed and known, but then was so easily forgotten.
This, too, has been our experience. We have repeatedly named and addressed the truly important issues that are all well known, if we but honestly look at and evaluate what is within our hearts. Yet, they are also so easily forgotten in the course of mindless daily living. We have striven to touch on the essential matters of the human heart in the midst of crisis. Therefore, we told the stories that encourage, remind and awaken. Like Bilbo and his companions, we shared the songs that strengthen our hearts and gave new courage for the next stage of this long journey. We shared our favourite poems, hoping that what encouraged us would suffuse you with courage as well. We have learned a deep biblical truth that Tolkien expresses this way: »Where there's life there's hope.«
Yet, when Tolkien comes to the end of his story, a strange thing happens. Throughout the story, Bilbo is often filled with a homesickness for his quiet shire, where everything is comfortable, familiar and peaceful. On multiple occasions he makes it abundantly clear that he cannot wait to go home and take up his old life again.
Yet, when the adventure is over and he actually is back in his beloved shire, his relief is short-lived. Once all is back to »normal«, he discovers that »normal«, has lost its charm. One of the lessons of »there and back again«, is that once you have been »there«, you cannot come »back again«, as the same person who set out. The adventure changed him. The experiences not only challenged him, they also moulded him. A new homesickness fills him, especially for the companions of his journey. The people around him share his lifestyle, his comforts and his pleasures. But his companions shared his struggles and his doubts, they carried him beyond his short-comings, urged him to move beyond his self-doubt and wept with him at common loses and celebrated with him the achievements they attained together. What he misses, is the common cause.
We have been there and back again. It is our wish for you all, that we might find rest and find relief from the arduous months we have behind us. It is equally our hope, that we will miss the best this journey has brought out in us, that we will not sink back into life the way it was, but feel the restlessness that reminds us that there are greater things than our comfort and security.
Of course, a master storyteller like Tolkien is well versed in the true nature of adventure. We never know when the next one will come knocking on our door. Should the pandemic, or any other crisis, come back with greater danger or vigour, you will find in us willing, ready and able companions.
We would leave you with the last song of The Hobbit. Bilbo has come to the end of his journey back to the Shire. Coming to the top of a rise he sees his home in the distance, and stops and sings:
»Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.«
On good days, and on bad ones, and on every day in between, may you be sheltered.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
Erik Riechers SAC
June 11th, 2021
And, of course, a story
A small cautionary tale may help us garner a sense of the importance of Sabbath for us in rebuilding our world after the pandemic.
A serious minded young girl named Anastasia was determined to live a full and rich spiritual life. Mediocrity in prayer, worship and religious practices were no longer good enough for her. So she left the city in which she grew up and sought out a great spiritual teacher named Ambrose. Pleading her case before him, she poured out her heartfelt desire to be a disciple of deep faith and profound prayer. Yet, the old man was extremely reluctant to accept the responsibility of guiding her to the life she claimed to desire. She promised him commitment and obedience, zeal and dedication, but nothing would sway the old master. Finally he asked her, »All that you promise is fine and good, but I have only one question for you. Will you listen to wisdom when it holds no natural charm for your soul?« Assuring Ambrose that she would always listen to wise counsel, even when unpleasant and unappealing, she was delighted when he accepted her as his student.
The next year of her life was very demanding and a constant challenge, but Anastasia loved it. She loved everything about the life of a spiritual seeker, the long hours of prayer and meditation, the simple labours of the day, the glory of worship and the startling beauty of mysteries unveiled in the classes and the books. She loved it all.
One day Ambrose summoned her and began to question her on the development and depth of her prayer life. She described to him the rich variety of prayer that sustained her, especially the prayer of the psalms. The master listened silently and attentively, and then gave her a new instruction. From that day on, she was to pray the Jesus Prayer, a simple, constant repetition of the name of Jesus. Nothing could have displeased Anastasia more. She grudgingly began to pray as instructed. Yet, every chance she got, she complained of Ambrose’s direction and secretly followed her own counsel. After all, she argued to herself, this simple prayer was ridiculously easy and lacked every challenge for a person as committed to and advanced in the spiritual life as she was.
Several weeks passed, and finally Ambrose summoned the young woman again. This time he walked with her through the orchards, under the trees and finally paused at the bank of the river. Throughout the walk he carried a large sack, slung over his right shoulder. At the bank of the river, he finally handed the sack to Anastasia and told her it was a gift for her. Inside was astonishingly beautiful coat, hand woven of the finest wool and exquisitely warm. The woman was stunned by the lavish gift, unsure what to make of it. Then Ambrose spoke.
»Child«, he said, »the coat is yours under one condition. You must put it on and then swim to the other bank of the river«.
Puzzled at the seemingly silly condition, Anastasia pulled the warm coat on and began to swim across the river. She could not help but smile to herself, because the warm, rich wool kept the chilling cold of the water from her.
Yet, as she swam the coat began to absorb the water and it grew heavier with every stroke of her arms. Her strength began to flag, as the leaden weight of the coat dragged her down to the bottom of the river. In desperation she tore open the buttons and let the beautiful coat sink into the river’s churning black depths. Struggling to get back to the shore, she finally managed to drag herself out of the water, panting and wheezing with exertion.
Ambrose looked down silently at her. »Do you now understand?«, he asked. Shaking her head, he sighed and knelt next to the shivering student. «The lesson is essential, child. We must learn to cling to what is life-giving, not to that which is merely comfortable.«
There it is; the spiritual challenge of Sabbath-keepers flung into the midst of the bustling crowd. Will we cling to what is merely comfortable or will we strip away some of those comforts in order to cling to the life-giving? This is no simple question, for the human desire to cling to the comfortable is far stronger than we dare admit. Yet every genuine hope for a new life, a richer life, a Sabbath life, is inextricably connected to how we answer this question.
I need to add a clarifying word here about Sabbath. While the word is usually identified with a specific day, Sabbath is more than that. In its deepest, broadest meaning it is the recipe for the proper balance of work and leisure required for a healthy human life. Sabbath-keeping is a practice that can and must go well beyond whether or not we go to Church on Sunday. It is about reserving space for the soul to breathe and flourish. It is about realigning priorities so that one facet of life (productivity) does not suffocate the rest of what it takes to be fully alive.
It is my deepest hope, that in the days beyond the pandemic, we will walk the road of faith together with the balance of Sabbath in our veins. In the end it will not be enough to say we found the wisdom to know the good, or even the courage to choose the good. In the end it will only be enough if we have the strength to make this recognised and chosen good endure. Join the resistance! Become a Sabbath-keeper!
Erik Riechers SAC, July 9th, 2021
The Conversation we are not having
Sabbath living is not the religious equivalent of stress management. The Christian spiritual tradition adds an important ingredient to the mix, namely a rich metaphorical language that links commitment and spiritual growth at the hip.
Jesus does not merely reveal to us that there are seeds of fruitfulness for every mortal life. He goes into the frustrating details of the sowing that yields rather varied results, including a startling number of fruitless failures. An invitation to reap in fields that are white for the harvest is still a summons to back breaking labour. There is talk about waiting for growth and of weeding when the time is right. Christian spirituality is not about the way we think of certain things, but the way we respond to them. Indescribable is the dental damage brought upon me by the teeth-grinding chatter about life improvement with nary a word about personal investment or commitment.
A woman once told me of her frustration after attending a workshop on life management skills and stress reduction. At first she was enthusiastic about being told to slow down, smell the roses, enjoy life, simplify her lifestyle, downsize her expectations and get in contact with her inner child. She returned home with a fiery determination to turn a new leaf. Her first week back confronted her with a home whose every room created a unique challenge to good housekeeping. Her office had been cleverly redecorated in a new style best described as »wind strewn«. Her husband, whose every sage pronouncement had been met of late by contortionist facial movements and the rolling of their adolescent daughter’s eyes, wandered through the house muttering darkly about adoption agencies. By the end of the week her fresh resolve to »manage« her life and stress had dissolved completely. Her words still ring in my mind. »After dealing with my life, how will I find the time to do all the stuff they talked about in the course?«
She may well have received sound advice at her workshop, but none of it actually happens without commitment. The Sabbath approach to the hassle of modern living will insist on a vigorous sifting of our priorities and some very hard, concrete choices to change them. The harried lady had the genuine desire to improve her life, but she did not have the will to make the difficult choices that make it possible.
A further reason for taking a specifically faith filled approach to the struggle with contemporary living is that it weans us from the crippling dependency on pleasure and self-satisfaction. Several years ago, while on a lengthy transatlantic flight, the man in the seat next to me began to extol the virtues of the self-help book in which he was engrossed (but sadly not deeply enough to spare his hapless seatmate). He could not praise the author highly enough. Every word in the book resonated with him and it was as if the author had read his mind. He could find nothing in the book with which he disagreed. To quote his words, »I just love it!«
Such conversations leave Sabbath-keepers uneasy and restless. The book certainly met with the talkative traveller’s approval, but that is hardly the issue if we are seeking a way out of our spiritual crisis. He answered the question, »Is it enjoyable?« But what about, »Is it helpful?« Lest there be any doubt, those two questions are not the same nor do they result in the same conclusions. Enjoyable counsel does not mean it can help us. In the spiritual life we need to look at realities that are not pleasurable and often very intimidating. The topography of the soul requires a visit to the hard and barren places of the heart. We have to work with dry bones, draw water from rock and gather bread from the sun-baked desert floor. More often than not, what we discover in those places is that our indiscriminate craving for satisfaction has lead to our deepest dissatisfaction, distress and dejection.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 7th, 2021
Sabbath and the Pandemic
We are slowly emerging from a long and very tiresome period of our lives. We are looking at ways to ease back into life, especially community life. We, too, are preparing to end the long accompaniment of »May you be sheltered«. It is time to move back into more conventional ways of being Church with and for each other.
But we should be cautious about the way we return to »normal«. As tiring as these months have been, our restlessness should not drive us to mindlessly return to our previous bad habits. Among the very worst of them is our hectic, work-driven, stress-filled way of living.
The picture is not uncommon. A person is walking briskly to work. He or she has a headset attached to the MP3 player resting in their pocket while they furiously work on the IPhone. There you have it: the modern paragon of efficiency. Exercise, entertainment and business are all tightly wrapped together in order to maximise the use of their time.
It is expected that the passers-by will be filled with rapturous admiration for these power-walking, wireless wonder. After all, they are the embodiment of the person who can juggle everything life throws at them and still make it all come together. This is the aspiration of millions of people, namely, to find a way to squeeze everything they want or need to do within an ever-shrinking window of opportunity. Welcome to the empire of efficiency, where productivity is High King and time is money.
Forewarned by wise storytellers, we once again rush to take our busy place in this dreary world. We should have known better. The demands of life keep us constantly on the run, on call and on the move. Our burgeoning calendars bristle with appointments, which we consider a badge of honour and a mark of obvious success. We are defiantly proud of the fact that we can manage it all, keep it all running and that we are in demand. Despite concerned and loving warnings about the need for rest and rejuvenation, we are convinced that we are living full out, no holding back. When we are firing on all cylinders it has an almost intoxicating effect on us.
If anything retains the power to unsettle us, it is the encounter with people who move against this grain. With an alarming sense of ease they blend intense working lives with times of refreshing rest. Like resistance fighters, they refuse to submit to the tyranny of the contemporary rat race. Unabashedly and without apology, they step out of the constant drive to produce. These irritatingly well-balanced people lack even the good grace to be embarrassed by their apparent waste of time. They seem merrily unperturbed by the fact that they could be labelled as lazy, ineffective and lacking all proper motivation. They are active people, but not always on the run. Time is not money for them, but a precious gift to be savoured. There are people who openly proclaim these seditious leanings in the midst of the culture of non-stop productivity. These are subversives, undermining the unquestioned premise of the rest of the society with a languid sauciness.
Beneath the bustling, productive world of politics, family, entertainment, religion and work this spiritual resistance movement has burrowed a modern set of catacombs. Their caverns and corridors are filled with Sabbath-keepers.
Like every generation before us, we must grapple with a spiritual struggle particular to our time. Today we, too, have demons to face and exorcise, but they are a particularly wily brand of devil. They work their wickedness among us under the unassuming names of speed, efficiency and productivity. Nothing more clearly defines our spiritual crisis in the western world than the addiction to never-ending productivity and the harrowing debilitation that it wreaks in every facet of our lives. While we proudly trumpet what we have accomplished, created and manufactured, we are reluctant to admit that we do not really know how to live with the side effects. This manic, ceaselessly driven lifestyle is the breeding ground of the exhausted soul. It is also the moment of spiritual rebirth for the one grace that might save our lives, namely, Sabbath time.
Sabbath-keepers have their work cut out for them. Exhausted souls are legion and they are famished for spiritual solace for their harried, if highly efficient, lives. Yet, who is left to speak comfort to them? Fine and good is the challenge to set out on a faith journey, but this is a crowd that has been given precious little advice on what to pack for the trip. They are constantly reminded and encouraged to gear down their consumerist and materialist overdrive, but are dragged helpless and often involuntarily back into the sucking whirlpool of modern living. With remarkable flippancy all blame for the exhausted soul is uncritically blamed on rampant consumerism and unfettered materialism. Yet, in reality they are only the symptoms of the deeper and more dangerous problem of the suppression the Sabbath rhythms of life. Having been banished from our spiritual practice for so long, Sabbath was first forced into the catacombs by the creeping culture of productivity, and then left to slumber beneath a blanket of collective amnesia.
It could be argued that there is no need after the »enforced Sabbath« of the pandemic to speak about the strain of modern living. I obviously disagree. If it affects human life, it is a topic for spiritual reflection and guidance. There is no task more central to the work of spirituality than to touch the mystery of God to the flesh and blood of the people he loved from the beginning. It is an oft forgotten truth of the faith, but if something matters to human beings, it matters to God. Everything that makes us ache or laugh, weep or dance, writhe in agony or rock with passion interests the God of Infinite Love and Mercy. Our God, who cares about the lilies of the field, the birds of the air and the hairs on our heads, is unlikely to adopt a sudden disinterest in the exhausted soul.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 5th, 2021
Turning Light into Darkness
14. Sunday B 2021 Mk 6, 1b-6
The opening scene of this story always reminds me, that a story can take very unexpected and dark turns. After all, the beginning hardly prepares us for what comes afterwards. Jesus is teaching in the synagogue and we are told that »many who heard him were astounded.« Normally, it is a wonderful thing when people experience astonishment and this moment of surprise and wonder can lead us to wonderful places. We can seek more, inquire deeper, and discover a passion hitherto unsuspected in the depths of our souls.
In fact, the people of astonishment start to ask deeper questions. »Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!« All of these questions demonstrate, that their astonishment is unleashing new processes in them, setting their hearts and minds in motion that is looking for the source of this power that has overwhelmed them.
Then the story takes a dark turn. »Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him.« When astonishment turns to dismissiveness, then offence is born. And what is the source of this dismissiveness? The mere fact that they know him, his family and his origins. Here light is turned to darkness.
We have in English the telling proverb: Familiarity breeds contempt. But before familiarity breeds contempt, it breeds assumptions. We become so accustomed to people and their ways, that we simply assume that we have a clear oversight of all that they are and of all of which they are capable. These assumptions breed a deep laziness in us which convinces us that we no longer need to think, ponder and evaluate what we are experiencing in the people we have come to take for granted. In many ways, we are no longer encountering them in any real sense of the word. We are working out of the caricatures we have created about them. We assume that we have seen it all while we are not even bothering to look openly at them anymore. We are sure that we know the end of the story without reading the rest of the chapters.
This contempt, born of lazy, unquestioned assumptions, is a terrible thing. It takes our astonishment and all its potential and turns it into a shabby and offensive derision. What a terrible thing we do to others when we find our variation of »Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?«
What can sound like a relatively harmless question contains within it a destructive and deliberating force that destroys wonder and inquisitiveness, and eventually our relationships. This is the moment when we say to others: »Your life is not worthy of reverence. Your life is too plain, too commonplace and too shallow to be deemed worthy of being treated as a mystery, as something that has yet to be unveiled in all its glory, all its beauty and all its depth. Nothing you can say or do can surprise us. Thus, we will not take of our sandals and tread carefully, because we do not consider your life to be holy ground.«
»Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?« When we employ our variation of this question, we come to the moment when we say to others: »You cannot grow beyond what we have already seen and what we have known of you. We would bind you to the smallness, brokenness and poverty we have experienced and encountered in you and preserved you in it forever.«
When we dismissively say that we know people, their clan and their heritage, then we say to them: »You cannot develop into something more, something greater, than that which you have been to date. You cannot acquire a greater wisdom, maturity, or thoughtfulness than what we have already experienced.«
That is why this is such a dark turn in the story. In every place that this scenario is played out the past experiences of a person are no longer building blocks of which a future is made. The past is transformed, into a prison, where we hold a person captive, fettered to one stage of life, to some immaturity and inadequacy that we have found in them, their family or their story
This is a fundamental sin against hope. Hope is the openness toward the future and its unknown possibilities. And to use this language which destroys astonishment and replaces it with derision and dismissiveness, is to firmly shut the doors to hope. William Shakespeare so aptly described the future as »the undiscovered country«. The people in the synagogue act as if the possibilities Jesus brings are as common as a walk through a well-known, oft traversed neighbourhood.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once wrote: »The only task worthy of our efforts is to construct the future.« We usually think of this in terms of the future of the country, the state or the church. But it is equally true of the future of each individual person, of every life we encounter that has the power to astonish us. In those moments we could open the door to a future of healing and new life. We should be in the business of turning darkness into light, not the other way around. Or it can end like this story: »And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.«
Let’s face it. If we can do this to Jesus, we can do it to anybody.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 4th, 2021
Exercising Reverence
What do we (still) revere?
The older ones among us strongly hear the fear and remember small-minded educational methods and catechesis. Younger people usually can't do a thing with this word anymore.
But how do we live without reverence?
We live without the dimension of the sacred in our lives. Everything we perceive and consider significant falls short. We worship treasures that pass away. We are in danger of withering away in our humanity.
It can be a blessing to meet people who, in some way, become a key for us to this world of the sacred and can show us what reverence really means. Such a person was Bishop Reinhold Stecher. His keys were word and image.
What he writes about water can change the way we look out at the world:
» In order to value water, that is, to consider it a treasure, more is needed than just an appraisal
in the material sense.
Water deserves reverence. It is the first thing mentioned of creation in Scripture.
Gen 1, 2: ‚God’s spirit hovered over the waters...‘
And so the praise of the springs and fountains, of the streams and rivers, of the lakes and the sea,
of the rain and the dew, and of the trees that stand on the shore,
and never wither, splashes and gurgles and rustles
through all the songs of the Bible as well as the Holy Scriptures of the nations,
and always the water is a symbol of something greater, deeper, more joyful.« *
* Text and picture from R. Stecher Bildkalender 2018
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, July 2nd, 2021
»Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them.«
I was recently told that idolatry was no longer a relevant topic for modern men and women. While I wholeheartedly disagree with that assessment, I can understand the reason for it. Whenever the biblical stories speak of idolatry, our minds are filled with stereotypical images that are more caricature than reality. This over simplification causes modern men and women to struggle with the concept of idolatry, if they do not dismiss it out of hand. It is perceived to be a problem of an ancient world, but not one as modern, advanced and civilised as our own.
Indeed, the idolaters of the biblical stories created a great many idols. They worshipped the sun, the stars, and the forces of nature as gods. But rather more succinctly, and definitely more ominously, they also worshipped power and, of course, those who wielded it, such as kings and potentates.
The biblical storytellers all knew that God was never merely a powerful part of nature, and not even the sum of all the powers in nature. God was always more, always greater, always beyond.
It is worth noting what idolaters choose to worship. The forces of nature are impersonal, as is power. This raises a deep concern, even alarm, in the stories of God. If we raise the impersonal to the status of divinity, we will start to worship the impersonal. But as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks never tired of pointing out, those who worship the impersonal will eventually lose their humanity.
The story of Psalm 115 is a fitting warning of this movement toward inhumanity. There it is written:
Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
they make no sound in their throats.
Those who make them are like them;
so are all who trust in them. (Psalm 115, 4-8)
We are not particularly inclined to worship the sun, the stars, and the forces of nature as divine beings. But we have not lost our penchant for worshipping power or those who bear it. The culture of celebrity is such an example. We also worship money, consumption, luxury, and entertainment, as is evidenced by the fact that we are willing to sacrifice nearly everything else to get to them. But these are impersonal forces. They have no name and no face. They have no voice with which to speak to us. They have no eyes that could see our hopes and our despair, our griefs and our aspirations. They have no ears that could attentively listen to our sorrow and lamentation and pleading. They, like all idols, demand constant and unquestioning sacrifices if we would enjoy their beneficence. But they are not present to any who cannot pay the piper.
We cannot worship impersonal forces and remain true human beings. For to be a genuine human being, means we are compassionate, humane, generous, and forgiving. In these waning days of the pandemic, we are returning to the idols that could not avert the crisis, could not alleviate the crisis and could not guide us through it. They will amuse us, distract us, and even satisfy us for a time, but they will not guide us to the Promised Land. What they will most certainly do, is rob us of our humanity. And that is why idolatry is always a relevant topic.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 30th, 2021
Life – a balancing act?
As a child, and for a long time thereafter, I loved to balance on garden walls or tree trunks laying on the ground. Highly concentrated and focused, I put one foot in front of the other. Allowing myself to be distracted was always risky, and I often stumbled and had trouble staying on top. A noise from the side, a laugh from friends, a digression from attentiveness - and already the balance was lost and the stability gone.
Why does this come to mind now, you may ask. I am reflecting on what has happened to us that we are increasingly, it seems, losing our stability on our life's journey. The past 16 months brought it clearly to light: we walked for a stretch well balanced and with firm step, but then we stared at the rates of infection, listened to the words of politicians and experts - and everything started to waver. We were content and even amazed at how well we could live with less diversion and consumption, but then travel opportunities flashed up here and there and we became restless, unbalanced and dissatisfied.
How often have we cleared things up in our lives, in our relationships, and made good decisions - and yet we always get off again inside or get so irritated by little remarks that we really fall down into old patterns.
While in the mountains, I had conversations now and then with old mountain farmers. Their eyes lit up with life when they told me about themselves and their families. The stories were very different. What they had in common was their constancy, a certain inner peace and equilibrium. They also told of loss, death and hard work, but I gained the impression of a great stability. It was within them. This unshakable interiority radiated from their eyes and characterized the way they told their stories. They told of their very own lives, how they had accepted and shaped them, and not of »what if«. I was impressed by their contentment, their presence, their clarity.
Today more than back then, Jesus' words come to my mind: »Do not let your hearts be troubled.«
Indeed, confusion makes us waver and become unstable. The disciples are in exactly this danger, because the threat is growing and Jesus prepares them for departure with this word. And he immediately adds what is essential: »Believe in God and believe in me!« (Jn 14, 1) Before that, Jesus celebrated the last meal with his friends and before that he had washed their feet. It is said in John's Gospel that he knew »he had come from God and was going to God« (Jn 13, 3).
Can we say the same for ourselves? Perhaps we have lost this great arc of our lives. If so, let us return to it. Do we belong in the many little places that are offered to us from the outside and sometimes make us almost dizzy? Or do we belong to God, from the beginning to eternity? How does this work? The disciples' questions are also ours, Jesus' answer is also for us: »I am the way and the truth and the life«. (Jn 14, 6)
We are at the mercy of so many voices that try to penetrate our hearts through so many channels. They drown out the One who dwells in our hearts from the beginning. Let us decide to leave many things at the door and encounter God in us again and again. Jesus promises his disciples that through the Spirit they will know, »I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you«. (Jn14, 20)
A woman who had lost everything grew into this relationship and, when I visited her, was able to say with a clear voice and shining eyes: »I am well. I am filled with deep love.«
I wish this deep inner stability for all of us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 27th, 2021
Please walk me through this story
13. Sunday B 2021 Mk 5, 21-43
I had a cherished friend whom I was forced to watch die in stages. The cancer which eventually would claim her life, first took her tongue. And from one moment to the next, the easy conversations of a lifetime became difficult. But we never gave up.
When I would visit her, she would often open her Bible, point to a story and write a note. »Please walk me through this story.« Unable to leave her bed or the hospital room, I guided her through the worlds created by the biblical words.
Today I would offer my services as a guide through the biblical story populated with a variety of characters. It is a story of a budding young life and a depleted old life, of suffering and hope, of voices of resignation and voices of faith. If you would come, I will gladly guide you.
The blood of two people plays a major role in this story. Blood is the principle of life in the biblical narrative. When we often read that contact with blood makes a person impure, it is not because blood is impure. The impurity comes because when we come into contact with blood, it no longer flows where it can serve life.
In the woman »who had had a flow of blood for twelve years« the blood, the life principle is steadily draining away. Mark tells us that as far as life is concerned, she is bleeding out. She »had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse.« Here Jesus wants to put a stop to a life that is bleeding out and draining away.
In the veins of the daughter the blood has come to a standstill, a very profound image for death. When the blood, the life principle, comes to a standstill, then we are dead. Here Jesus wants to bring life back into motion.
At this point, we have two people who need salvation and life. We also have Jesus who wants to give salvation and life. In order for this story, like our story, to be a salvation story, the woman and Jairus need to know where salvation and life can be found, and then go there, come what may. Knowing that Jesus can help will not be enough. If there is no encounter, there is no healing.
Pause with me a moment at this juncture. It is worthwhile to note how two forms of salvation are presented here side by side. The woman makes contact with Jesus herself. If we are adults, then we must also have this ability that we ourselves take the initiative, walk paths, dare to touch and learn to risk encounters. But Jairus shows us that there is also a second way. He represents the interests of his daughter, because she is already too ravaged and weakened to take the initiative and go her own way. Sometimes, we need to open paths to salvation for people who have lost the ability to seek them for themselves. Furthermore, when we take our turn among the weakened ones, we should also be ready to allow others to perform this service for us.
Let us return to the woman and the child. In the narrative, they are connected by the number 12. The woman suffers twelve years of loss of life. Here, the number twelve is the symbol of a suffering that has that has taken too long. The girl dies at the age of 12 and thus the number becomes a symbol of a life that has been ended all too early. These are the plagues we know as human beings. There is suffering that we have to bear for too long, which then wears us down and drains us. But there is also suffering that takes away the beautiful and beloved part of life too soon. 12 is also our number, because in the course of our days, we suffer both the fate of the woman and the child.
I would now like to look at the stations in the story of Jairus, because they are important points of reference for us when we longingly seek a way of salvation for those who are dear to us.
- State your request, clearly, distinctly and urgently.
Jairus does not just say he needs help. He says, »My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live!« In saying this, he names the one for whom he needs help (his little daughter), why she needs his help (she is dying), what help he is asking Jesus to give (come and touch her), and what he hopes will happen (that she may experience healing and life).
This is a great art and we should not underestimate it. We are accustomed to complaining about what ails us in very vague tones. Thus, we will say »I am not well« without naming what ails us and stating what we need concretely right now.
- Choose the voice you will heed.
With the message »Your daughter is dead« comes the hour of shock. But at this very moment, like Jairus, we must choose which voice we will listen to. There are those who say, »Why trouble the Teacher any further?« Here is the voice of resignation. It tells us that it's too late, that there's no point in going on, and that it won't do us any good anyway. But there is also the voice of Jesus that says, »Do not fear, only believe!« Here we decide whether and how quickly we write off and give up our longing and heart's desire.
- Do not let the crowd determine your course of action.
Jesus enters the house and wants to comfort the weeping, complaining crowd. He wants to give them a perspective of hope. »The child is not dead but sleeping.« His reward for this act of kindness is that the people in the room laugh at him.
Being laughed at is a startlingly painful form of rejection. When people says to us, that they refuse our request, we are disappointed and perhaps discouraged. But when people laugh at our words, they not only reject our request, but makes it clear to us that our longing is not even worthy of serious consideration. It is a bitter way of discovering that in their eyes what is dear to our hearts is ridiculous and laughable. Then we feel not only disappointed and discouraged, but humiliated and degraded.
- Take only companions with you who support your heart's desire.
Jesus does not grit his teeth and try to change these people's minds or convince them. At the same time, he does not defend or justify himself. His attitude is admirable. If the others do not share his heart's desire, he leaves them be and takes with him those who are willing to take this path with him. So he takes Jairus, his wife and the three disciples with him.
How often we complain about the people who do not share our concerns and do not carry them! But when we do so, they gain a great power over us. While we are busy trying to convince or persuade them, our heart’s desire is neglected and those willing to journey with us are left waiting in the wings, but do not get the go-ahead.
- Take the life that is threatened in your hand. Touch it.
We can easily freeze when a part of our life lies rigid and cold in front of us. Again and again I experience people telling me about the parts of their lives they deem to be threatened, be it in their relationships or in the shaping of their freedom. But they do nothing. They do not move. They do not dare anything. They take no steps and explore none of the possibilities that are present. We need to touch these parts of our lives, address them as Jesus does. Otherwise we will only have conversations with corpses.
- When life is restored, do not be paralyzed with wonder, but serve life.
Mark tells us the reaction of the people. »They were immediately overcome with amazement.« Jesus, on the other hand, takes a very pragmatic approach and says to give the girl something to eat. When we finally regain the life we once lost, we should look to serve, nourish, nurture and protect that life. It would be very tragic to bring the child back to life and then let her wither away from hunger.
But the danger is there. Do we not know such moments when we have sworn that when this pandemic is over, we will never again take this or that for granted? Have we not known moments of suffering that made us long to be health, fit and able again, only to neglect those very gifts when they are restored to us?
I had a cherished friend whom I was forced to watch die in stages. I watched her life bleed away slowly. But she wanted to touch the hem of his garment and she was grateful for every journey through a biblical story I accompanied her on. In her beat the courageous and bold heart of the bleeding woman. In her flowed the seeking spirit of Jairus. May that heart beat in us and that spirit course through our veins, so that we too may never fail to ask: »Please walk me through this story.«
Erik Riechers SAC, June 27th, 2021
Walk humbly with your God
A Prayer:
Merciful and just God!
We have been instructed to walk our paths humbly with You.
You know that this is often difficult for us. How we like to be in the right. How often we want to attribute blame.
Self-righteously we judge. Self-centered, we avoid lovingly putting ourselves in another's shoes. Self-absorbed, we lose ourselves.
If only we could sense the ground on which we all stand! Then we would be grounded and would not try to rise above each other. And we would walk upright and be able to look each other in the eye. Thus, we could walk with each other - and with You, as Your people!
In Your great love You take care of us - from the beginning unto eternity. You walk with us and show yourself to us. Help us to be attentive, sensitive and awake on our way through life - towards ourselves, towards others, towards the whole creation - and to discover YOU in all this. When we then sense and discover evermore Your justice and Your mercy, let us try to live and love them, so that Your kingdom may come.
»He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.«
Amen.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 25th, 2021
Love Goodness
As we already know, the prophet Micah saw the grievances among his people, named them clearly and knew what to do: »He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love goodness and to walk humbly with your God.« (Micha 6, 6-8)
Today we turn to the second task: to love goodness!
Goodness is also often translated as mercy. This can help us if we look at this word in Hebrew, where it has the same root as »womb«. Then we will get a deeper insight into the essence of mercy. It comes from the depths and is life-giving. It has existentially in mind the good of the other. To show mercy means to enter into the life of the other with all its chaos. God himself says to Moses at Sinai in passing: »The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. «. (Ex 34, 6)
It is precisely in this sense that Jesus says to the opinionated and heartless Pharisees: »But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice!« (Mt 9,13) They sacrifice people in order to formally fulfill the law; Jesus, however, mercifully turns to the tax collectors and sinners and celebrates fellowship with them. Elsewhere he says that he did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, in the spirit of God who gave it. Mercy, goodness, is the pulsating heart of the Gospel. How often it is said of Jesus that he had mercy on the people he met - the sick, the suffering, the many who seemed to him like sheep without a shepherd, even, in the end, on his executioners. His heart cannot but love and live mercy.
This is exactly how the heart of the father of the two sons is in one of the most famous parables of Jesus that Luke tells us. When the prodigal returns home, it says: »But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.« (Lk 15,20) His kindness, his mercy literally flow out of him and in the same way his heart turns to his eldest: »My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.« (V. 31)
Goodness, mercy, cannot be formally fulfilled according to certain rules and commandments. That is why Micah calls us to love them. Then our heart becomes wide and we become creative. We act like a mother, from the ground of our being, for life and its fullness.
In the Gospel of Matthew, written for a Jewish Christian community, justice and mercy play a major role. At the beginning we are introduced to a man who lives and combines both according to God's instruction: Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth. He is called a tzaddik, a righteous man, and he shows what kind of righteousness he has: he interprets the law of the Torah mercifully after he learns that his fiancée Mary is pregnant, and decides to release her quietly and not to stone her to death, as strict teachers of the law demanded. That would have been right!
In a dream he learns from whom the child is and chooses life again. From now on, he shares the life of Mary and the child.
Doing right and loving goodness go hand in hand in the kingdom of God.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 23rd, 2021
Act Justly
A few years ago, I encountered a life teaching so succinct that I haven't forgotten it since. I read it in English at the time and it stuck with me: »Act justly and love mercy and walk humbly with your God.«
That sounds short and sweet: Act justly, love mercy and be humble on the way with your God!
It is approximately 2700 years old and the simple advice of the prophet Micah. We Christians know Micah from the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew. The scribes quote him when the Magi come to Jerusalem: »But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.« (Mt 2, 6) Already this verse breathes the basic tone of the prophet and it breathes it until this day, because the topics are highly pertinent.
This small book of the prophets - similar to the book of the prophet Amos - denounces above all the antisocial way of life of the ruling class with its tendency to corruption, selfishness and exploitation. The little people do not count. This situation back then in this small and limited environment is no different today on the global scale, and the last few months in particular have brought it to light again: many are using the crisis for personal enrichment; whether and when the poorest can get vaccinated is hardly in mind - the main thing is that we can finally live our luxuries again. The ego is the director.
Indeed, there is lots of talk and promises made and grand shows produced - Micah already knew this as well in the days of ancient Israel. Why else would he have said: » With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. « (Micah 6, 6-8)
This week, let us consider what the prophet so simply urges us to do, namely, a way of life that God expects of us because it is good for us.
Doing right, acting justly is the first task.
Children complain that it's not fair if not everyone gets exactly the same number of gummy bears in their hands. Adults are no different. Decades ago, an eldest unmarried brother died and left behind a savings book with about 10,000 DM. One of his sisters, widowed at an early age and getting by on a small pension, had taken care of him the most. But the well-off siblings thought it fair to divide the money by 6. I remember well the sister's disappointment, even shock, that no one appreciated all she had done for her brother and that her siblings were indifferent to the difficult conditions under which she had to make a living. She felt it was unfair what the others considered to be purely mathematically fair.
When Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount: »But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.« (Mt 6,33), then he wants to lead us to the justice of God, which has the life of all in mind and wants to give everyone what they need for life. He calls us to this. However, this sounds easier than it often is for us. We tend to act in the manner of the five brothers and sisters. This is exactly why Jesus tells us the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20): Five times a vineyard owner goes out and recruits workers for the day's work in his vineyard. With the first in the early hour he agrees on a denarius. To the second at the third hour he says: I will pay you whatever is right. Then other laborers are hired at the sixth, ninth and eleventh hours. At the end of the day, the payment begins with the last ones and they receive a denarius. This arouses covetousness in the first ones. True, they had been hired for a daily wage of one denarius. But this, they think, would not be fair now, since they have worked much longer. But it remains for them with one denarius. To their grumbling the landowner answers: »Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?«
With one denarius, a family could live for a day, and this is exactly what the lord of the manor made possible for anyone who worked for him. Our petty accountants' souls would likely calculate the »fair« shares and casually take into account that families do not get enough. But it is different with the kingdom of God. Like the landowner, people who seek God’s kingdom and its justice act so that all can live.
»He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly …«
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 21st, 2021
Battered, frustrated and exhausted
12. Sunday B 2021 Mk 4, 35-41
Storms come up quickly in life, and not just on lakes. They can also surprise us and catch us off guard with astonishing swiftness in our relationships. In nature, storms brew when the right circumstances and conditions are present. The same holds true in our relationships, and the perfect conditions for the storms of the heart are when we are battered, frustrated and exhausted. This is seldom our finest hour. We have enough to do to cope reasonably well with the struggle of everyday relationships, because they bring with them enough emotional, mental, physical and spiritual storms to navigate. Yet, when we are caught in the storm, the stress and strain it brings usually ensures that we do not attain the highest culture of conversation. The sparks and the accusations fly. When we are buffeted and threatened, we are seldom especially mindful of being thoughtful and attentive listeners to others.
That is what is happening in this boat. For the story of chapter four of Mark’s Gospel is the story of one day, and the story of that day describes how friends and companions can end up flinging accusations at people they normally love, cherish, respect and revere. Even before the storm, the passengers of this boat have been drained of much strength because the story of this day begins in this manner:
Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. And he was teaching them many things in parables, and in his teaching. (Mt 4, 1-2)
For Jesus, this is a very exhausting way to work. Spending a whole day like that, straining to be loud enough for his word to reach their ear and creative enough for his word to reach their heart was certainly very draining. It was certainly the same for the disciples as well, because when the crowd leaves, it's not the end of the day for them, but the second round where they still had very long, focused and challenging conversations with Jesus.
And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables… With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything. (Mk 4, 10, 33-34)
We are latecomers to this day and its story, which is a warning unto itself. It is always difficult and dangerous to judge what is unfolding before our eyes, if we do not know the oft winding story that preceded it. We begin at the end of the day when evening draws near. And Mark makes a small but telling remark we should not overhear. »And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.«
They take him with them just as he was: tired, worn out, and spent. They have barely begun to set out for the other shore, and already he is sleeping. If we pause the story here and simply look at Jesus, we quickly and without hesitation have deep understanding for him. We know what a day he has had and then we treat our exhausted friend to a good restful sleep and a soft pillow.
But our goodwill can change quickly when we ourselves are stricken. It is much harder to graciously give other people what we ourselves are lacking. Therefore, we should take a look at the apprentices of Jesus. The day was not so easy for them either, but they have to continue working and struggling while he is sleeping. They now have to go through states of anxiety that Jesus unsuspectingly sleeps through for moment. They are not inexperienced, unstable weaklings who fold at the first hint of a problem. It's not the first storm they've weathered in their lives. But they were already tired and weary when they set out. Most likely, they are feeling a sense of abandonment, having been left alone with this struggle to fend for themselves and see how they manage to cope. Such moments and such feelings are certainly not completely foreign to us.
At some point, it all boils over. Battered, frustrated and exhausted, they accuse Jesus of a lack of care for them. »Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?« Here we must be careful not to romanticize or sanitize the story. These are human reactions that we all have to deal with, just as we have to learn to navigate a storm. Storms don't go away if we ignore them, not even the inner storms of the heart. The only thing that will go away if you ignore it is your teeth.
The disciples do what we often do when we are battered, frustrated, and exhausted: they reproach Jesus. They woke him up, but not to ask for help or succor. They seek conversation, but not to ask for advice or prayer. No, they make a harsh accusation, namely that he more or less doesn't care if they live or die.
And this reproach arises in a way that we also know. The concerned fellow travelers see and experience something they cannot interpret and draw their conclusions as to what it means, but without giving Jesus a chance to explain.
What Jesus does then is important, and we should pay attention to the way he does it.
- First he quiets the storm: Literally he says to the storm »I muzzle you«. Only when it becomes quiet again, does he clarify the reproach with his people. It is not wise to hold clarification talks in the middle of the storm, when everything is still raging and unsettling us. We need a space and a time of silence. Otherwise, only the storm, the crisis, the frustration and the fear in which people find themselves will speak, but not the people themselves.
- Then he poses questions.
»Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?«
By asking questions, Jesus gives his apprentices a chance to think about what is happening and give a response. Unlike his apprentices, who interpret the situation without giving Jesus a chance to respond, he does not reply in kind. Questions assume that there is still a need for clarification, that not all motives are known, that there are still things that should be addressed. Statements don't do that. Statements come at the end of the process. (Of course, only if the question is sincere and not a grammatically veiled accusation. After all, a question is only a question if you care about the answer.)
That is why Jesus asked about their trust, their faith. Did his apprentices really experience Jesus as a person who abandons them? Did they really experience that he does not care about the fate of his people? Where and when did they experience something like that with him?
This happens to us humans when we are battered, frustrated and exhausted. When we feel uncomfortable, threatened or overwhelmed, when we have experienced such hurt from others in the past, we find it difficult to have a conversation with a compassionate heart. When we can listen deeply and compassionately, we encourage and enable a person to speak from the heart and take the time to understand the broader context and emotions present. If we speak at the level of our defenses that we have built up to protect our emotions and core being, then our wounds and our frustration will speak.
We are all in this boat at one time or another in the course of a lifetime. All the people in this story are tired and frustrated. But they are also people who are connected to each other, dare to walk paths together and love each other. And yet the frustration overflows and then they lash out with their words. We are very vulnerable beings, especially when our strength is waning.
It can't hurt us to heed Jesus' order in the text when storms batter our relationships, friendships and loves.
- Ask questions instead of making conclusive statements.
- Move gently into the question of trust. Look at the big story of togetherness. Don't interpret an episode of uncertainty and misunderstanding outside the context of a larger, richer, more diverse story of a shared journey.
Misunderstandings come up very quickly in the storms of life. But we can also learn to navigate and manage the misunderstandings of life. If we practice a little at listening well, if we ask open and honest questions instead of levelling accusations, and if we trust that goodness, mercy and reliability are present even in such stormy hours, even if we cannot perceive them at first, then we all carry within us the potential to calm a storm.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 20th, 2021
Love, Pray and Mature III: The way of moving from infancy to adulthood.
Thus, my third point. There is a way to avoid the terrible fate of eternal immaturity in love. We must apprentice ourselves to the Spirit Master Let Jesus be our path to adult love. In his person, we find the melding of the very best that love has to offer, together with the very most it is sent to give.
If we permit Jesus to teach us, then we will be embraced into the household of love, but also sent into its vineyards to be labourers for the harvest. The Spirit Master will show us a love that is willing to sacrifice everything for our sakes, even death on the cross. Then he will call us to take up our own crosses and follow him, so that others might live because of our love. In Jesus will meet the one who loves us as a suffering servant, and who will promptly invite us to suffer in service to others. The Lord and Master of us all will show us a love that is willing to empty itself, so that the king of all kings and lord of all lords is willing to become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. Then he will invite us to do likewise.
The first great experience of love consists of ‘self’. It is the discovery that we are cared for and loved, nourished and guided. The culmination of love is found in the moment when we transcend our ‘self’. We will know we are walking with Jesus when we can appreciate in fathomless gratitude what love has done for you, and be consumed with passion to do it for others. When we ache with gratitude for all our parents did for us and throb with the desire to love our children with the same fervour, the kingdom of God is very near to us. When we thrill to the memories of teachers who showed us the way, and tremble with the desire to show others that path, Christ is not far from us. When we find ourselves thinking of how we can enrich the loves of our lives; when we ponder how we can bless the beloved in our arms; when we ache to heal the wounds in those who are the apple of our eyes, and never count the cost; then you are indeed growing to full stature in Christ, then we are growing up in love.
Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem to his son about what it means to become a mature human being. May these words be true of us as well.
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
»When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child: when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways«.
Let it be so. O Lord. Let it be so.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 18th, 2021
Love, Pray and Mature II: An adult's way of loving
Which now raises the great question: What does adult love have to look like? As I said, the way love is experienced by a child is not a problem as long as we are speaking about children. However, what is cute in 3 year olds, is horrific in adults.
To become an adult in the work of love is to move well beyond a mere fulfilment of one’s own wants and desires. The mature man or woman knows that love is not just a matter of the other person doing what I want, when I want it, as I want it. If an adult asks us for a favour and we refuse, there is a clear-cut expectation that they will not turn around and say, »Don’t you love me?«
To be an adult in God’s eyes is to participate in the saving work of love. Children demand service of love. Adults allow themselves to be taken into its service. To grow up as a Christian means that we must not just tell every person who seeks baptism how he or she will be loved by Christ, but how his love will impel us into a world of loving care, mercy and concern for others. If we are fully alive in Christ, fully grown in the Spirit, our view of the world, of relationship and of community radically change. A sure and certain sign of spiritual immaturity is found in the moment when we think the world is made only for our pleasure, that relationships are only there to meet our desires, and that community always owes us something.
The state declares us to be adults when we reach the age of 18. All kinds of rights automatically are conferred upon us once we attain the age of majority. We can frequent a bar, buy cigarettes, cast a vote, or run for office. Yet, there is no automatic conferral of responsibility. Eighteen years upon the planet do not guarantee that you will drink with moderation, consider the hazards to our health, choose wisely in a political process, or be willing to offer public service.
So, too, in the world of love. Christ grants us the freedom to live like sons and daughters of his father, but we do not have to grow up. There are men and women whose entire experience of love is childish. They want to be coddled and cared for, while preserving every egotistical impulse they ever had. They demand to be loved, cherished and respected, but never feel driven to do likewise. It is one of the sad mysteries of life. Mature bodies can easily house immature hearts and souls.
(To be continued)
Erik Riechers SAC, June 16th, 2021
Love, Pray and Mature I: A child’s way of loving
In Rosemarie’s reflection of June 4th, 2021 »For what shall we pray?« she raises serious and vitally important questions about the issues we carry in our hearts and whether we are praying as mature Christians.
Several years ago Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a bestselling semi-autobiographical novel entitled »Eat Pray Love«. If I were to write a book about my prayer life, I would entitle it »Love, Pray and Mature«.
The topic of maturity and prayer has come up often during these days of the pandemic. Sometimes people have grown into a deeper and richer prayer life because of this crisis. Others have found it a time of distress, as childish prayer habits suddenly come to light and unveil themselves as utterly incapable to supporting and sustain us through arduous times.
Once young people reach a certain age, they unleash a constant complaint upon their elders. They do not want to be treated like children. When they think that their parents or teachers are reluctant to fully trust them, and remain cautiously protective, they rebel with vigour and hormone-driven rage. The young always wish that their elders would acknowledge that they are growing up.
In the First letter to the Corinthians Paul speaks about growing up as well. Aptly enough, we can take our cue from the apostle and ask ourselves whether we are growing up as believing and faithful people of the Church. Thus, three thoughts guide this journey to a mature prayer life: (1) A child’s way of loving, (2) an adult’s way of loving, and (3) the way of moving from infancy to adulthood.
St. Paul speaks a stunning word to us in his First Letter to the Corinthians. He states, »When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child: when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways«. (1 Cor 13,11) While this is the way of all human maturation, Paul applies it particularly to the issue of being a child that needs to grow up when it comes to loving, and thus to praying.
A child’s perception of love is based on a very limited perception of its wants and desires. If you give it what it asks for, the action is considered loving. Just try refusing a child! Among the first words out of his or her mouth will be »Don’t you love me?«
Naturally, this view of love from a child’s point of view is based on an incomplete picture of the world, of relationship and of community. A child believes that mother and father are present precisely to meet their needs. It is a one way street. There is little if any consideration of responsibility or reciprocity. Children do not automatically understand that there are more people that need us than just them, and find it painful to comprehend how we could pursue other interests when they want our attention, time and energy.
Nothing about this is sinful, evil or inadequate, as long as we are speaking of children. It is the prerogative of the children to know a love that shields them completely and without cost. It is the birthright of children to know a love that revolves around them, meets their needs, soothes their worries, salves their bruises of skin and spirit, and wipes tears from their cheeks. It is the very essence of being a child to grow in the knowledge of a love to which you can flee before every terror of the night. They are supposed to relish a love into which you can cuddle until sorrow has ebbed. They are entitled to a love which you can cling to when the world seems much too large a place for those of the midget variety.
This is the first and critical stage of learning love. We must be children. It is the way we learn love from Jesus himself. In Jesus we learn of a Father (Abba) who cares for every hair on our head, who sustains us with daily bread, who welcomes our deepest fear into his loving embrace and wipes the tears from our eyes. When men and women enter into deeper conversion in their lives, they need to experience this phase of love very keenly. They need to know themselves loved beyond performance, like beloved children, like Jesus in the Jordan before his Father. »This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased«.
(To be continued)
Erik Riechers SAC, June 14th, 2021
God sees more in us than we see in ourselves
11. Sunday B 2021 Mk 4, 26–34
The text that precedes these two parables speak of 4 forms of earth and how they bear fruit, or not.
The earth is the image of the human heart and Jesus addresses the four forms of receptivity to found in that heart.
Hard earth means no receptivity.
Rocky earth represents blocked receptivity.
Thorny earth is the image of stifled receptivity.
Good earth symbolizes healthy receptivity.
What gets a little lost in all of this is the good earth. It is not commented on in a particularly satisfying way. »On good soil the word is sown among those who hear it and receive it and bear fruit thirtyfold, even sixtyfold and a hundredfold.« (Mk 4:20)
When we ponder the three forms of unresponsiveness in the human heart, there are clear strategies of the spirit to deal with them.
If your heart is hard, soften it.
If your heart is blocked, go beneath the surface, seek out, sift out and remove the blockages that hinder life from unfolding.
If your heart is stifled, remove by the roots whatever is strangling and suffocating the new life that is trying to develop within you.
But what should we do with the good earth?
The answer of today's parables is simple: nothing. Leave the good earth, the receptive heart alone. Just let it do its work.
We need to take a deep breath and relax for a moment. When remove hardness, blockage and suffocating elements, we always make a simple but beautiful discovery: what remains is always the food earth. When it comes to a good and receptive heart, it is never about creating one, but about freeing it from all that is preventing it from being what is was created to be. We are not in the business to creating good earth. We are simple freeing it up.
Here Jesus explains how the good earth works, how a receptive heart is developed and maintained in us.
In the first parable he suggests that we learn to trust the natural growth process of the heart. When contact is made between the seed (the word) and the good earth (the receptive heart), a process of development will begin. But this process is more mysterious than we think and we should not interfere with it hastily.
The sower sleeps and »rises again, it becomes night and becomes day, the seed germinates and grows and the man does not know how«. The sower's interference will add nothing to the growth process. There is a pattern in the growth that happens when seed and soil (word and heart) work well together. This pattern shows us that a multiplication of life unfolds gradually. The seed and the earth produce, »first the stalk, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.« Eventually there will be maturity and harvest, and the seed will then become bread.
If interference in the process is already discouraged, then cooperation with the process consists of attentiveness. We need to perceive the mysterious growth. We want the greater for the people, that they have more faith, life and joy. But the greater is contained in the lesser and will emerge from it. Here we need to be more attentive.
In other words, the whole process cannot be recognized at once. The full grain is in the ear, and the ear is in the stalk. The hundredfold is in the sixtyfold, and the sixtyfold is in the thirtyfold.
This teaching of Jesus is meant as a consolation. It is all there. Let it grow. For this, God gives us time and space. Becoming good earth that produces fruitful life is what we certainly all want. But that doesn't mean we have to personally direct and manage all the growth. It does not even mean that we have to understand it.
The process of growth requires trust and cooperation from us.
People need
- our patience, (space and time) so that life has a chance to unfold in the way that is right for them.
- our attention, so that we also lovingly notice what is growing in them and encourage them.
- our tender accompaniment.
What we most assuredly do not need is panic: After the seed is sown in us, we will learn about the stalk. When the stalk appears we will discover the ear; when the ear is known then the full grain will emerge.
God sees more in us than we see in ourselves. Knowing how he created us, he has deep and abiding trust that everything that we need is already there. And it is precisely this confidence that we often do not have in ourselves, in our lives and in our own hearts. It is easy to think of ourselves as a mustard seed, small and insignificant. What takes a little more work, and some getting used to, is the experience of and encounter with a God who already sees the protective, sprawling tree of life that is in our mustard see hearts and just waiting to unfold.
Psalm 92 states:
For with your work, YOU, you have made me glad,
I rejoice in the deeds of your hands.
How great are your deeds, YOU!
how deep are your plans!
How many of us have applied these words to ourselves? God certainly does.
So, don't panic! Everything we need is already here. Let's take our time, because we are allowed to grow and become greater than what we are at the present moment. Trust in the good earth of your hearts.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 13th, 2021
Where is our longing going?
We are careless with this word. We require rest or wish for more ease. We hope to become healthy or to stay healthy. We have a desire for a vacation or a desire for a delicious meal. We desire to embrace our friends again. Indeed, is there anything for which human beings cannot long?
For our longings are manifold and probably we have become much more aware of them in these times than ever before.
New and strange for many of us was the fact, that we had to wait and still have to wait, that many things cannot be satisfied as quickly as we are used to and even often claim as our right.
Therein lies a great opportunity: we can ask ourselves what lies deeper than all the needs we so quickly have on the tip of our tongue. What are we really longing for? A seriously ill woman, who has had much taken away from her, said the other day, with shining eyes, that her own long period of suffering showed her what was truly essential to her.
Let's be honest: when the wishing and the fulfilling was still easy, we were often left empty and wandered about searching for more. Let us take our deep longing gently into our hands and hold it up. Let us consider what is stirring in our hearts. Let us take our restlessness seriously, even if it is still quite diffuse. Let us endure it and dare to take a new look.
Andreas Knapp has had his experiences with this and shares it with us in this way:
from god's viewpoint
is our searching for god
perhaps the way he keeps us on track
and our hunger for him the means
by which he nourishes our life
is our wandering pilgrimage
the tent in which god is a guest
and our waiting for him
his patient knocking
is our longing for god
the flame of his presence
and our doubt the space
in which god believes in us
(from: Andreas Knapp, Höher als der Himmel 2018)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 11th, 2021
What is your life worth to you?
To all those who say: But I'm allowed to criticize a little bit, aren't I?
A parable.
The man sat down in the chair with a thud. His companion raised his eyebrows at this rather dour arrival and responded with graciousness. »Welcome. It is good to see you again. Please feel free to order whatever you wish from the menu. You are my guest today.«
But the glowering guest seemed impervious to the graciousness of his host. He snapped at the waitress: »Bring me a cappuccino!«, tossed the menu at her, and waved her off dismissively. It is really quit astonishing how mortals can develop an immunity to kindness.
Having cocked an eyebrow again his host said: »Come now, let us relax and enjoy each other’s company, good coffee, fresh air and warm sunshine. You came, because you wanted to talk. So let’s do that and have a grand conversation.«
From the chapped lips of the guest, however, poured a litany of complaint. Relentlessly, he critiqued every slight, real or imagined, that he has encounter in the past weeks. When the waitress brought his cappuccino, he did not bother to favour her with either a word of thanks or a glance. Instead he took one sip and muttered, »Can’t even brew a decent cup of coffee in this place. And by the time this waitress brings it, it isn’t even hot anymore.«
While the young woman walked back into the restaurant, the guest leaned back in his chair, exhausted from the heavy burden of judging and condemning the world. It really is quite exhausting when you have to do God’s work for him. Now he sat expectantly, awaiting from his host the consolation and affirmation so rightfully his.
»What is your life worth to you?«, asked his host.
The man was utterly flustered. »Whatever do you mean?«
»Well, I have listened to your demands for all this time. You have clear and massive expectations of what you believe others should be doing for your life. You itemize quite painstakingly all the efforts they should be making to entertain, sooth, satisfy and carry the burdens of your life.
But, what is your life worth to you? What time and space are you investing in learning and growing, expanding the horizons of you concern? What efforts are you making at serious living? What steps are you taking toward becoming a person of greater kindness and courtesy? Are you willing to make the effort of having a grand conversation, or are you settling for these wearisome monologues of self-referential complaint? Are you working at helping to carry the burdens of life, or are you merely a burden the rest of us are expected to carry? Are you growing up? What about your engagement? Or are you still sitting on the fence and critiquing the life in others you are not willing to live yourself? Do you make as much effort in knowing others as you expect them to make to know every whim, fancy and desire of yours?
What is your life worth to you? After all, if your do not value your life enough to do any of these things for it, why should anyone else? If you do not care enough to make it beautiful, beloved and attractive, why should anyone else bother?«
The guest blustered and sputtered. »But I'm allowed to criticize a little bit, aren't I?« When his host did not respond, he rose from the chair of hospitality that he had turned into a throne of judgement and stomped off.
The host watched him disappear into the distance. He then summoned the waitress and paid her for the coffees, paid her an exorbitant tip and paid her an exquisite compliment for her kind, thoughtful and attentive service. Then he whispered a word into her ear and walked away, whistling a cheerful tune.
In the restaurant, the barista asked the young waitress what had taken place out on the patio.
»The man who stomped off was a sniper.«
The barista laughed in disbelief. »A sniper. What makes you say something like that?«
The waitress looked intently at him. »Yes, a sniper. He takes the shot at others, but it too cowardly to engage openly in the battle of life, where he would risk some wounds of his own.«
»Is that what the host whispered into your ear«, the barista inquired, unable to hide his curiosity.
»No«, she laughed. »He apologised for his guest’s poor manners and then told me: Petty criticism is always exercised by those who bring no positive and creative contribution of their own to the world.«
Erik Riechers SAC, June 9th, 2021
How shall we live?
One day, visitors came to a hermit. They asked him, »What meaning do you see in your life of silence? « He was busy drawing water. He was drawing it from a cistern. He thought and said, »Look into the cistern. What do you see? «
The people looked into the cistern, »We see nothing. «
After a while, the hermit asked the visitors again, » Look into the cistern. What do you see?« They looked down and said, »Now we see ourselves! «
The hermit said, »When I drew water earlier, the water was turbulent and you could not see anything. Now the water is calm, and you see yourselves. This is the experience of stillness. «
Some of the experiences of the last 15 months, for most of us, have been significantly greater peace, far fewer distractions, less being driven, and more time.
How did we fill it? How did we use it? Did we take an honest look at ourselves? Were we able to discover anything essential about ourselves and for our lives? Or was it all just a terribly long wait for the world to offer us again all that we supposedly need to live?
The hermit of our little story did not dismiss his visitors so quickly. For he continued: »And now wait for a while. « And after a while he said again, » Now look into the well. What do you see?"«
The people looked down: » Now we see the stones at the bottom of the well. «
Then the monk explained, » If you wait long enough, you will get to the bottom of all things. «
Perceiving the ground of all things helps us to stand well in life; deeply rooted, firmly anchored and truly grounded, we can embrace and shape our present. Thus, we do not waver with every wind, always in danger of losing our footing and always tempted to cling to external things. Then we become inwardly free from external circumstances. Of course, part of life is enjoying celebrations together, good meals, and beautiful trips - but just not in the way of circling like vultures around the next thrill. The old saying of » less is more « is true: then we live more consciously, more mindfully and more intensively.
With this in mind, I give you a poem by Andreas Knapp:
Rules for Real Presence
we have no open-ended contract
with life
Time gives itself only
from now to the moment
do not waste your time
and do not kill it either
like a fly that pesters
do not pick the day apart
use the windows of time
for silent gazing
mindfully
inhabit your body
do not pass by the rose on the way
stay and breathe in its fragrance
only the moment is real
when will you live, if not now
(from: Andreas Knapp, Gedichte auf Leben und Tod, 2016: trans: E. Riechers)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 7th, 2021
Denying the Truth we already Know
10. Sunday B 2021 Mk 3, 20–35
The Scribes level an astonishing accusation against Jesus.
»And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul,’ and ‘by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.’«
The problem here is straightforward: the scribes themselves know full well that what they are saying cannot be true. Theologically well versed, they know that that what they are saying is a total contradiction to fundamental truths of faith, which they themselves teach and uphold.
»And he called them to him and said to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.’«
What Jesus points to in all of this is a basic truth: Evil never acts against its own self-interest. It is what utterly separates it from the good. Good people can act against self-interest: they share their bread, even when they are hungry, make sacrifices, do not practice human sacrifice, that ageless willingness to sacrifice others to suffering and pain simply in order that we might live better and with greater ease. They can transcend themselves.
The evil never do this. Evil knows only one interest, and that is self-interest. It will never act against its self-interest. Thus, why would the ruler of demons help drive out other demons? Since when do demons lend a helping hand to exorcists?
The scribes are not stupid. They know how specious this argument is. What they are doing here, Jesus will clearly name:
»Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.«
Jesus calls this blasphemy against the spirit. It is what happens when we know the truth full well, but deny it in order to suit our purposes. We speak an untruth so that we do not have to face the truth we have already recognised, but cannot bear to affirm. We do it so that we do not have to admit what we do not want to be true. We would rather lie about the truth we know in order to deny it, than accept the reality before our eyes. Even the theologically illiterate know that only a person filled with the power of God can drive out demons. But to admit this, is to admit that Jesus is filled with the power of God, and this is the truth the scribes cannot accept. Since the spirit will lead us into all truth, then to deny the truth the spirit has already given us is a blasphemy against the spirit.
The problem goes very deep. This is what happens when we repeat the lie so long to ourselves, that eventually even we begin to believe it. We deny what we already know and recognise until we no longer know and recognise it.
This sin, which clings forever to us, lies not within the content of the lie, but in the process of lying, in the process of denial. Look at the people in the USA still going on with the lie that the presidential election of 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump. They accept no forgiveness, no pardon, and no offer to come together now for the good of the country. Why? Because they have told this lie for so long and so convincingly, that they believe it themselves. And because they believe it, they cannot accept forgiveness, reconciliation and the offer to move on. Despite all the evidence, they believe they do not need pardon and forgiveness, because they are convinced they are in the right.
»But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.« Such as these will not find forgiveness, but not because God would not offer it. They will never find forgiveness, because they will never accept it. This is never as far away from us as we would like to think. How hard is it to admit goodness, kindness, truth or generosity in people we dislike? Can we readily admit the truth when it comes from someone we cannot stand? Will we accept that Holy Spirit is at work when we encounter that work in people who think differently, vote differently, and choose differently from us?
In a world full of conspiracy theories from the origins of Covid 19 to wearing masks as a government plot, we are witnessing how far people will go to maintain their personal view of things, no matter how overwhelming and conclusive the facts of life are. They have often done great harm even to the point of endangering others. But even if we extend our hand to them and offer a way forward in peace and forgiveness, will they accept forgiveness, or merely continue to insist that they were right all along?
Erik Riechers SAC, June 6th, 2021
For what shall we pray?
I encounter tired faces in these weeks. When I inquire, the voices sound heavy and burdened. »It is enough«, says one of them and refers to the limitations imposed by the pandemic. »I have lost my sense of lightness«, laments another.
I also meet people with happy eyes. » My daughter has survived several operations. She's alive «, one jubilantly remarks. » My husband and I were sick with Corona and had to stay in the hospital for several weeks. Now we are well again - despite our age », rejoices the other.
These different perceptions of life make me think.
Do we humans have a right to a simple, easy, and unstressed life? Or can we only gain true lightness when we are deeply anchored and storms do not set us adrift?
Do we already lose perspective when our lives become somewhat limited externally? Or do we make experiences of what is truly essential and thus gain a wide view?
Can we still be grateful? Do we have a counterpart for our gratitude, before whom we can express it?
And what petitions do we carry in our hearts? Are we spoiled children or are we becoming mature, powerful people?
For what could we pray?
Psalm 138 comes to my aid. David, the person who prays, shows us that he consciously and very clearly decides to give thanks and praise; he says »I will« four times! The answer he has received from God is life-giving. Therefore, he can say, » my strength of soul you have awakened «. The strength was already there, but God's closeness and accompaniment awakens it, sets it free. In this way he can act and walk, even when it becomes difficult and oppressive, always knowing that it is God who keeps him alive and completes what he himself cannot accomplish. Thus, he does not ask for a comfortable life and the removal of dangers. He is grateful for the power awakened in him. With it and from it, he acts and lets God accomplish what is beyond his ability. Perhaps we can follow in the footsteps of his prayer:
I will give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart;
before the gods I will sing your praise;
I will bow down toward your holy temple
and I will give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.[a]
On the day I called, you answered me;
my strength of soul you have awakened.
All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord,
for they have heard the words of your mouth,
and they shall sing of the ways of the Lord,
for great is the glory of the Lord.
For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly,
but the haughty he knows from afar.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve my life;
you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
and your right hand delivers me.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 4th, 2021
There’s a better day a coming
In the exuberant Gospel spiritual »In That Great Gettin' Up Morning« there is a line that always makes us pause. »There’s a better day a coming.«
It is easy to admire the sentiment and to sing it until it is our turn to experience the reality from which this song was born. This is not a cheap tonic sold to us by some self-esteem guru. These words were birthed in a time of shattering and severe oppression. It was sung by people who knew that their owners aimed at breaking the human spirit and enslaving not just the body, but the soul of the people it fettered and chained. Out of this darkness, a people found the inner wellsprings of hope in the grand biblical stories. And these stories of God led them to proclaim that a better day is coming. They sang about that day, before they could see it. They sang about that day before they could experience once iota of its promise. A people in slavery sang this song.
Yesterday we rolled out our Siebenquell program for the second half of 2021. Weeks and indeed months of preparation have gone into it. It speaks of more than planning and organisation. We presented the program early, months before we start with the first event, to restore unto our people a horizon of hope, to ensure that they will have a perspective beyond the past days of limitation and restriction. It is our way of singing: There’s a better day a coming.
To plan for the future is to set a sign of hope. It gives us the motivation to move forward towards that better day, before we actually stand in its embrace. It encourages us to prepare a welcome for it. It is really a very simple thing, yet it can easily obscure a brilliant truth. Only those who have a genuine hope and expectation for a future ever bother to prepare for one.
And it about resisting the powers that would break the human spirit. We planned for the second half of the year even while the first half of it changed every plan we had forged. Yet, even while we were forced to change our plans, it did not lead us to abandon hope and the will to serve the gift of life. In some form or other, we found a way to tell the stories of God and faith and home that mattered so deeply to us.
When Jesse Jackson lost his bid to become the nominee of the Democratic Party for President in 1988, he gave a rousing speech about a better day that was coming. He did not sulk, pout or withdraw from the fray. Instead he gave an impassioned outline of his plans for the future, the causes he would fight for. At the end of it, he shared with the audience the spirit that drove him:
»Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high; stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don’t you surrender!
Suffering breeds character, character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint.
You must not surrender! You may or may not get there but just know that you’re qualified! And you hold on, and hold out! We must never surrender!! …Keep hope alive! On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive!«
Despite all the surprises, incalculable elements and unforeseeable risks that the future holds, including the disappointment it can also bring with it at times, we carry on and we plan, and we keep hope alive. There’s a better day a coming. Believe it, deeply and passionately. The many hindrances and obstacles of the journey cannot extinguish the yearning within us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
Erik Riechers SAC, June 2nd, 2021
Promises
After almost ten years, I picked up a book and began to read it again. I was astonished by how much I no longer remembered. It was almost a new discovery. - »The Italian Shoes« by Henning Mankell. I soon came to a passage that has remained with me ever since. At the first encounter of the protagonists after almost four decades, Harriet reminds the storyteller of a promise that he once made to her; she calls it the »only truly beautiful promise« she had ever received. Then she lays it out for him: »One constantly receives promises… One makes them oneself. One listens to the promises others make. Politicians, who speak of a better life for the aging, of a medical care in which no has open wounds. Of banks, which make promises about high interest rates, products the promise weight loss, and creams that guarantee an aging with less wrinkles. Life is nothing but a cruise in your small boat between a changing but never ending stream of promises.«
I paused. Indeed, if we bind out lives to what is said to us through the media, then we are delivered up unto a flood of promises. If we believe them and bet on their fulfilment, we will be repeatedly disillusioned and have the experience that nothing changes, neither in my bank account nor on my skin. That is frustrating. It will be the cause of much disgruntlement, but I can protect myself against that. It helps me, for example, to see them for what they often are: Temptations not for my own good, but for the personal benefit of the one who promises something here.
I find it different with promises which a person personally makes to me. They apply to me. I trust that they will be kept. If this does not happen, we speak of a broken promise.
»Broken promises are like shadows that dance in the twilight. The older I get the clearer I see them«, says Harriet to the person who had once made the »only truly beautiful promise« to her and who now, grown old and gravely ill, insists it be kept. It was a promise that had spoken from heart to heart at the time: he wanted to show her a place that was deeply connected to a moment of his childhood.
It is deeply inherent in us humans that we take seriously and trust what others promise us. This is vital and existentially important and is laid down in the basic trust of our earliest childhood. Even if we have to wait a long time for its fulfillment, we usually do not forget it. It is the same with everything we promise others. Let's take an honest look at the last 15 months: To whom did we promise attention and time? What did we promise to do differently when the crisis is over? Do we even remember what we promised? Do we bother to remind each other of our promises?
These are the questions we must face if this extraordinary time is to bear fruit and allow us to grow as individuals and as a community.
The Bible often speaks of God's steadfast love and faithfulness. God turns to us benevolently and he is faithful. He keeps his word. Again and again, people tell of exactly this experience, like the prayer of the 40th Psalm: » As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!.«
We are of His kind. Let us dare to make promises to one another and strive to keep them. Then we will live as God's people and not as sacrilegious people whose words are empty and evaporate like chaff.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 31st,2021
In which love do we want to dwell?
Trinity Sunday 2021 Mt 28, 16–20
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations;
baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
With these words, we know in whose name we baptize them. But that will not be enough. After all, we are not only saying that God is Triune, but that we are being drawn into the life of the Trinity. Then the question arises, what is the relationship into which we have all been baptised?
Richard of St. Victor (1110-1173), a thinker of the Middle Ages and one of the most important theologians in Paris will probably not mean much to most of you. But from him I gained a very deep and helpful insight about the life of the Trinity.
In his work De Trinitate, he describes the life of the Trinity as a mutual friendship between the three persons. He calls this relationship an absolute friendship.
Since you probably lent your copy of the collected works of Richard of St. Victor to a friend, I will briefly summarize his thoughts.
He begins by saying, »God is good. But to be good, God must be only one.«
Then he says that God is also loving, but to love, God must be two, because all love is a relationship of giving and receiving.
Then Richard of St. Victor comes to the part that always excites me, because he says that God is also filled with pleasurable joy and happiness, thoughts that are not foreign to the biblical narrative but that hardly ever occur when we tell the stories of God. But to be filled with pleasurable joy and happiness, God must be three. Pleasurable joy comes about only when two enjoy and rejoice in the same thing together at the same time. As an example, he cites new parents who love their new child and cannot stop admiring the child together. This love has matured and developed. Originally, this love flowed back and forth between husband and wife. But now it flows in an infinite circle, between mother, father and child. Each of the three has its part in generating and carrying forth desire and love. And this is what Richard of St. Victor calls true, absolute friendship.
I like that very much. The theology of this extraordinary man places friendship at the very heart of God.
This friendship that is able to love beyond itself is the culmination of a human life. It must have its source in God, for God is the author of all goodness and love. Authentic love goes from the self to the other and does not stay with two, for they will want to share that love with another. To experience, feel and enjoy the fullness of love, we seek one who will share our love for the beloved, for that which we so love. Richard sees friendship in the Trinity as a breaking-out, beyond the two to include a third. The third is in no way less loved than the other two, for love flows equally in all directions. Just ask the beloved child of two loving parents.
We are baptized into this friendship, indeed, we are immersed into it. The people we love most deeply, with great devotion and out of complete freedom, will never simply be the people who love us. The people of the deepest, truest friendship are those who also love what we love. How can one parent say to the other, »I love you but not our child«, without diminishing, or even destroying the love that already have? How do I say to a friend, I love you, but not what you love with all your heart?
In the best case scenario of love, both parents fall in love with the challenge and joy that is their newborn child. The child they are in love with holds the couple together in a kind of ecstatic and serviceable excitement. Love then is not a feat of strength; it flows in each new moment between the one who agrees to set the flow in motion, the second who receives and reciprocates the flow, and the third who becomes the beneficiary and the flow itself. And they keep changing places!
Ponder on this mystery. Then ask yourself, if there is any other place you would rather be.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 30th, 2021
The Choice that leads us to new Stories
In my reflection »The Stories that guide us to new choices«, I spoke of my love of Dr. Eva Edith Eger’s book »The Choice«. In it, I have found wonderful examples of the power of stories to influence our lives, to break us out of old inner prisons and to lead us to choices we would not otherwise dare and friendships we would not otherwise make.
Today I turn to another powerful effect that a good story can have. It is the long term effect of the story, which can take years, even decades to unfold its fullest power.
The line of Viktor Frankl’s book that Eva Edith Eger considers to be the heart of his teaching is this:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Many years later, Dr. Eger receives an invitation to visit and teach in Germany. She is to speak to 600 US army chaplains about her area of expertise, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. In fact, she will be in Berchtesgaden, in an old alpine hotel once used by SS officers. She is very conflicted. Then she goes on to visits Auschwitz for the first time since her liberation.
Here the story that began with a book handed to her by a student flowers into fullness. She is riddled with doubt and guilt, with the unanswerable question: why died I survive and not the others. Then she makes her choice:
Could I have saved my mother? Maybe. And I will live for all of the rest of my life with that possibility. And I can castigate myself for having made the wrong choice. That is my prerogative. Or I can accept that the more important choice is not the one I made when I was hungry and terrified, when we were surrounded by dogs and guns and uncertainty, when I was sixteen; it’s the one I make now. The choice to accept myself as I am: human, imperfect. And the choice to be responsible for my own happiness. To forgive my flaws and reclaim my innocence. To stop asking why I deserved to survive. To function as well as I can, to commit myself to serve others, to do everything in my power to honor my parents, to see to it that they did not die in vain. To do my best, in my limited capacity, so future generations don’t experience what I did. To be useful, to be used up, to survive and to thrive so I can use every moment to make the world a better place. And to finally, finally stop running from the past. To do everything possible to redeem it, and then let it go. I can make the choice that all of us can make. I can’t ever change the past. But there is a life I can save: It is mine. The one I am living right now, this precious moment.*
I think this is the hardest choice of all, to forgive ourselves for what we were unable to be or to do, and to choose life. Dr. Eger’s words are one of the purest and rawest expression of Deuteronomy’s words: I place before you blessing and curse, life and death. Choose life that you might live.
We do not have the luxury of always choosing the time and the place where we must choose life. Most of us are spared the experience of Auschwitz, but many men and women are traumatized by other cruelties and hardships and blows.
And to the vast campus of death that consumed my parents and so very many others, to the classroom of horror that still had something sacred to teach me about how to live - that I was victimized but I’m not a victim, that I was hurt but not broken, that the soul never dies, that meaning and purpose can come from deep in the heart of what hurts us the most - I utter my final words. Goodbye, I say. And, Thank you. Thank you for life, and for the ability to finally accept the life that is.*
Viktor Frankl gave his story to the world, a man gave Frankl’s story to a frightened woman, traumatised by the same events, and she went on to tell her story to many others. And I pass her story on to you. There will never be an end to it. After a hard 15 months of pandemic restrictions, losses and uncertainties, perhaps this story will lead us to new choices, maybe even to forgive ourselves for not being and doing everything we thought we should have, and to turn back to these days and say: »Goodbye, I say. And, Thank you. Thank you for life, and for the ability to finally accept the life that is.«
* Edith Eva Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible (Scribner: 2017), 232-233
Erik Riechers SAC, May 28th, 2021
The Stories that guide us to new choices
In the last year, I read many, many books. If someone were to ask me to which book I returned most often, I would undoubtedly say »The Choice«, by Edith Eva Eger. The book is a fascinating account of her life, from her childhood in Budapest to her survival of Auschwitz, to her emigration to the United States, on to her own development into a therapist specialising in the treatment of people suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
But it is the message at the heart of the book that keeps bringing me back to it. And that message is that we have a choice and through these choices we can form and even fashion our lives and the world around us.
Dr. Eger describes how at the very start of her university studies, a fellow student gives her a copy of Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’. This alone enchanted me, for it is vivid example of the way in which stories enter our lives and change their direction.
In this case, Dr. Eger finds a voice that tells a story she knows but has not been able to face, let alone tell, in her own life.
[Frankl] is speaking to me. He is speaking for me. . . . I am staring directly at the thing I have sought to hide. And as I read, I find that I don’t feel shut down or trapped, locked back in that place. To my surprise, I don’t feel afraid. For every page I read, I want to write ten. What is telling my story could lighten its grip instead of tightening it? What is speaking about the past could heal it instead of calcify it? What is silence and denial aren’t the only choices to make in the wake of catastrophic loss? *
This is the power of a good story: to give us words and images for experiences we deeply have known, but cannot formulate. The stories are the companions who give us the courage to look at and tell the buried stories of pain. The stories can liberate us from old demons by showing us unseen horizons, untrodden path and untried possibilities. And they teach us, that we are not alone, even in the nightmares we have suffered.
Dr. Eger goes on to make a life-changing discovery:
I read this, which is at the very heart of Frankl’s teaching: Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. Each moment is a choice. No matter how frustrating or boring or constraining or painful or oppressive our experience, we can always choose how we respond. And I finally begin to understand that I, too, have a choice. This realization will change my life.**
Later, she will make a first attempt to tell her own story in an essay entitled »Viktor Frankl and Me«. She is overwhelmed when she receives a letter Viktor Frankl which begins with the greeting, »From one survivor to another«. The two will become friends. Moreover, he will take on the role of a mentor and accompany her path to becoming a much sought after therapist.
All of this comes about, because someone handed her a story to read. Stories do not just open up new horizons and possibilities, hitherto unseen and unnoticed, they also lead us to companions and guide us to friendships we might otherwise have never known.
* Edith Eva Eger, The Choice: Embrace the Possible (Scribner: 2017), 155.
** Ibid. 156
Erik Riechers SAC, May 26th, 2021
Be Something Beautiful for God
Pentecost 2021 Sirach 39, 12-16
I have more on my mind to express;
I am full like the full moon.
Listen to me, my faithful children, and blossom
like a rose growing by a stream of water.
Send out fragrance like incense,
and put forth blossoms like a lily.
Scatter the fragrance, and sing a hymn of praise;
bless the Lord for all his works.
Ascribe majesty to his name
and give thanks to him with praise,
with songs on your lips, and with harps;
this is what you shall say in thanksgiving:
All the works of the Lord are very good,
and whatever he commands will be done at the appointed time.
Pentecost is the feast of mission, the moment when the Spirit touches us, sets us on fire and frees us from the confines of the rooms we withdraw into, so that we might move into the wider spaces God would have us touch.
But there is always an accompanying question to our movement from the cenacle to the city. How do we live this out? I do not doubt that we are bringing our spirit-filled faith into the world, but I often and increasingly have the impression that we do in a severely stripped down form. That is why I chose these words of Jesus Sirach, for as gorgeous as they are, they also pose an urgent question to us.
Indeed, we »bless the Lord for all his works«, but seldom scatter the fragrance.
We most certainly »ascribe majesty to his name«, but we are not overly concerned about being as fragrant as incense while doing so.
Christian proclamation, synodal processes, theological debate as to what the urgent issues of our time are, Church documents and church reforms, have become a grim business. The ultimate impression that it all leaves behind is well captured by the commentator who remarked: They are a rather joyless lot.
I know, of course, that living a life suffused with faith is a serious business. But in the course of going out to the whole world, we have lost contact with a deeply held desire of God, of which Jesus Sirach reminds us. We are supposed to flourish and grow while we gather the folks, tell the stories and break the bread.
Recently, I took part in Vespers. Good and holy women demonstrated grim determination to get the business of praising God done, and done right. Page after page of praise was recited, outlining in vivid, painstaking detail all the reasons we humans have for proclaiming to the world that this is our God.
But I must add, it was hardly attractive, inspiring or appealing. It had something harsh and cold about it. At one point, I simply thought to myself: Where are we in all of this? Is it really enough to say we made sure God has received his daily dose of praise without asking what God desires for us? When it comes to the works of the Lord, the Psalmist describes the Pentecost mission this way: »We will not hide them from their descendants. We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders that he has done.« (Psalm 78,4) . But I ask myself, is this the way we want to tell the next generation the stories of God? Is this the way in which the experience of Pentecost wishes to send us into the world?
Or is it not true, that the greatest and most profoundly convincing argument of God’s presence has always been the effect his story has on our lives?
If we do not »blossom like a rose growing by a stream of water« while telling the stories of God, but instead whither on the vine, dried out, living grey, colourless and drab lives,then what do we expect the response of others to be to our invitation? What is the motto of such telling? Misery enjoys company?
If in our stories of faith, we do not »send out fragrance like incense«, but add to the
fuming anger, accusation and recrimination that marks nearly all public discourse, where is the attractive quality in that? In a world that is flooded with the by-products of rage and bitter diatribe, there is hardly need to bring more of the same.
If the stories we tell of our journey with God do not lead us to »put forth blossoms like a lily«, but contribute to the ugliness and mean-spiritedness of public discourse, then we are simply adding fuel to an already brightly burning fire. But we are certainly not lighting a new flame.
If our stories do not lead us to »scatter the fragrance«, but instead to clutch the little bit of mystery we have grasped to ourselves, lock it into our hearts of private devotion, and jealously guard it for our personal edification, then we act like beggars while proclaiming that we come from a good, wide land of plenty. Perfume that never leaves the bottle, cannot fulfil its destiny.
In the experience of Pentecost, God most certainly wants us to serve the life of the world, but he also most assuredly wants us to live and flourish while we do so. We speak of the Spirit as the Lord and Giver of Life, but the tellers of Spirit-woven stories, are just as entitled to be recipients of life. We are supposed to relish it, not just proclaim it
We are not just to make the world more beautiful, but relish and enter into that beauty ourselves: »We do not want merely to see beauty... we want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.« C.S. Lewis
We are supposed to grow, in beauty as well as in strength.
Our lives are supposed to unfold in attractiveness as well as in industriousness.
We are meant to blossom, not just to produce.
I never knew a man who took beauty as seriously as John O’Donohue. He referred to it as a human calling.
»Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. And I think, when we cross a new threshold, that if we cross worthily, what we do is we heal the patterns of repetition that were in us that had us caught somewhere. And in our crossing, then, we cross onto new ground, where we just don’t repeat what we’ve been through in the last place we were. So I think beauty, in that sense, is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.«
The same John O’Donohue once poetically confessed a secret wish of his heart. »I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.« What would that look like?
Listen to me, my faithful children, and blossom
like a rose growing by a stream of water.
Send out fragrance like incense,
and put forth blossoms like a lily.
Scatter the fragrance, and sing a hymn of praise.
If those words describe out way of being in the world and of offering welcome in our world, the quality of our witness will be exceptionally attractive.
Erik Riechers SAC, Pentecost, May 23th, 2021
There are still storytellers: »Theater by a thread«
Where are the storytellers for our youth, children and grandchildren?
Which stories are offered to them? Wherefrom can they nourish themselves?
These questions have occupied me for a long time, and not just academically. Anyone who works with children in daycare centers and schools or in a private environment often experiences children who show little imagination and only want to be entertained. They are also quickly distracted, unable to immerse themselves into one thing. They lack perseverance and enthusiasm. All this is not surprising if we consider what the everyday life of many children is like. They spend most of the day under the control of others, are driven everywhere, and are rarely out and about in nature. There are seldom any free times with leisure and spaces that inspire the imagination, and often there are no adults at their side to listen to them, to tell stories and read aloud to them, or to seek out small adventures with them. The television or the tablet are more likely to serve this purpose: the images are predetermined, the stories are never adapted to the children's particular situation, and they are passive consumers. There is great deal more that could be said about this.
It pains me to observe this and it worries me. I ask myself: Where do children today still encounter real storytellers and living stories?
At the beginning of May, I was walking through Stuttgart's west end with my youngest grandson and his parents when suddenly my gaze was drawn to a courtyard. It was as if, in the middle of the affluent world of this part of town, a window opened into an enchanted other world. I remembered that I had glanced into this old, somewhat chaotic courtyard once before in the winter; at the time, it had been barren and empty. But now many faces looked at me, colours sparkled, as fairy-tale and exotic figures seemed to come to life. They were just waiting to start moving and to speak to us.
These were large marionettes and they belonged to the »Theater by a thread«; the puppets peopled the staircase and lured us into the courtyard. My daughter looked around and remarked: » I feel exactly how I would have immersed myself here as a child.«
My heart grew wide: They still exist, the storytellers, the wizards of new worlds. They have survived the pandemic and offer themselves again for the summer. Children have sat here before and they will sit here again and let themselves be whisked away to enchanted worlds.
So let us not lose heart! And let us be inspired again and again!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 21, 2021
The Choice Between what is Right and what is Easy
In J.K. Rowling’s book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Albus Dumbledore, the wise and ingenious headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, speaks a warning to his young protégé:
»Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.«
This is an admirable distinction, because it offers a surprising twist. Normally we pose the classic choice as being between right and wrong. Yet, the much more realistic, and therefore difficult, choice we face is between that which is easy and that which is right.
While we all make wrong choices, we seldom make them out of a desire to do what is inappropriate or morally incorrect and false. We choose the wrong path, because it is the easier path, the path of least resistance.
In the inimitable language of the biblical stories, this choice is described quite succinctly. We are called to choose between the fullness of life, or an easy life. Fullness is not easy. Yet, our language often betrays us. I cannot count the number of times people have come for spiritual direction because they seek a greater fullness in a life that has become unbearable. Yet, the moment I show them possible paths to that fullness, the words shoot out of them: »That is not that easy!« They are right, but easy is not the issue. We all have a choice to make. Do we want life and life in fullness? Or do we want an easy life? Because we will most assuredly not have both.
When this pandemic comes to an end, we will have some decisions to make. »Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.« It would be very foolish indeed to believe that the days after Covid-19 will be sunshine and lollipops. Greed, consumerism and radical individualism are already hammering away at the common good and human fraternity. That is the easy choice, but hardly the right one. Instead, we could ask: Will we seek to be more connected? Will we see anew how much we needed one another all along? Will we repair some of the damage we have inflicted on others and on ourselves?
Hear and heed the poetic words of John O’Donohue:
»You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld
The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.
The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.«
In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo tells another wizard, that he wishes that he had been spared from the happenings of his time. Gandalf replies with a wisdom of the deep heart: »So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.«
In grand stories wizards often are the bearers of great wisdom about making choices that change life. I assume, that this wisdom can be found in the grand story of God in which we all characters.
Erik Riechers SAC, May, 19th, 2021
Guided by what?
It is not the case, as we like to claim, that we cannot help but act this way or that, as if what we do has no alternative. No, we have a wealth of possibilities for thinking, deciding and acting. We have to look at this diversity, endure it, weigh it up and then choose. Indeed, this is sometimes quite exhausting; it is not a laissez-faire lifestyle in which I take a sniff here and there at whim.
Diversity forces me and all of us to make choices that have consequences.
But how do we arrive at the good choice, to sustainable life decisions? More than a year ago, in the face of the spreading pandemic, the American philosopher and author Charles Eisenstein addressed these questions in many essays. For him, the subject matter is made particularly clear by the crisis - which is still ongoing - but the question of what guides us always applies. Because:
» A million forking paths lie before us. . . .
What can guide us, as individuals and as a society, as we walk the garden of forking paths?
At each junction, we can be aware of what we follow: fear or love, self-preservation or generosity.
Shall we live in fear and build a society based on it?
Shall we live to preserve our separate selves? . . .
It is that a next step into love lies before us.
It feels daring, but not reckless.
It treasures life, while accepting death.
And it trusts that with each step,
the next will become visible.«
Let us look at Jesus path through life and his way of living and gratefully perceive what a Master we have!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May, 17th, 2021
How should life go on after this?
7th Sunday of Easter 2021 Acts 1, 15–17.20ac–26
When a great era or a particularly intense time in our lives comes to an end, we automatically ask ourselves one question: How should life go on after this?
The disciples are also faced with this question after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Equipped with the Lord's commission to be his witnesses, they must now shape the life of faith and guide and accompany the community of believers. This includes that they need to look for a successor for a colleague successively lost, first to greed, then to betrayal and finally to hopelessness, Judas Iscariot.
The criterion for the successor is clear:
So one of the men who have accompanied us
during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John
until the day when he was taken up from us—
one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.
But even though Peter and the apostles pose their questions to the future successor through these two criteria of being constantly present with Jesus and being an eyewitness of the resurrection, the candidates who are nominated, »Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias«, must also ask themselves a question: Can I be a successor instead of a pioneer?
Matthias is a man I admire very much. In his willingness to stand for and accept this election, I see in him a courage that might not be obvious at first. Because by his choice he becomes the only successor among a band of pioneers.
Being a pioneer is never easy. These are people who must be willing to be the first. They are the people who are the first to venture into the world of the new, the unknown and the unexplored. This brings a lot of challenges with it. Since they are the first, they have no one else to whom they can turn to for advice. Since they are entering uncharted territory, there are no maps to guide them, they have to scout everything out first. They have to make the paths, because there are none in the undiscovered country. There are no precedents and no previous experience to which they can refer.
At the same time, there are some advantages to being a pioneer that we usually do not consider. Pioneers have no predecessors. And because they have no predecessors, there is no one to tell them: »I have always done it this way.« Also, because they are the first, they are not constantly being compared to those who accomplished the task before them. They are free to use all their creativity, free of all prior experiences, which are so nonchalantly deemed to be normative for all who follow.
By his choice, Matthias is placed in a difficult situation. The eleven were all pioneers. There were no apostles before them. They were the first to fill this role and there was no job description.
Matthias, in fact, must enter as the only successor in a group that all had no predecessors. That is why he is the only one of the apostles who can be compared to his predecessors, and as we all know too well, all comparisons are diabolical. Preconceived expectations can be projected onto him, an experience none of his colleagues had to undergo.
Thus, he will also experience a special pressure that all people endure who take up a position that another held before them. He will stand in the shadow of his predecessors. And that shadow can be a very dark place indeed. There we hear messages dripped into our ear, messages that corrode the self-confidence of the heart like poison: Don't be your own man, be the steward of what has gone before you. »As it was in the beginning, so it must remain forever« is a phrase that pioneers do not hear, but all those who come after them cannot avoid it.
In all likelihood, we have all been in Matthias' situation at one time or another. We were the newbies, at school, in the company or in a group. Everyone else knows their way around, so they introduce us and tell us where to go, what to do, and how things work here. It can take quite a long time for us to find our way around.
What will certainly take much longer is to find the courage to bring ourselves into play, to contribute our thoughts and ideas. It takes a lot of self-confidence to propose something different, let alone to dare something new.
Here we experience the great challenge of Matthias. Does a successor have to be only a steward of the old ways? What kind of successor do I want to be?
Even if we are constantly compared with the people who have gone before us, we must resist this in order to be what we are from God. We will need strength and courage to use all our creativity, free from all previous experiences. It is not easy to keep what is good and still dare the new.
Today we are facing a similar situation as Matthias. When the pandemic is over, an extraordinary, intense and probably (hopefully) unique era of our lives will come to an end. Already now we are faced with the question: How should life go on after this?
So far, there has been a dominant cult of restoration. Everything is to be restored to the way it was. Economically, we wanted to restore everything. Socially, we want to be allowed to enjoy all the possibilities of consumption and entertainment again. Life after the crisis should be as it was before the crisis.
The question that is hardly raised is whether we do not have to change some things. Here would also be opportunities to carry out political, economic and social reforms. Because if we only have to restore everything and then carry on as before, we are already all only the stewards of the old. Here, too, we could, we would have to, step out of the shadow of what we used to be. What about new ways?
Pope Francis has been asking this question since the beginning of the pandemic.
»God asks us to dare to create something new. We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economics that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life: to land, lodging and labour. We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded, and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that impact their lives. We need to slow down, take stock, and design better ways of living together on this earth…
We need a movement of people who now we need each other, who have a sense of responsibility to others and to the world. We need to proclaim that being kind, having faith, and working for the common good are great life goals that need courage and vigour…« Let us Dream: The Path to a Better Future. p. 6
Is this not the revolution of confidence of which Rosemarie wrote so aptly and touchingly on the day before Ascension Day? She writes: »Confidence is not to gloss over or superficially overplay things in the sense of ‘all is well’, as it is said with frightening frequency. Confidence means to trust firmly in the good that I expect. ‘Faith’ is already contained within the word. I already have faith in the good that is coming about, also by means of my help.« We should all be successors in this sense.
When we take on the roles that others had before us held and exercised, then we come to a time of transition. And for this John O'Donohue speaks words that can also bless and strengthen.
What is being transfigured here is your mind
and it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
the more refined your heart will become
for your arrival in the new dawn.
To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 120
Erik Riechers SAC, May 16th, 2021
Limitations
The experience of restrictive limitations is part of our lives, both permanently and temporarily. We experience limits imposed from the outside, just as each of us has his or her own inner limits. His observations during the first weeks of the pandemic inspired Willi Bruners to write a poem in March of last year about how we dealt with these new limitations. 14 months have passed since then, we have had time to pause and reflect, and, in the meantime, we have good prospects. Yet, when this text fell into my hands, I was amazed, even shocked, at how current it is.
Could it be that our inner boundaries are more rigid than those imposed on us from the outside at times?
Read it for yourself:
limited times
now we sit here and await the news
that we can live again as before
get into the car and drive off
get on the plane and fly away,
after all, the trip is already paid for,
so that we can dispose of the hamster purchases with expiry dates
and can dispose of them with the next garbage
that the shelves in the temples of consumption
are freshly filled with sales prices again
that the kindergartens are open again and the schools, too
the noise in the children's room was no longer bearable
oh yes, almost forgotten the refugees
at greece's borders with many children
who came unaccompanied and look with big eyes
at our plates which are still full despite the crisis
that their problems disappear with the with corona viruses as well
is an illusion that will soon be washed away by the rain
and we will wait a long time
for the news of the end of all horror even if corona
has long since ceased to lock us up in our four walls
and prevent us from visiting each other without masks
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 14th, 2021
»Revolution of Confidence«
Two huge problem areas of our earth and our time are vying for supremacy in the public consciousness: the COVID 19 pandemic and the climate catastrophe.
How do we deal with them, what are we learning?
Certainly this: a great deal lays in our hands, even if we cannot be the saviors and redeemers of the world. Therein lies a great tension that must be balanced and endured.
The coronavirus is in the world, but we know clear rules that protect us if we follow them and we now have several (!) vaccines against it.
Climate change has been apparent for a long time, but we have already recognized many connections and partially implemented solutions to positively influence the change.
In our reactions, however, we often vacillate between powerlessness and resignation in the face of major threats on the one hand, and fantasies that we can and must solve all the problems on the other.
In Frank Schätzing's new book (»What if we just save the world? Acting in the climate crisis«), the idea of a »revolution of confidence« emerges. Already the word confidence, in its truest sense, hardly seems to occur in the world of the media world - and then in this context! Indeed, it seems to me that the author is right: a revolution is needed, a profound change. Confidence is not to gloss over or superficially overplay things in the sense of »all is well«, as it is said with frightening frequency. Confidence means to trust firmly in the good that I expect. »Faith« is already contained within the word. I already have faith in the good that is coming about, also by means of my help.
The fact that we have several vaccines available so quickly has confirmed all those who confidently believed in our possibilities or worked on them as experts.
With regard to our climate, to which Schätzing dedicates himself, the »revolution of confidence« is necessary in his eyes, but also challenging. We can stare into the abyss of the planet, but we could also realize »that through consistent action ... we can move away from the abyss.« For, as Schätzing says, we have »the option of doing better«. And he urges us to exercise moderation » and not just focus everything on consumption, maximization and increasing profits «.
And this is where the two great issues of our day interweave. Addressing them requires revolutionary changes indeed, the goal of which can be neither »business as usual« nor »finally, back to the way things were! « Haven't we noticed in the last 14 months that life is more than what we have largely deluded ourselves into believing for decades?
Under this title »May you be sheltered!« we have been exercising a paschal, faith-filled way of seeing for 40 days.
I think we should become the leaders of a revolution of confidence.
For it has been promised us that we are never alone: »I am with you all days unto the end of the world.« (Mt 28,20)
And it has been promised us there is life throughout the darkness and beyond. Thus, we hear the women at the tomb: »He is risen; he is not here.« (Mk 16, 6)
We are the descendants of the first witnesses of whom it is said on the feast of Ascension: »And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.« (Mk 16, 20)
So let us pray, as John O'Donohue puts it in a morning prayer, that we might live compassionate of heart, clear in word, gracious in awareness, courageous in thought, and generous in love. May we become co-creators of a change of confidence that new life is truly possible.
And let us become witnesses of hope.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 12th, 2021
The Shepherd’s Staff
Two weeks ago, I wrote a homily about Jesus as the good shepherd. Shortly after it was published on the website, I received an email with words of encouragement and gratitude that greatly strengthened my heart. Included in that email was a work of art that Karl Ditt created as a creative answer to my homily.
Stories create more stories. That is why there will never be an end to it, something for which I believe we should be far more grateful than we usually are. Today I simply wish to share the story I was given in the hope that you might share in the blessing of it. I also harbour a silent, deep hope, that the Shepherd’s staff might inspire a new story in you, perhaps awaken the slumbering good shepherd in you. Who knows? Perhaps you will find yourself reaching for the shepherd’s staff and start a whole new story of your own.
Erik Riechers SAC, 10. Mai 2021
In Search of Friends amidst people accustomed to Slavery
6th Sunday of Easter 2021 John 15, 9-17
No longer do I call you servants,
for the servant does not know what his master is doing;
but I have called you friends,
for all that I have heard from my Father
I have made known to you.
I wonder if God did us a favor with this.
To soften the shock of the text somewhat, the word »doulous« was translated as servants instead of slaves. But here we are not talking about poorly or barely paid servants. These people were deprived of their freedom, had hardly any rights, and no protection from the arbitrariness of their masters.
Jesus takes up this image to clarify the relationship between him and his apprentices. He says: »You are my friends if you do what I command you«. But whether we become those friends, engage in that relationship of trust, is our free choice. Then, as now, people, unlike slaves, simply left when it no longer suited them.
In order to perceive the urgency and also the beauty of Jesus' offer, we should carefully note the differences between slaves and friends.
Friendship is based on reciprocity.
Each of Jesus' friends
is a giver and a receiver at the same time.
Slavery is a one-sided relationship.
It is about the master,
the fulfillment of his wishes
and the carrying out of his plans.
Friendship means shared responsibility.
Both sides must shape the relationship.
Slaves are not co-responsible.
They only have to carry out the plans of others.
Friendship is an experience
of discovery and adventure.
Friends must always look
what is at the moment, what is coherent,
and these roles are constantly changing.
Therefore they need sensitivity and
sensibility.
Slaves have a clear role,
determined from above to below,
and they have a fixed structure
as well as a fixed chain of command.
The slave needs neither sensitivity
nor sensibility .
He does not need to worry
about the quality of the relationship.
He only needs to be obedient.
Friends care for the heartfelt concerns
of the other.
Slaves fulfill their duties,
no matter whether they care for the
concerns of the master or not.
Friends must also take initiative.
The friend must not just wait
for others to act, suggest or
introduce, but act himself
Slaves receive orders and
perform services.
They merely implement the initiatives
of their masters.
That means that if we are no longer slaves but friends, not only our self-image, but our entire relationship with God changes. I wonder whether God has done us a favor by doing this. For mutuality, co-responsibility, sensitivity, concern for matters of the heart and taking initiatives is significantly more difficult, exhausting and challenging than simply doing what someone else says.
It is considerably easier to be a slave of Jesus than to be his friend. Both will serve, but the slave serves out of fear, compulsion and pressure. The friend, however, should offer his service out of love. Touched and moved by it, the friend, has the inner need to strengthen, heal and accompany the life of another person.
Years ago I saw a bumper sticker. It said, »God said it. I believe it. That settles it.« Some will look at that and think that it is a bolder, simpler, or even purer way of believing. But if we take this story of Jesus seriously, we have to admit that this is not the faith relationship he is looking for. This is the job description of a slave. Jesus came looking for new friends.
Whether God did us a favor by doing this? That depends on how we want to live.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 9th, 2021
Wonderful
Do you also practice it in these Easter times? Not looking into graves, but into life? Nature makes it easy for us and we discover life in inconspicuous places: it sprouts in all gardens, and on dry stone walls bright colours smile at us and on the ground of the still sunlit forests white star blossoms shine.
How much life is within the stories of the people we meet? Let us look and listen carefully and not dismiss them as trivial. Sometimes great steps from darkness into light are revealed here.
We recently came across such a small story of life and love. It tells of a transformative encounter between Veronica, a young South American woman doing her voluntary service in a German kindergarten, and little Luca.
»You are wonderful«, Veronica said to a child in the Kindergarten.
The child pauses for a moment, then takes a deep breath and shouts at Vero:
»No, you are wonderful.«
Now Vero pauses and then starts to laugh heartily.
» It's not a swear word, Luca. I'm not angry with you. It's a good word.
I am happy with you. You are a good boy.
I like you. I like to do crafts with you and play hide and seek with you.
That is what 'wonderful' means. You are a good friend. You are a precious person.«
Luca looks at Vero with wide eyes. He goes silent. He looks at the floor.
Then he says softly: »You are wonderful, too, Vero.«
So much life in all its breadth is contained within this small incident of everyday life in the kindergarten!
What speaks to us? What touches us? What do we know?
Have fun »unpacking« this little gem!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 7th, 2021
Who will guide us?
In the CBC Radio program, Tapestry, I listened to an interview with a writer named Leigh Stein. With delightful clarity and forthrightness she points out a problem she has been grappling with for some time. In a society in which celebrities no longer limit their advice to promoting certain products through advertising and certain causes through their media presence, an increasing number of them have become »wellness influencers«. Although the usually would not call it so, they are offering people to become their spiritual directors.
Leigh Stein is decidedly not impressed. She clearly points out that we should not compare the results of rich traditions on spiritual living with the outpourings of people who have come late to the game and invested little thought to their utterances. »What religion offers us is thousands of years of people going through very similar struggles. We were born. We might get married. We might have children. And then we all die. There are religious traditions for going back thousands of years that have been wrestling with these questions. And I don't find that the influencers will even touch them.«
I was delighted and could not agree more. A pandemic is an excellent time to note the truth of this lesson. These are serious times creating serious problems. They require a serious answer born of a deeper understanding of life than the superficialities with which we nourished so much of our daily lives before the crisis hit us.
G.K. Chesterton, in his book »Orthodoxy« writes a few lines that I deeply appreciate. »Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.«
While we certainly made advances in technology that your forebears could hardly have imagined, we have also sacrificed parts of humanity that would have horrified them. Our short attention spans and constant craving for instant gratification serve us well in a society where the consumption of life is king. Yet, now that this is not possible, the older more venerable questions return. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks articulated it this way: »At some point in life, every reflective human being will ask three fundamental questions: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?«
When those questions arise from our depths, unfettered and undiminished even after years of negligence, to whom will we turn? Who will guide us? The people who lived only for the present moment are the architects of this present moment. A good place to start is with the great storytellers of religious traditions »going back thousands of years that have been wrestling with these questions«. They will remind us that we are not the first, nor the last to face these questions. Even better, they will remind us that we are not alone in answering them.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 5th, 2021
Moving Toward the Second Fire
In her column of April 22nd, 2021, entitled »Safely Carried« Sylvia Ditt wrote a line that has preoccupied me from the moment I read.
I admit
to not being immune
against the deathly fear
that gnaws at my heart
that sought to warm my heart at false fires.
The story she recounts is found in John 21. There, Jesus has bread and fish prepared on a charcoal fire. That little detail is important, because earlier in the Gospel, John tells us: »Now the servants and officers had made a charcoal fire, because it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves. Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself.« (Jn 18,18) Peter warms himself by a charcoal fire while denying his friend three times. One passion, death and resurrection later, he has a conversation with the same friend before a charcoal fire, and threefold love flows from his heart.
Sylvia Ditt’s words speak a deeply painful truth in a gentle and generous fashion. We all know the moment when we have warmed our hearts at a false fire. Many paths lead to these false fires, because there are many hungers of the heart. Logic alone does not rule the vast and deep places of a human heart. The human heart is a land where desperation, loneliness, grief, intense longing, thwarted desire, bone-chilling fear and rages that both simmer and explode are but a sample of what drives us towards any fire that would give us even a hint of relief.
John makes it his mission to tell us a story of a second fire, where new conversations can lead to new trust, where true warmth and real responsibility can be born. And yet, all of us who have warmed our hearts at false fires will know not just relief and gladness at the good tiding of a second fire. We will also know doubt and hesitation. Will we find our welcome in the world at that fire? Will we dare to show up at it? What conversation will be have there?
For there is a mystery about hearts that have been at the false fire that we seldom speak, although we know it too well to ever really deny it. God is willing, able and eager to move on to the second fire and have a totally different, life changing new conversation with us. But we cling to our guilt and shame. We do not forgive ourselves as easily as God does.
After reflecting on Sylvia’s gorgeous biblical poem, I got up, went to my bookshelf and plucked another book of poetry from my shelf. There I sought a poem from Padraig O’Tuama that also uses the Gospel scene of the fireside chat between Jesus and Peter as its springboard. And at the end of the poem, he has Peter say:
»And he said
‘Come now, fisherman, come on
and maybe sing a different tune
and fine a room where you can let me stay
and maybe take that oar out from your own eye
and paddle back to where I started with you.
Let’s be beyond all this,
and let’s move on’, he said to me.«
And that is the deepest invitation of the second fire. »Let’s be beyond all this, and let’s move on.« God is ready to do so in order that a false fire might not become the dominating story of an entire life. We should welcome that gentle invitation and ourselves be ready to move on. It would not harm us to forgive ourselves a little once in a while.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 3rd, 2021
God's cultivation of relationship
5th Sunday of Easter 2021 John 15, 1-8
In our work in Narrative Theology, it is always pointed out that we should pay attention to what images people employ when they speak about their relationships. These images tell us what they genuinely care about. Therefore, we should also be aware that there is an ancient conflict between the mechanistic and organic images people use. This controversy mirrors the underlying controversy of the deep concerns of the human heart.
In this story from John's Gospel, Jesus reveals one of the great concerns of his heart, which is the connectedness and commitment in our relationship to him. Jesus uses an organic image, the relationship between the vine and the branches and the fruit, to reveal to us what is close to his heart. He wants us to live and for our lives to be fruitful. He wants a relationship with us that is so healthy internally that it, in due time, produces externally that which we and others can live from, namely the fruit. This has become a matter of course for us who know the story well.
However, it is equally important to note what Jesus did not do. He did not choose a mechanistic image to describe his desired relationship with us. This in turn tells us that Jesus does not view the lives of his people or his relationship with us like a machine.
Years ago I heard a preacher turn this choice of Jesus on its head in the very interpretation of this biblical narrative. He wanted to emphasize Jesus as the center of our lives and resorted to the image of the relationship of the spokes of a wheel to its hub. In doing so, he switched the organic image of Jesus for a mechanistic image.
For many people, this won't matter. Others will say it's just nitpicking. But words create worlds and the images we choose have great power and effect on the way we love, work and relate.
Wheels with their hubs and spokes are taken from the world of mechanistic images. And like all machines, they revolve around one central theme: they have to function. When a machine does not work, it is repaired. The purpose of this restorative attention is simply to get it functioning again as soon as possible. What does not matter at all here is the rhythm. When we need them to work, we do not ask machines whether they are in the mood or whether this would be a convenient time for them to fulfill their predetermined purpose. Therefore, we do not need to wait until they are ready. They work at the push of a button, and then we don't need to be patient with maturation processes and growth. With machines these are not issues
Now let's see what happens when we use a mechanistic image like the relationship of wheels, spokes and scars to describe our relationship with Jesus. If we describe our relationship with Jesus in this way, then we will believe that Jesus expects of us what we expect of our machines, namely, that we are to function properly and on time. The picture is horrifying. Because we all know what happens when our machines don't work. Then they are replaced. Should this be Jesus' statement about his desired relationship with us? Work properly or you will be replaced? And when we repair our machines, it is only to get them working again as soon as possible. Does anyone really believe that this picture reflects Jesus' relationship with us?
In this mechanistic image of spokes and the hub (as in all mechanistic pictures), rhythm plays no role whatsoever. In this image we humans are no longer asked whether we can or want to enter into this relationship, or whether it is suitable and coherent for us. Then we also do not receive the space and time for what we often urgently need so that we can transform our ‘no’ into a ‘yes’, so that we can heal, so that we can grow and mature in an authentic relationship.
In all the biblical narratives, Jesus refuses to deal with people in this way, and that is why he chooses the organic image of the vine and branches.
Unlike a machine, the fruit-bearing relationship between the vine and the branches cannot be repaired. It does not need to be made functional, but to be nurtured and cared for. This is the relationship we have with Jesus.
In everything that is organic (people as well as plants), rhythm plays a major role. If our relationship with Jesus is to thrive, we need to ask ourselves many rhythm questions. What is appropriate right now? What is coherent and what is premature? When do I have to act (water, weed, plant, support) and when do I have to be patient and give the necessary processes the time and space they need?
Organic images remind us that relationship is an act of mutual coordination. Because life is not only in Jesus, but in us as well. It should flow between us. We should share it with each other. This relationship binds us together and we are in a mutually, dependent relationship in this life. »Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.« But this never applies to machines. Just because the vine is already full of life-giving sap does not mean that the branch must already be fully laden with fruit. Without participation in the inner processes of the other, there is no life.
Fruit occurs seven times in this story. Jesus speak of bearing fruit and bringing it forth. Fruit it is obviously important and significant to him. Bearing fruit is the reason for staying connected and why the connection to Jesus as the bearer of life (vine) should not be cut.
Fruit is metaphor and image: fruit grows and comes forth from the flow of life. Fruit is conducive to life because it strengthens and nourishes it, and because it sustains life.
But bearing fruit is not a mechanistic picture, because it is a process that flows from the inside out. Fruit is not attached to the vine from the outside. Fruit is only born when there is contact with the inner processes. Fruit arises only when there is contact with the life-bearer (Jesus = vine). Furthermore, these processes of fruitfulness cannot be observed from the outside.
This fruit should remain. That which grows should last. It should be permanent. In other words, we should be able to rely on it. This most richly described the kind of relationship Jesus seeks to share with us.
All this is the heart's desire of Jesus for his people. And for this very reason, we must not treat our relationship with him mechanistically. Therefore, we should participate in the inner flow of life in him, otherwise this fruit will not come forth. What is emphasized in the story of Jesus is that this relationship must not be broken. But nowhere in the narrative does Jesus tell us how fast it must go. What he does place before us, however, he states right at the beginning. »I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.« Our God is a vinedresser. Vinedressers have a powerful desire, namely, fruitfulness. »By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.« As long as there is even a little life in the vines, the vinedresser will do everything to ensure and strengthen the flow. The Vinedresser God serves the life and fruitfulness of our relationship with Jesus at all times, even in winter when everything lies fallow. Jesus does not deny that this relationship can fail, but unlike a machine, God will invest all his power and love and care into it while there is still a vestige of hope for fruitfulness.
That is why the images we choose to describe our relationship to Jesus are not harmless. This is because images reveal our true heart's desire.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 2nd, 2021
Pascal living – an Example
Many weeks ago, while on the road, I heard a true story during a radio conversation that captivated me so much that, when I reached my destination, I was still listening to the end.
A violist spoke about her current tasks and challenges and then started to talk about her student days, especially about a teacher who had particularly impressed and influenced her. He was her instructor in viola studies. This man had lost 2 fingers of his left hand, the hand that plays the strings, in an accident at a young age. The viola had by then long been »his« instrument. He had wanted to make playing the instrument his profession and now it looked as if he would have to bury this plan, this wish - over, done, impossible!
But his longing to continue was incredibly powerful. And he followed it. He had a new viola built, which he could play the other way around; from now on, his left hand guided the bow. He practiced with even greater perseverance and dedication to the music. This dedication, his perseverance and his longing, which would not allow him to give up, led him to become a master of his craft.
As a lecturer, he made no bones about all this. Now and then - as the woman on the radio told it - it happened that he wanted to show his students something and did not have his viola with him. Then he let them lend him a viola and played what was important for him on it to demonstrate. This playing was so overwhelming each and every time that it triggered something in the students: if he, handicapped and playing on a viola that was »wrong« for him, plays like this, then we have to practice and practice and practice even more.
This is how the story ended.
I am haunted by it. Here was a young man who once looked into a tomb after this accident, the tomb of his hopes and life plans. But his longing was greater than this tomb - and very focused. He wanted to continue playing the viola. This longing fed his persistence to search for new ways, and thus to turn away from the tomb and toward new possibilities. And, in the end, he must have been filled with a great devotion to music (and still is to this day), because how much space and time did he devote to practicing from then on. He kept at it, even though playing was much more difficult for him at first. He did not give up and found his way anew to his life of music.
It was for him as with all the resurrection stories the Gospels tell: Life is not to be found in the tomb. It is empty! We find new life when we turn to life (again). The women and men meet Jesus in their everyday world: in the garden, on the way, in the room, at the lake. There they begin to live differently, anew. They long for life and risk new steps, they step out and go new ways – to this very day!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 30th, 2021
From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring.
»All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes, a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring.«
These lines stem from a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, from his book, The Fellowship of the Ring. They speak to me of the genuine resurrection experience as well as of true Easter hope. They also speak to me of the one person in the Gospel stories who, in my opinion, embodied these words, Mary of Magdala.
My favourite Easter story is that of Mary of Magdala in the garden. Here is a woman whose life has turned to ashes, but the whole story tells us how there was a fire under those ashes and how she made it flame up again through her relentless search for the one whom her soul loved. When she turns from the narrow darkness of the grace to face the dawning light that is returning into the light she sees first a gardener, but eventually the Risen Lord. Indeed, it is the moment when a light from the shadows springs. This remarkable woman lived her life with a poetic elegance that makes me reflect on her and write about her to this day. It is why I am immediately attracted to anyone who writes about her poetic life in lyrical fashion.
Ron Rolheiser wrote such a poem years ago and every year I pull it out again and rejoice in its simple truth. These are words that take us to the heart of Mary’s experience of the resurrection. Therefore, they are also words that take us to the heart of our own struggle to live a life in the light of the Easter mystery, a mystery go great, that no one day can hold it. I find it especially helpful in times, when I cling to hard to the life I know and struggle to embrace the life I need. May the poem bless you today as it has blessed me for years.
Mary Magdalas Easter Prayer
I never suspected
Resurrection
and to be so painful
to leave me weeping
With Joy
to have met you, alive and smiling, outside an empty tomb
With Regret
not because I’ve lost you
but because I’ve lost you in how I had you –
in understandable, touchable, kissable, clingable flesh
not as fully Lord, but as graspably human.
I want to cling, despite your protest
cling to your body
cling to your, and my, clingable humanity
cling to what we had, our past.
But I know that…if I cling
you cannot ascend and
I will be left clinging to your former self
…unable to receive your present spirit.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 28th, 2021
The Eyes of Easter
The resurrected Jesus is the same one who, after years of inconspicuous living, gathered people around him and told them and gave them an example of God's merciful love.
He is the same one who was condemned, tortured and crucified.
He is the same one who was buried.
A young woman told me years ago that for her this was the most outstanding and convincing thing about our Christian faith: "Our God knows our greatest suffering because He went through it Himself. What religion comes close to that?" To this God, she said, she could entrust herself.
That's why the Easter narratives are so significant. They do not deny anything of all that was before Easter. Rather, they show the greatness of God's love for us humans, which has always been infinite and which he confirms through Jesus' life, death and resurrection. "Do you see how much I love you?" he asks us.
Klaus Hemmerle, who was bishop of Aachen for many years and revered by many, once wrote the following Easter wish:
I wish us Easter eyes,
which are able to see
through death unto life,
through guilt to forgiveness,
through separation to unity,
through the wounds unto glory,
through humans unto God,
through God unto humankind,
in the I to the Thou.
This is a wish for a whole life in all its breadth and all its fullness.
Easter eyes do not exclude anything and see more deeply. They train themselves to perceive more and more the loving gaze of our God upon us and to gaze into the world in this fashion.
Easter eyes know no taboos and are able to connect worlds. Opposites merge and difficult things can show their beauty.
I wish us such Easter eyes.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 26th, 2021
At Home among the Good Shepherds
4th Sunday of Easter 2021 John 10, 11-18
»I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.« When Jesus speaks these words, he is trying to give us a glimpse of the true nature of his devotion to us. By describing himself as a shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for those who are entrusted to him, he describes how he loves us. Later Jesus will say: »Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.« (John 15,13) This willingness to lay down one's life for the good of another, is for Jesus the sure sign of love.
Jesus emphasizes that his loving devotion goes far beyond the normal limits of self-interest: it is a devotion for the other person beyond the paychecks and pragmatic utility of paid servants. Above all, Jesus reveals the integrity of his personal vocation, an integrity that is most fully revealed when a high price must be paid to sustain that devotion.
»I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.« These words of Jesus are spoken again and again to this very day. This word has become flesh in the many people who have made Jesus' deep personal devotion their own. They have taken on and lived out the vocation of a good shepherd. But they have also paid the price for that devotion. They did not flee when the demands of loving became difficult: They did not abandon the sheep and save only themselves when the wolves came.
In these days of the pandemic, my habit is to focus on such people, and it has not been easy. The media is narrowly focused, even obsessed, with reporting on the people whose response to the global crisis is narcissistic and self-centered. Those who are self-important and self-absorbed, who refuse to wear masks, who gather en masse, have Corona parties, and generally show their contempt for the welfare of their fellow man, find a camera and a microphone waiting for them. It is reminiscent of the Book of Judges, which describes how the people descended into chaos and violence because they no longer had a sense of the common good. Sadly, the book ends with this last sentence, »Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.« Far and wide no trace of people who make the sentence their own: The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Moreover, the media deluges us with numbers with an urgency that is as mindless as it is breathless: the number of those infected, those in intensive care, the number of vaccinated, the doses ordered, etc. The only statistics that are never reported are the numbers of people who have lived these words tattooed on their hearts: »I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.« They are considered uninteresting and not so newsworthy. Therefore, no cameras and microphones are waiting for them.
But I have kept my focus on people who are able to do right by all people, not just for themselves. Naming them, remembering them and telling their stories is the strengthening gospel tonic to keep my balance in an uncertain and unbalanced world. Their story like every story is silent until the word is spoken, witnessed and becomes flesh so that it can be touched, felt and lived.
What do we have to expect from the mindless protesters and agitators? They will not contribute to the life of the world. In every generation, in every culture, in every place and time, real help and authentic change have come from the good shepherds, from women and men who have given their lives, invested their lives, so that others may live.
Today is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. So I pray with gratitude that so many people have taken their vocation seriously. The world is teeming with good shepherds. They are the neighbors who quietly take care of each other. I see them in men and women who give their all for their spouses and children so that they can live with dignity, even when they are exhausted and worn. I see the good shepherds in the many people who work in health care and in the researchers who have been locked in laboratories for months, putting aside all personal pursuits to find a vaccine for the world. And what of the people who have undertaken countless creative pastoral initiatives to feed the poor, clothe the freezing in refugee camps, keep the isolated connected, inspire and motivate the weary and battered? Are they not good shepherds? Or the clerks in grocery stores who stock shelves and still find a kind word and smile for me, having just been treated so shabbily by the customer in front of me?
Here are the vocations we pray for. Here are the good shepherds. They do not show their loving devotion because they were personally well rewarded for it. They were not hirelings who cared nothing for the sheep. They do all this not because the money was good, the applause endless, the gratitude undying and edifying. They did it, because they are genuine Easter people. »We are sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously.« (John O’Donohue)
Behind their vocation there is a deep love. This is not a naive love that has no idea of the demands and risks it takes on. The love of the good shepherd is something that seeks to cast lines of hope into the dark heart of human despair.
Love is at the center of this text. It is because of love that the good shepherd lays down his life. To express this love, Jesus uses the interesting metaphor of shepherding, an image taken from the daily grind of the working class. The Gospels tell us that working class people identify with him. After all, as the son of a carpenter, he comes from this milieu. People who earn their daily bread by the sweat of their brow are drawn to him, such as fishermen. His parables are full of the experiences of the working class: the work of the peasants; the experience that comes when money is scarce and one searches with considerable determination for a lost coin because one has only ten to start with; the kneading of the leaven into the flour to make bread; the sowing and harvesting of the fields; the backbreaking work of the vineyards.
Jesus speaks the language of this daily life of working men and women. The endless hours of hard, back-breaking work did not always end with a generous wage paid by a generous employer. And even when the day was done, these people knew before they fell into the sleep of the exhausted that the same awaited them when they opened their eyes the next day. Regardless of what the day brought, they knew they would have to work, through sickness, storms, cold, and personal grief, if they wanted their daily bread. Their lives play out in the place of toil, of work, of great effort to secure their lives and their future from the earth. It is the place where they invest everything to bring forth fruitfulness. They are the servants of life. They are used to working through the demands of life.
Thus they stand in sharp contrast to the rich and powerful. Their lives take place where others toil to serve their lives, where others work to secure their comforts, and they can live effortlessly. They are not servants of life, but consumers of it. They have an expectation that the working class does not, namely, that others serve their lives. They do not labour to meet the demands of life, but simply make demands on life.
In the midst of this world of work, Jesus does something breathtaking and chooses this as the place where he will speak about love. He does not choose hidden places or privileged places. He does not speak of love in extraordinary and tender moments that are deeply personal and private.
»I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.« Shepherds do this, but they do it in public, before the eyes of a watching world. Jesus makes the value of love public. For him, this is where love is needed, in the midst of a struggling world. Love is needed in public places, where life happens every day. It should not be relegated to the realm of privacy. Love is needed in the places of our professionalism and should not be degraded as a leisure activity. Love must be lived and told in the places of politics and not relegated to the sanctuaries and lecture halls.
Love is not a private matter for Jesus. For Jesus, love is the most creative force in all creation. It possess incredible power to enrich people's lives, to create justice, to bring about change, and to create community and belonging. But where is this a more pressing concern than in the public places of the world? Love is needed more urgently in our boardrooms than in our bedrooms.
I must confess, that the prophets of doom have been getting to me these days. I have repeatedly found my frustration flaring, feeling annoyed and irritated by their endless litany of discouragement, whining, and criticism. Like many others, I have found it an uphill battle to keep faith alive and hope burning. There have been times when I have been sorely tempted to throw in the towel.
But there is also a stubborn streak of resistance in me. I refuse to hand my soul over to the prophets of doom. I am tired, my friends, but I am still proud to say with the Master: »I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.« Then I turn my back on chattering doomsayers and instead, I keep watch for all my fellow good shepherds, respecting and telling their stories, because they bear witness to the fact that the world is still full of love and light, and also of God, the first and foremost of good shepherds. And it gives me courage to carry on, and keep »walking on the pastures of wonder«. (John O’Donohue) And it gives me comfort to be among so many good shepherds, be a part of their guild.
And so, beyond weariness and frustration, I sat down and did what good shepherds do, and wrote these words for you.
Erik Riechers SAC,April 25th, 2021
Living with the Resurrection
To really hear the message of the Resurrection, the messages of the Risen One in the comprehensive and biblical sense of the word takes time. So it is good and beneficial that the Easter season lasts so long, because to become truly human we need time and practice.
Simply perceiving the messages is not enough here either. We must - like the disciples once did - take in what we have experienced and heard. What all Easter stories have in common is that Jesus comes quite unexpectedly, into very different everyday situations: at the tomb and on the way, behind closed doors and while fishing at the lake. Gradually, faith and confidence unfold in his own people: he is alive. He is with us. The ending of Matthew’s Gospel tells us, » And behold, I am with you all the days, until the completion of the age«. Trusting this is the exercise of the Easter season, back then as now. He also calls us by name. We, too, meet him in the wounds and in the breaking of the bread. We, too, hear him when he promises peace and asks us for our love. He also sends us. In this way we can grow into the third step of biblical listening after perceiving and receiving: taking it with us into life.
Then life as Easter people can truly begin, a way of life that is shaped and permeated by what we have heard.
A prayer of Pope Francis may accompany us on the way to live Easter »further« :
All-powerful God,
you are present in the whole universe
and in the smallest of your creatures.
You embrace with your tenderness
all that exists.
Pour out upon us the power of your love,
that we may protect life and beauty.
Fill us with peace,
that we may live as brothers and sisters,
harming no one.
Teach us to recognize
that we are profoundly united
with every creature
as we journey towards your infinite light.
We thank you for being with us each day.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 23rd, 2021
Easter in Desert Times - Invitation to Prayer
Sometimes we barely notice Easter because we are so distracted.
Sometimes we breathe a sigh of relief for a day or two, but then other issues, in their » importance « push themselves to the fore in such a way that the tender impulses of life are stifled.
Sometimes the desert within us is so strong that we are afraid to fully enter into life for fear of falling into the trap of a mirage.
Let us try to perceive this Here of our life as well and, standing honestly in it, entrust ourselves prayerfully to the Risen Lord:
In the desert of our hearts
you, Hidden One, call out to each and every one of us:
Have no fear, come!
And: Follow me!
Let yourself be seized by the fire of my love.
This fire never says: It is enough.
Even with the thorns of our heart
you light a fire;
even the stones within us, the barren places,
you make glow.
In the midst of the desert of our heart
you forge a path for yourself,
let us glimpse your presence.
Risen One, the breath
of your presence creates us anew –
day by day.
Out of petrified blocks of ice you form
us into human beings.
Your forgiveness, fresh as on the first day,
creates us anew.
While yet in the darkness of our guilt,
in the prison of our habits
- your face: human, merciful,
and invigorating.
Markus Grünling in: Gegen die Schwerkraft des Todes 2008
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 21st, 2021
Only gradually
Today is the 16th day of the message »Jesus lives!«
The pandemic dominates the headlines – for such a long time!
»On the side«, so many other needs for so many of us!
Is it any wonder that we have grown timid?
Much in our lives is difficult, gloomy, uncertain . . .
How was it once a long time ago for those who had bound their lives completely to their Master, Jesus, and were completely distraught after the darkness of death? Two departed, many shut themselves in, it is also said that some went back to their old work in resignation. Fear and confusion prevailed.
How well we understand this!
I found these lines - I do not know their source - but they speak so honestly of the path that the resurrection takes in our hearts.
»Only gradually my heart learns your jubilation.
Too powerful are the images of death for me.
I know too much of the torments of the earth
and too little of the one who overcame them.«
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 19th, 2021
3rd Sunday of Easter 2021 Luke 24, 35–48
Sometimes the urgency of our hunger blinds
us to the fact that we are already at the feast.
To accept this can change everything; we
are always home, never exiled.
- John O'Donohue
The Gospel according to Luke tells the story hidden in John O’Donohue’s words. The urgency of their hunger blinds the disciples to the fact that everything they hunger for is right before their eyes. Their reaction? »They were frightened and greatly afraid, for they thought they saw a ghost.«
This is the way of things when we are too fixated on the urgency of our hunger. If, like the disciples, we remain only in the role of spectator, then the hungers that frighten and scare us will not give way. Then makes no difference how the resurrection breaks into our lives or where it appears in our lives, even if we are already at the feast.
In a conversation, a man tells his companion all the longing and hope he carries within himself regarding his future. Then he says »I want to live. This is my decision.« His companion says to him, »No, these are merely your considerations. Decisions produce concrete actions and signs, not just drastic new insights into your problem, which you don't actually want to address. Since you want to postpone the challenges of decision-making, you hide behind your considerations, which give you the warm and comforting feeling that you are doing something, yet all the while you do not have to make any investment whatsoever." The man nods while listening to his companion and then days to him, "I hear what you are saying. I will give it due consideration.«
The risen Lord comes to us with the offer of a new life, not a ready-made solution to the urgency of our hunger. But human beings are not obligated or compelled to accept the offers of God. We can also reject this offer of new life.
Paschal life consists of five clear steps: death, resurrection, the 40 days, ascension and Pentecost. Each of these steps also has a deep meaning for people who want to live paschally.
Death means the loss of life. In this step we must mourn and honour our losses.
Resurrection is the offer of a new life.
The forty days are the time of maturation, reflection and exercise, so that we gradually choose the new life.
Ascension is the exercise of letting go of the old life so that we can engage in the new life.
And Pentecost is the reception of a new spirit.
The Lord brings his offer of new life to those places where people are too concerned with the urgency of their hunger, where they have become too passive and reserved in shaping their lives. Hand in hand with this offer, however, comes the core question: How much life do you want to dare? For only dared life demands concrete signs and steps from us. Only when we dare more life do we have to master it and shape it. The question "How much life do you want to dare?" is a frontal attack on an unlived life.
In this biblical story, the concrete signs and steps that Jesus dares to take for the sake of the new life are clear: encounter, touch and conversation.
Even if the disciples think they see a ghost, Jesus is not a ghost. The spirit that fills him is tangible and touchable, because encounter, touch and conversation make the Spirit of God tangible.
»Touch me and understand«: Here we encounter again the old biblical principle of life. First life, then understanding. First let yourself be grasped, then grasp what is happening.
»Touch me and understand: No spirit has flesh and bones, as you see it with me.« What has flesh has substance, there is something to it. And the bones form a skeleton in us, a supporting structure for the substance of our flesh. Analyses of the life we may, under certain conditions, possibly, one day, at an appropriate time, perhaps implement offer us neither a supporting structure nor the substance we need to act. A life that is lived has flesh and bones, as we see in Jesus. The primary place where tradition and experience meet is the flesh and bones of every human being. Thus, encounter, touch and conversation make the Spirit of God tangible.
»Look at my hands and my feet...Touch me and understand... With these words he showed them his hands and feet.« Here the story employs grand images to speak truth to us: an authentic, resurrected life has hands and feet. In the image of the hand, it tells us: here is life that can tackle, that can act and create. In the image of the foot it shows us:
Here is life that is mobile, accompanying, on the way.
And then Jesus eats. »Do you have anything to eat here? They gave him a piece of fried fish; he took it and ate it before their eyes.« In this image of the fish and the eating, another aspect of authentic life in the resurrection is unveiled. What Jesus is demonstrating to his friends is essential: What is an essential part of your life also belongs to my life. Every life, including resurrected life, needs to be nourished.
Fish is eaten. Fish is something that can serve and nourish the lives of hungry people, but only if they are willing to do the hard work of gathering these fish out of dark waters and hidden depths and bring them up to the place where they live and work. Fish, as we know, do not lie on the surface of the water and they certainly do not jump into the boat by themselves.
However, this fish is not raw, but fried. It has been processed and prepared so that it can nourish and strengthen life. Here, too, we are expected to invest in our lives and make a contribution. If they do not jump into the boat of their own accord, fish certainly do not jump into our frying pans.
These are the powerful images of this resurrection story. They will be ignored to our peril as long as we do not value the Bible for both its images and its thoughts. These stories are not strangers smuggled into human life, but the inevitable companions of a people bound by birth and death. They tell us: everywhere there is spirit and life deep within: be it in people, in dreams, in stories, in songs. They have life in them. But we will have to meet, touch and discuss this life. It will, like fish, have to be brought out of depths and shaped if it is to be food for us for a lifelong journey. We cannot live the life of the resurrection as passive bystanders of our own existence.
How much life will we dare? If it is only spirit, then everything remains vague, beige und bloodless and without sharp contours. That will never lead to a life that is dared, because it asks absolutely nothing of us: no attitude to be taken, no action to be risked and no decision to be made. The spirit that is in Jesus spurs us to dare to live more. How far may our lives rise? How much life are we willing to dare?
The resurrection is God's offer of new life. Yet, the nature and challenge of all offers is that they are invitations. As pleasant as it is to receive them, but they are completely worthless until we choose to accept them.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 18th, 2021
Against the gravitational pull of death
If we want to look further and deeper at the Easter message and, above all, live it, then we are challenged to take it with us into all the heaviness that we encounter and carry. We cannot make light of it, we cannot avoid it, and we do not want to suppress it.
But how can we learn to live with it?
By taking the biblical experience of Easter seriously.
Let us allow another voice to have its say on this:
One stands up.
Against the gravitational pull of death,
he rises from death.
Takes from death its heaviness
once and for all.
Radiantly bright are now the prospects.
A spark of hope for the healed world:
Beyond death: Life!
Life beyond death -
new perspectives open up
for life here and now!
Very heavy burden remains burden,
immeasurable suffering remains suffering
and death remains in the world.
But burden and suffering and death do not have the last word.
The last word is reserved for another.
And he answers
the gravitational pull of death
with the explosive force of life.
Ursula Schauber from: Ibid. (Pub.), Gegen die Schwerkraft des Todes. Fastenzeit und Ostern, 2008
Death encounters us in many facets of our lives and makes our progress difficult.
Let us take it for what it is: a passage unto more life.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 16th, 2021
We should not abandon one another
Am ersten Tag der Woche kam Maria von Magdala frühmorgens, als es noch dunkel war, zum Grab und sah, dass der Stein vom Grab weggenommen war. Da lief sie schnell zu Simon Petrus und dem anderen Jünger, den Jesus liebte, und sagte zu ihnen: Sie haben den Herrn aus dem Grab weggenommen und wir wissen nicht, wohin sie ihn gelegt haben. Da gingen Petrus und der andere Jünger hinaus und kamen zum Grab; sie liefen beide zusammen, aber weil der andere Jünger schneller war als Petrus, kam er als Erster ans Grab.
Joh 20, 1-4
What is Mary's first reaction after seeing the stone rolled away from the tomb? She returns to her companions with her message. She comes to them with everything that is inside her: with the emotions that this experience has aroused, with the fears that it has provoked, with the unspoken hopes that it has awakened. She has come back and created a place of sharing, a place of encounter. But unfortunately it does not become a place of dialogue, of conversation.
Why not? Because on the part of the disciples there is no response to her experience. No one asks about what she has experienced, how she feels and how she is doing with all this. They abandon her. They leave her alone with everything that is in her.
Have you ever returned from a great vacation, a moving celebration or a lecture and wanted to tell others about what had fulfilled you? Have you ever seen a moving movie or read an inspiring book and wanted to share it with others? What happens when no one really listens to you? What happens when there is no echo to your experience, only silent disinterest? You will feel abandoned. Disinterest in our interests is always perceived as disinterest in our person.
Peter and John have what they need for the time being and then they set out to pursue their own agenda. They satisfy their curiosity, their hunger for knowledge, but they do so by sacrificing a friend and companion.
The search for life and truth cannot be authentic if we sacrifice other people to achieve our goals. Sadly, however, this is often the experience with unhealthy religious agendas that make us so myopic and put blinders on us, so that we overlook or, worse, ignore God's people, especially those who suffer. We see only what we need of the religious experience we seek, and then we are willing to sacrifice others to get it.
This is exactly the opposite of the way the resurrected love lives and acts. Jesus, the resurrected one, refuses to leave everyone else behind. Jesus always returns to us. He appears and looks for us where we are, in the conditions in which we live, in the situations and experiences that have us in their grip. This is the love of Jesus and this is the love that the disciples miss: a love that refuses to seek its own fulfillment at the expense of others. This is the love they seek, but not the love they emulate. They leave Mary behind.
We can become so consumed by our religious ideals that we forget the priority of human life in the loving heart of God. Then liturgical purity becomes more important than the participants in a worship service. There is an obsession with regulating the life of faith that often ignores the life of believers.
This is what the disciples are doing. They ignore the life of this believing woman. Without her, they wouldn't have even heard the story that sets her in motion. But they leave her behind. And they do it twice.
After they had explored the empty grave and what was of interest to them, they go home. Mary, who followed them back to the grave on her own, they leave alone with her tears.
Leaving people alone in their grief is not the way of the Risen One. Let where he appears in resurrection stories. He is ever to be found where his disciples are suffering, whether from anxiety, depression, grief, doubt or hopelessness.
This is often the reproach to the hierarchical church: You have abandoned us in our grief and vulnerability. Many people in difficult relationships have experienced that the official church would rather condemn them than accompany them. In example after example, victims of abuse have not been respected and accompanied because ministers wanted to avoid the scandal that the recognition of their pain brings with it.
A few weeks ago, we in Germany witnessed the publication of the abuse report for the Archdiocese of Cologne. Immediately afterwards, an auxiliary bishop was relieved of his duties. Afterwards he wrote: »I am even more ashamed to have paid too little attention to how wounded people feel, what they need and how the church must encounter them. This is a failure as a pastor and as a human being.« If an auxiliary bishop can only say that after he has been exposed in the abuse scandal, then we have to ask: Where have you been all these years? What have you been so busy with that you don't know what wounded people feel and need? Certainly not with these people. He had time for the church career and was always concerned about the people who could promote him instead of caring about the people who needed his protection. His concern for the cult of personality around Cardinal Meisner, and the cultivated denunciation of all those who did not observe every liturgical rule has been willful, because he did not make sure that the rules of canon law were observed as soon as it was about the most frail people. When these become the concerns of shepherds, then there is little time for the care for the souls of the people. This is how people are born who end up leaving Mary of Magdala crying at the tomb.
John draws a strong contrast between Mary and the disciples. In her grief, 1. she thinks of the others, 2. she returns to them (does not leave them alone), 3. she tells them her story (and thus something that could also strengthen their life in a time of grief) and 4. she takes detours into account for the life of others (she could also stay in the garden to pursue her interests and continue her way).
The disciples, on the other hand, 1. think only of themselves and leave Mary behind, 2. do not seek her out, 3. tell her nothing of their story (and thus share nothing that could strengthen Mary's life in a time of grief) and 4. simply go home when they are done. Here there are detours and no one waits for Mary to be ready.
A healthy Easter spirituality must ask the question, how will we seek and encounter the Risen Lord? If we want to celebrate Easter »further«, it is certainly not by abandoning one another.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 14th, 2021
»Further« Celebrating Easter
Liturgically, we celebrate the Paschal Mystery on all Sundays until Pentecost. But in our consciousness, Easter fades into the background at the latest with White Sunday, that is, after one week. What a pity!
We would like to counteract this and to further celebrate Easter with you - on the one hand temporally, on the other hand also in forms and through the voices of other people. In order to broaden our view and our hearts, we always let others have their say. Last week it was Willi Bruners. Today Susanne Ruschmann from Freiburg speaks to us about what happened and happens in the early morning:
When,
in the dark of the morning
you go to the graves of life
more night than dawning day
in your heart
when your sorrow does not want to end
about everything you carried to the grave
your hopes, plans, failed love
your living longing that died in the midst of life
the meaning of your present, which you believed would carry you
into the blossoming future and beyond the future
then remember
that once before
one who was hope and meaning for so many
mocked, failed, robbed of life
was buried in the abyss of death.
And call to mind
that those who buried him, those who wept for him
did not experience his rebirth
no return to life, as if nothing had happened.
Everything remained true: the hope that died, the sorrow, the death.
When they saw him, he was still bearing his wounds.
And yet they knew:
now a new beginning blossoms for us
as there never was one before
because he, who is life itself
awakens new life
from the depth of the grave and the night of death.
Then set out
in the early light of your Easter day
and seek life.
But do not look for it in the grave.
It encounters you different and new
strangely at first,
marked and tender
in the midst of everyday life.
In working, loving
in hoping and mourning, in failing and starting,
and in the midst of you.
Susanne Ruschmann, from: Ibid. (Hg.), Es wird in aller Frühe sein. Fastenzeit und Ostern, 2009
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 12th, 2021
No Doors can bar him
2nd Sunday of Easter 2021 John 20, 19-31
»On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them…«
»Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them…«
Jesus comes even when the doors are locked. John repeats this sentence twice. With such a taciturn narrator, this is always a sign that something important is at stake. Why? Because when something is only said once, we only have one opportunity to understand it and put it into practice.
But what is repeated gives us more than one chance to absorb and digest what is said. That is why John emphasizes twice that the doors were closed. Thus, he signals in advance that these closed doors play a significant role both times. When it comes to the closed doors of our personal lives, we will also need a God who makes more than one attempt to penetrate through them.
Every time I hear this story, an image of my childhood comes back to me. When I was very small, a nun gave me a holy picture with the subtitle: Only you can open the door. In the picture there was a man. He was sitting behind a closed door, cringing, paralyzed by fear and inner darkness. Outside, in front of this door, stood Jesus. With one hand he holds a lantern, with the other he knocks on the door. And here you had to look very carefully at the picture, because only then do you notice that the door has only one knob on the inside. Jesus cannot enter, except if that the man first unlocks the door from the inside. And so the subtitle: Only you can open the door.
Part of the image reflects the experience of the Gospel while also reflecting an all too common experience of our lives. We often live behind closed doors. We feel constricted and enclosed. But even if we have shut these doors ourselves, that does not mean that we are always able to open them again on our own. When then the message resounds »Only you can open the door«, it sounds like mockery to us.
Today's Gospel offers us an alternative story. After Jesus' resurrection, he appears to the disciples who, as John describes it, »were gathered in a room«, full of fear, behind closed doors. Jesus comes right through the closed doors, stands in the midst of their fears, and breathes peace upon them. A week later, he does it again. »Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked.«
As cute as the holy picture of my childhood was, it was not harmless. Because it cannot answer a question that John clearly answers. What if we cannot open the door of our fears? Such life situations happen occasionally. These days, people told me about a woman who took her own life. Their narration was filled with consternation and deep sadness, but also a helplessness. Why couldn't we reach her? Why couldn't we appear behind these closed doors of her heart to do something, to make a difference? Indeed, here we encounter the limits of our human ability. And where we come up against this limitation we will hear the words Jesus spoke to Peter when he reached the end of his imagination of what is possible: But nothing is impossible for God.
However, we should not consider ourselves immune to such hours. Sometimes we, too, are too afraid to open the doors. Other times we are paralyzed by worry. Sometimes we just can't find or muster the strength to get up and open the doors again.
What then? Does that mean that Jesus then shrugs his shoulders and walks away simply because we couldn't open the door? Should our moments of weakness, darkness, heaviness and paralysis be able to determine the places God may enter?
The biblical story denies such an idea quite energetically, and it does so twice. Because in both instances Jesus comes to us behind closed doors. Did we really imagine anything other than this from the Jesus who shatters lock and stone? If neither the wood of the cross could hold him, but the rock-sealed tomb was able to imprison him, what chance do doors closed by human hands have, be they in our homes or in our hearts?
When we are so paralyzed by fear and darkness that we can no longer help ourselves, when we come to the moment when we can no longer open the door to let in light and life, God still comes through closed doors.
God comes through all the locked doors of our lives, stands in the middle of our fears and breathes peace upon us. There are doors that we have personally locked and bolted. The love of God does not stand helplessly in front of such closed doors. Precisely because he appears even behind closed doors, we realize that there can be no God-less, no God-empty spaces.
This experience can change our lives. A woman wrote to me these days, »I discovered that I have heartache with my personal God. And somehow, despite pain, it was liberating for me. Because in this way I realized for the first time in my life, and continue to feel, that there are no godless spaces. This is completely new for me. A whole new experience.«
This does not mean that everything immediately becomes good, that all worry gives way and only lightness reigns within us. For, as John so aptly tells us, after Jesus had already once come behind closed doors to relieve his people's fears, it is only eight days later that we hear that the doors are closed again. We need more than one chance to get many things done in life. We are very fortunate that the Lord who writes twice for us on stone tablets, the God who writes twice for us in the dust, is also the Lord who comes twice behind closed doors.
And yet we should not misunderstand the message. Here John speaks comfort to us. For from where does the voice of Jesus come that would like to speak to us again? In the picture, it comes from outside the house. There is a door between a man and Jesus. And this voice invites us to open the door.
In John, the voice comes from inside the house. The Jesus who would love to talk to us stands in the space of our fears. No door stands between our timidity and his willingness, between our weakness and his strength. This is true consolation, because this twofold narrative reminds us that all these things are given space and place and time in the spaces of our encounters with Jesus. His voice is beside us, where we are. This voice comes into the spaces where we are pressed, constricted and trapped.
This resurrection story also tells us of the disciples' experience of Jesus' ongoing yet transformed presence. And today we hear twice that this presence of the Risen One is an accompanying presence, ready to enter all our spaces, whether we have already cleaned them up or not. The presence of Jesus opens doors for us from the inside, so that we can go out into life again.
Here is one who is present and near, entering the rooms of our lives. We humans have plenty of fear of contact. Jesus does not share any of these fears.
Of course, we still have all of our freedoms behind these doors. We can keep them closed. We can continue to stay there. There are doors that we personally keep locked and bolted. But we should never, ever underestimate God’s freedom. The love of God does not stand helplessly before such locked doors. For, there are no God-less, no God-empty rooms. Although we human beings can be quite stubborn, compared to the stubbornness of God, we are all just amateurs. God does not come only once.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 11th, 2021
If only someone could do that
Many would like to live like a butterfly; life should feel easy, be simply beautiful, perhaps cozy, and preferably sociable - Where can we eat well, what shall we wear? Stories of suffering? I don't want to hear about it! It's bad enough that we have not been able to travel for so long! Are you worried? Treat yourself to something nice, distract yourself! Pain? There's a cure for that! Scars from old wounds? Everything is covered up, concealed, and smoothed over with words.
But life is not only easy - neither in the larger world nor in the smaller one and in no single human life. Hunger, flight, and wars are realities just like illness, loss, separation and pain. Why are we afraid to accept these realities as well as the sunny sides of life?
Why do we find it so difficult to look at the dark and to say ‘yes’ to injuries and scarring, to neither deny nor to condemn them?
Is the fact that we follow a Master who has lived and suffered through life in all its breadth, covering up nothing, glossing over nothing, not precisely the extraordinary thing about our faith? The scars are the very sign of the Risen Lord. They belong to him just as every suffering we go through belongs to us. If we understand this, we do not need a permanent religious elation, which pretends that we only have to believe correctly and everything is easy. Nor do we need to maintain a superficially light façade, for fear that the heaviness will take something away from life. If we could accept our own wounds, then we would not ignore and marginalize all those people who suffer, because their pain reminds us of our own pain.
The peace of Easter could dwell in our hearts and communities, in which everything has its place and the whole of life takes on significance.
Willi Bruners found wonderful words for this many years ago.
»Peace be with you.
When he had said this,
he showed them his hands and his side.«
(Jn 20, 19f)
If someone could do that
show his scars,
his wounds, the blood
not yet dried
and not curse
not judge
if someone could do that
it would be his turn
to excavate heaven
the forgotten dead
from: Wilhelm Bruners, Verabschiede die Nacht, S. 74
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 9th, 2021
Step by Step
Easter is not a feast of one or two days. We celebrate it in the liturgy for weeks. We approach the mystery, we spell it out again and again. There is a reason for this. Experiencing the resurrection is not a triumphalist event that comes upon us and clears everything up in one fell swoop. It was not that way from the beginning. The biblical stories are clear on this point. It was and is always a tender, questioning approach that finally warms the heart and sets us in motion.
Willi Bruners put it into words in this manner:
Step by step
the chaos clears
the life becomes recognizable
that lies before us
feeding
hungry people
who wait for bread
visiting
sick people
who yearn
full of anticipation
for a kindly look
Summoning forth the dead
who are hoping
for the words
of resurrection
When we move out
of the house
of our fears
and disappointments
we become free again
for each other
and give the demon
of endless death speeches his walking papers
Anew we discover
the traces of life
anew we discover the resurrected one
anew we discover in the chaos
the great connections
which slowly become clear to us
and become transparent
to an open future
in and with
HIM
w.bruners
Perhaps we will take time again and again during these Easter weeks for an inner and also outer journey to Emmaus. We could perceive and name questions, fears, longings and hopes within us. We could sense and discover the Risen Lord in new possibilities and life spaces in a way we never expected.
Let us open the eyes and ears of our hearts, so that our Easter light may dawn on us again and again!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 7th, 2021
And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.
Easter Monday 2021 Luke 24, 13-35
The resurrection stories of the biblical narrative are rich and complex at the same time. They tell us about the disciples' experience of Jesus' continuing yet transformed presence. And that is why there are no ecstatic resurrection stories. The disciples are happy that Jesus' presence is continuing, but cannot easily come to terms with the way his presence has been transformed. They are always startled, mostly overwhelmed, frequently frightened, and for a great extent oblivious.
Precisely because it is so difficult to adapt to this transformed presence of Jesus, all the resurrection stories reveal to us four identifying signs for the way the Risen Lord enters our lives.
- First he enters into our present, unfiltered and unpurified life situation.
- He comes unknown and uninvited.
- He first reveals himself as a kind neighbor.
- Only after the experience of the effect of his transformed presence in our lives do we recognise him as Master and Lord.
- First he enters into our present, unfiltered and unpurified life situation.
The present life situation of the disciples is devastating. They once lived with the great certainty that Jesus was a prophet, »mighty in deed and word before God and all the people«. With his death, this »great certainty« turned into the »great disillusionment« for the disciples. His death not only ended his physical life, but in the hearts and minds of these disciples, the truth he believed, his great certainty that God is gracious and merciful, was also destroyed.
»But we had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel.«
It is a devastating sentence, because they speak of hope in the past tense. How many questions are woven into this one sentence? Can the ultimate power of life be merciful if this very man and all he stood for is crucified? Was the joyful confidence that characterized Jesus just a fata morgana? What kind of love allows Pilate to die in his bed and Jesus to be nailed to the wood?
- He comes unknown and uninvited.
The resurrection is the disciples' experience of Jesus' continuing yet transformed presence. But because this presence of Jesus has been transformed, they do not recognize him. His resurrection does not solve the riddles of human existence.
A long loving look at the reality of this resurrection story shows us that the two disciples encounter and journey with Jesus, but that does make everything crystal clear, nor does it resolve their doubts and fears or soothe their troubled hearts.
The two of them share their path and their stories with Jesus, but his presence does not put an end to all the storms of their lives, so that now they could calmly return home.
I remind you gently, that this is a story in which hope is spoken of in the past tense. The two of them pour out their grief about the vicious persecution of the chief priests and leaders of the people. They mention that »today is already the third day«, but no alarm bells are set off.
They speak of the remarkable women of their community.
When the twelve deserted him, the women remained.
When the morning was still dark, the women brought the spices.
When the tomb was empty, the women proclaimed the good news.
When they were not believed, the women did not give up.
But none of this, none of their own story, seems to have any effect on them. And the Risen Lord’s presence is not changing the way they hear and service their own story an experience.
Why is it all still so confusing? Because the resurrection does not solve the riddles of human existence. The Risen Lord is their companion, but no one in this biblical narrative I able to walk around and claim that all the mist of doubt and uncertainty have been lifted.
That is not how resurrection works. The characteristic of our Christianity is not that we are well informed about the coming heavenly future. The resurrection does not clear up once and for all the mystery of the relationship between God and his people.
Instead, it teaches us that this relationship is real. Our experiences of the Risen Lord will be found where find our doubts and uncertainties accompanied. The Risen Lord will first call on us to tell our stories in all their numbing, confusing, messy and chaotic fullness. The Risen Lord is not the one who suddenly appears and says: »I am back. Don’t worry about anything. Now I will tell you everything.« He is the one who first says: »Tell me everything«.
The Risen Lord eases us into the fullness of the mystery of this relationship.
- He first reveals himself as a kind neighbor.
The resurrection is the original religious experience for Christians, but does not dispel the mystery of God or of our life with him. All the resurrection stories show us that the disciples are as shocked by the resurrection as they were by the crucifixion.
Like all of Jesus’ actions, the resurrection is an invitation. He invites us to overcome death. How? By taking our present, unfiltered, unpurified and real lives and immersing them irretrievably into mysterious relationship God enjoys with his beloved people. Easter is an invitation to a world of possibilities and perspectives we have not even thought of yet. »Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.«
The resurrection experience is first connected to a kind neighbor and fellow human being who opens our perspectives to all the places between heaven and hell where life can blossom.
When Jesus presented to them all that Moses, the prophets, and all the Scriptures have to tell about, he reminded them that wild things happen when one dares to walk with God. He is gently leading them to a lesson that John Shea put this way: »Most people who have drunk deeply of God have walked wildly through life«. Jesus told them the Stories of God and the Stories of Faith, and these stories recount how grace is insidiously at work healing our wounds. This happens on the road to Emmaus, while he is talking about it. »Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?« He told them the stories of a God who issues surprising invitations and of a boring old world that will be shot through with the unexpected power of the Son of Man.
The resurrection stories are stories of faith. They are a poetic overflow of faith experiences. Whatever they may say about the Risen Lord, they tell us more about ourselves and how we realistically experience life after encountering the Risen Lord.
- Only after the experience of the effect of his transformed presence in our lives do we recognise him as Master and Lord.
This is what all the resurrection stories teach us. Only now and only gradually will our eyes open. Our hearts burn for a long time while we are on the road before they realize who the arsonist is.
The resurrection and the challenge to shape life beyond death experiences is difficult for us, then as now, because grace works through the most unlikely people. Here is one who brings them out of their sorrow and depression. They do not recognize him at first, just as Mary does not realize who the gardener is, who does this for her. First the experience of his transformed presence in our life, then the knowledge of whom we are encountering. Here is one who draws them toward new perspectives beyond old guilt. They will not recognize him at first, just as the Peter does not recognize the fish-cooking and bread-roasting man on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius who is doing exactly the same thing for him. First the experience of his transformed presence in our life, then the knowledge of whom we are encountering. Here is a good man who will lead them out of them beyond the disappointments that were too large and the stories that were too small. Only at the table will they fully recognize him. First the experience of his transformed presence in our life, then the knowledge of whom we are encountering.
So keep your eyes open for the signs of the Risen Lord:
- First he enters into our present, unfiltered and unpurified life situation.
- He comes unknown and uninvited.
- He first reveals himself as a kind neighbor.
- Only after the experience of the effect of his transformed presence in our lives do we recognise him as Master and Lord.
Erik Riechers SAC
Easter Monday, April 5th, 2021
Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.
Easter Sunday 2021 John 20, 1-11
In Genesis 28, 16-17 Jacob, who has absolutely no expectation of an experience of God in himself and in the place he presently finds himself in, comes to a startling realisation. »Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.« And he was afraid and said, »How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.«
When it comes to the resurrection, I think a great many of us assume that it will occur in any place aside from within us and in the places where we dwell. Yet, today’s story from the Gospel of John leads us to the same startling realisation in the garden where the rock is rolled away that Jacob had in the wilderness with a rock under his head. »Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.«
Hidden in the folds of John’s story is an older tale of love and longing. It guided his heart and his hand as he was writing his first Easter story for us.
On my bed by night
I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him, but found him not.
I will rise now and go about the city,
in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves.
I sought him, but found him not.
The watchmen found me
as they went about in the city.
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found him whom my soul loves.
I held him, and would not let him go
until I had brought him into my mother's house,
and into the chamber of her who conceived me.
Song of Songs 3, 1-4
If you are looking for a trustworthy and sure-footed guide on the path to resurrected, redeemed life, I highly recommend Mary of Magdala. She can cure us of one of the worst problems that Easter faith faces: the romanticising of the resurrection.
Too often we speak and sing about the resurrection as something finished, as a final product. But not all the darkness that lay heavy upon our hearts has disappeared. Like the disciples in every resurrection story, we have a problem: none of us lives such an antiseptic life.
We dream of resurrected, redeemed life; of friendships coming back to life after long hibernation; of the revival of old love stories long lost; of peace putting an end to war, of food following famine, of health replacing disease, and of freedom trumping oppression.
Indeed, this life is fulfilled for Jesus, but not for us. On our side of the tomb, we experience the promise of resurrected life as Mary did in the Garden: neither completely finished nor a hope in the distant future. Mary of Magdala is the guide to this mystery, because she alone goes through all the processes. She does not take shortcuts and does not quit in the middle of the journey (unlike Peter and John who simply go back home). She teaches us: this risen life is not a possession, but a process that must unfold in us through the power of God. This is important if Easter is not to be just a pause on the road to despair.
This first Easter experience of Mary is like the experience we have had innumerable times in the course of our lives. Our life is painfully incomplete and imperfect. Only those who take this experience seriously understand the deepest reason for Jesus' death: a true love that wants to redeem something must be ready to fight for what it loves. Authentic love seeks, »the one whom my soul loves«. We will not shed the blood of our heart for what we do not want to redeem.
In the Song of Songs we see this willingness to struggle for that which we have grown to love. What a tremendous and arduous outpouring of loving effort this woman makes for the sake of her love: Searching through long nights and not finding what she is looking for; roaming the city, scouring the streets and squares; stopping others and questioning them in the hope of finding some hint, some direction; grabbing the beloved, not letting go, and bringing him home.
In the Gospel story of the first Easter morning, John looks admiringly at Mary of Magdala and recognises the same willingness to struggle for the sake of great love that he knew from the Song of Songs. Mary is cut of the same cloth as the Old Testament singer: She rises early, wanders through the darkness only to find emptiness. She walks back to where she started and discusses the situation with others, but finds little understanding and no support; she walks back to the Garden again, having been left behind by her companions. She stand before the tomb (on the outside). She needs a time for weeping that Kohelet knew must come. She dares to stares into the emptiness. She risks being questioned. She turns away from darkness and confinement to light and spaciousness, from tombs to gardens. And then there is more questioning, more recognition and even more letting go.
But John does not stop there. He sees this willingness to struggle for the sake of love in the Risen Lord. The underlying question is: Whom does my soul love? This is, in fact, the key question. God answers this core question of love. Too our lasting astonishment, and often to our disbelief, we are the answer. Jesus, the Risen One, tells us that we are ones for whom he was willing to struggle for the sake of great love.
This is the eternal message of God's stories. They show us a God who is willing to shed his blood for the people he truly loves. They show us a God who is ready to wrestle for us. If it were not so, he would not need to part the Red Sea and confront military powers. If it were not so, then he need not rain carbohydrates from heaven. Then rock would then continue to stubbornly and silently refrain from gushing forth water, even if a thirsty people wail before it. If God would not struggle for us, then the first garden story of Adam and Eve would have been the last one, and the present garden story of Jesus and Mary would never have existed.
John knows all of this and yet, with the eye of the eagle, he also recognises that this resurrecting, redeeming life pulsates not only in God, but also in Mary. And in us. This resurrection life refuses to write off and abandon the one whom my soul loves. This life continues to write human narratives that others have long since consigned to the grave. This heart is to be found in our God, but it is also to be found in his beloved people. It is a heart that knows what is worth fighting for, what is worth suffering for.
Perhaps this is the best kept secret of Christian faith. We carry a redeeming love within us. Redemption is just another word for the divine spaciousness that God gives to all people in all the narrow places where their lives are at stake, no matter how they got there or whether they know the name of the Lord. We participate in this work of redemption, because we, too, are able and willing to wrestle for the life of the world for the sake of great love. Why else do we struggle with unemployment, social injustice and economic inequality? Why do we muddle through complicated relationship histories and not immediately throw in the towel? Why do we bend over backwards for people who don't always appreciate our efforts? Why do we not immediately withdraw when death, illness or despair infect the lives of others and burden our lives?
We dwell in a time when we feel overwhelmed by crisis. Our confidence in the future is shaken. So join me, Easter people, not in triumphalist and unrealistic hymns of Easter glory, but in the earthy, grounded story of a remarkable woman and her going into that garden.
Remember, my fellow grave goers and garden guests: we will never struggle for what we do not love. We will never wrestle for what we don't care about. We will never put anything on the line for what leaves us cold. God struggles with us and for us, and that is the only sure and reliable sign of love. He pours this resurrecting, redeeming love into us, and it makes us ready to struggle, for each other, for the world, for justice, for the children, for the poor. Resurrection is flowing through our veins.
The way of Jesus, the way of the Gospel, and the way of a paschal spirituality are the ways of wrestling. Wrestling will make us see. We will see what we really love. We will see what is worth wrestling for. We will see what is really in our heart. Lead on, Mary of Magdala. And remind us that there are things that can only be seen with eyes that have wept.
Erik Riechers SAC
Easter Sunday, April 4th, 2021
What wondrous love is this?
Good Friday B 2021 John 18, 1 – 19, 42
It is easy enough to get caught up in the dramatic and heart-wrenching passion of Jesus. This hour and this ambience allow us to feel the depth of his pain with a new ferocity. Knowing his innocence, we are all the more horrified at the injustice done to him. Knowing his kindness, we are all the more appalled at the cruelty he endured for our sake. The viciousness galls us, the tragedy tears at our hearts, and his humiliating death has saddened our souls for centuries.
Several years ago, a teacher took a group of Kindergarten children on a tour of the church. The Stations of the Cross particularly moved one of the little boys in the group. As he moved along the stations, watching the story of Christ’s passion unfold, he grew more and more agitated. Finally, he came to stand under the great cross, and his youthful sense of outrage and injustice exploded forth. Hands on his hips, with defiance in his voice, the young boy burst forth, »I am going to kill the guys who killed Jesus!«
My friends, this is not the highest theology of the cross I have ever heard, but it does touch upon the one mystery of this day which must be dearest to us. Like the little boy, the passion and death of Jesus Christ must touch us deeply and move us personally. Like the little boy, the passion of Christ must awaken a passion for Christ in those who follow the road to Golgotha with him.
In order to touch us on yet deeper levels than sadness and anger, we need to look at three facets to the mystery that looms over us this day.
(I)
It is love that brings Christ to the Cross. Throughout the passion narrative of John we hear how Christ moves through the gradual stages of coming to the cross. Yet, John makes it very clear that Jesus did not have to go at all, if he did not want to. This is not the suffering and death of a powerless man. When Judas comes with the posse into the garden, Jesus does not run and hide. He steps forward freely to face the music. When he admits to the lynch mob that he is the one they are hunting down, the soldiers fall to the ground. Jesus offers himself up for the arrest, but insists, »So if you are looking for me, let these men go«. He stands unabashed and fearless before the Sanhedrin. In the face of Pilate’s insistence that he has power over Him, Jesus retorts, »You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above.«
Indeed, this power to avoid the cross makes the death of Christ far more astonishing. The lengths he was willing to go for us, in suffering and death, find their real meaning in the fact that he did not have to go at all. This is a voluntary death, a freely chosen suffering. It is a death mirrored throughout the ages, in mothers and fathers who toss aside personal safety to run into a burning building to save their children. It is a dying reflected in a tender story recounted by Sister Joan Delaplane.
»Five year old Johnny Quinn loved his big brother, Tommy. The doctor told Johnny that his brother was very sick and needed a blood transfusion, and the doctor asked: ‘Johnny, would you be willing to give some blood to your brother?’ Johnny gulped hard, his eyes got big, but after a moment’s hesitation he said, ‘Sure, doctor.’ The doctor took the blood and Johnny was resting quietly on the table. A few minutes later, Johnny looked up at the doctor and said: ‘When do I die, doctor?’ It was only then that the doctor fully appreciated the extent of this little boy’s love.«
It is love, not force, which flings parents into the inferno. It is love, not force, which makes Johnny pour forth his blood for his brother. It is love, not force, which brings Christ to the Cross.
This moment must cause our hearts to crack. We are the reason Christ comes to Calvary. He harbours a love for us so deep, that it gladly embraces what he could easily avoid. For us, he enters into a misery and cruelty that would be instantly relieved if he would only detach his heart from our destiny. If we were standing before Pilate at Gabbatha, at the place called »the Stone Pavement«, would we not be tempted to cry out to him, »Leave us behind, save yourself.«? Yet, he does not take his leave from us. He takes the cross for us. Love, love for us, and not our guilt brings Christ to the Cross.
(II)
Which leads us directly to the second mystery of this day. If in the first instance love brings Christ to the cross, then in the second instance love keeps Christ on the Cross. It is a wonder of the cross that Christ does not have to go to the wood, but voluntarily goes for our sake. It is a marvel of matching magnitude that he does not have to stay, but freely chooses to do so.
Here is the Lord of the entire universe, present when God first peeled back the waters to begin the work of creation. He has power to climb down from the cross. He has power to call upon legions of angels so that he would not even dash his foot against a stone. His word grants light to eyes that languish in darkness, and strength to set legs a’ strolling that once were lame.
In the face of the agony of the cross, the taunt of the crowd, and the humiliation of the soldiers gambling for his clothing before his dying eyes, Jesus remains on the cross. He lingers in this pitiless place of pain. He does not leave this horrifying moment, filled with callous disregard for his person and his dignity. Filled with the agony of this brutality that sears from skin to bone marrow, Jesus stays on the cross.
The reason for this is simple. He must complete two works of mercy. The first is a work of revelation and the second a work of redemption. These two works are vital.
In his staying on the cross we have the work of revelation, namely, that God will remain with us in the painful moments of love. He will not walk away. We will not be abandoned when the going gets rough. His love for us keeps him near to us. The cross reveals that we are loved to death.
The second work of redemption is equally important. When Christ stays on the cross, we learn that no one can be saved by love, if we do not remain in the places of suffering with the beloved. The cross redeems us by granting us the experience that we are loved by a God who is present in dreadful, pain-racked, blood-soaked places and times we ourselves would like to flee.
(III)
Thus we come to a third moment in which we win a deeper appreciation for the cross. Remember the little boy beneath the cross. He was so moved, he wished to exact vengeance from the people who had hurt the friend he had in Jesus. If we wish to share his passion on an adult level, then we must ask ourselves clear cut questions. Will we allow our love for others to bring us to the cross? Will we allow our love for others to keep us there? But will we also avoid the revenge and violence that the cross often awakens in us?
We only go to the cross if we are willing to deal with something other than our own agenda, concerns and comforts. This is the question the cross draws from our hearts. Do we love anyone enough to do for them what Christ has done for us? If we are gripped by the happenings on Golgotha, then we must let love bring us to the cross, and that will demonstrate itself in whether we will avoid or embrace the places of suffering in our beloved. Will we freely go to the places where love is crucifying? Will we freely stay in the places where the very presence of our loved ones is a passion?
In this year of physical distancing, we cannot celebrate our beloved ritual of venerating the cross. But here there is an invitation here that takes us beyond the ritual to the very heart and soul of life. If your heart is as moved as that little boys, you must move to a veneration of the cross in every place where it is erected on the landscape of your life. There are friends who weep in silence, but whose tears we need not hear. We are not forced to the heart of their suffering. We can shut our eyes to the tears that redden theirs. We can feign deafness to their sobbing. When the elders ache to tell us the stories that are tedium to us and relief to them, will we stay? We venerate the cross when it is an agony for our hearts to watch the palsy of our parents. We do it when we wade into the terrors that afflict their souls and allow ourselves to be tormented by them. Our knees bend before the wood of the cross when we ache with every fibre of our being as we stand by friends undergoing daunting and severe medical treatments. The cross touches our flesh when wild horses could not drag us from the side of the dying, while everyone else flees the discomforting reminder of our mortality.
The cross is forged of every instance where we suffer because we are committed to the other in love. This is the wood of the cross on which our redeemer hung. What about us? Will we love, even when there is an easy way out and nothing or no one can force us to stay? Will we remain in places of the suffering of our beloved, even when we could exit stage left?
Exactly twenty years ago, I celebrated a Good Friday that was the most poignant for me to date. Three earlier I met a couple, Kevin and Jodie, in whose flesh I saw engraved the image of Christ crucified. Jodie was pregnant with her fourth child, and the baby was in danger. After a series of attempts to save the child in the womb, the doctors held out to the couple one slim hope of survival, which was to induce labour. For 36 hours the labour went on, and then the child was born. I was called and raced to the hospital to baptise the little one. Twenty minutes later, young Keegan Patrick died in my hands while I welcomed him through baptism into the family of the faith.
The parents did not have to go to this cross. Abortion was counselled and offered, but refused. They willingly went through weeks of discomfort, hours of pain, and the anguish of losing a beloved son to death. They did not have to go to this cross. Moreover, once they went, they did not have to stay. But go they did. And then they stayed there. Because of this, their child, who drew only 55 minutes of breath, experienced his life wrapped in a momentous love that was willing to suffer so that he might have those 55 minutes.
This infant experienced in his parents what we experience in Christ. The words of an old hymn capture Keegan’s experience of Christ’s redeeming love, and ours, so very well.
»What wondrous love is this, o my soul, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this, o my soul?
What wondrous love is this,
that made the Lord of bliss,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul?«
Keegan died knowing only the fiercely dedicated love of people who were willing to suffer crucifying passion in order to let him know life. I would say that his parents were the perfect preparation for meeting Jesus Christ. May the same be said of us.
Erik Riechers SAC
Good Friday, April 2nd, 2021
Do you understand what I have done to you?
Holy Thursday B 2021 1 Cor 11, 23–26 and John 13, 1–15
On Holy Thursday we stretch out our hand to touch the body and blood of the Lord. One day later, we stretch out our hand to touch the wood of the cross. If touching the Mystery of God means we must be ready to touch such mystery to the lives of others, then we must seriously consider the question of Jesus at the foot washing. »Do you understand what I have done to you?«
(I)
The beginning of the second reading from Paul’s exquisite first letter to the Corinthians really does not tell us anything we do not already know. On the night of his betrayal, Jesus took a loaf of bread and broke it. In the course of many years of cushioning Christ on palm and tongue, we are quite accustomed to seeing a bread broken. It is an experience common in our kitchens and done in our dining rooms. Breaking bread is a routine. However, routine actions are not meaningless actions. Often they are laden with a significance that goes unseen and unnoticed, because we repeat the action so frequently.
In this vein, the breaking of the bread at the Last Supper is far from mundane. Consider a loaf of bread in your hands, on your table. It contains food for the hungry. It satisfies growling stomachs, and gives basic nourishment to keep nerve and sinew from failing. However, none of this potential windfall of sustenance and strength has any hope of being released if one vital requirement is not met. The loaf must first be broken.
Consider the body of Christ upon the altar. It contains food for the soul, and satisfies the hungry heart. It brims with life-giving presence and keeps body and soul together. However, here too, there would be no table of plenty if Christ did not grant one special blessing. His body must first be broken. If Christ does not break the bread for us, then no one eats. If he does not pour out his blood for us, then no thirst is ever slaked.
The very act of breaking makes sharing possible. Breaking partitions a possession so that it can be enjoyed by the many. If one hangs on to the whole, then there is nothing to be shared, and nothing can be given to others as a blessing. The breaking of bread and body is the shattering of possessiveness.
Two critical lines of Paul’s letter teach us this lesson. »Our blessing cup is a communion with the blood of Christ.« »For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.« These two sentences link the Eucharist to the cross, and for good reason. For the willingness to break his life open for us in the Eucharist would be nothing without the willingness to break open his life for us on the wood of the cross. If he would be willing to do it at the table, but not on the cross, then the cross would be a meaningless moment, and the Eucharist a hollow ritual. Why would Christ break open his life to feed a people he did not want to save? Why nourish a life you do not want to redeem? Christ’s life must be broken open for us otherwise no one lives. His life must be poured out for us otherwise no one is saved. Stated very simply, genuine loving requires a real breaking apart of what we possess, whether it is bread, body or presence.
(II)
Authentic love requires a real breaking of our bread. There are many forms of bread that feed us, and the genuine love unveiled for us on the cross and in the Eucharist teaches us that we must share them with others if their nourishing fullness is to be unleashed. Break your bread. Break the bread of your life. Break the bread of your tables. Break the bread of your joys.
The willingness to break our bread for the sake of hungers in other people is the essence of what we commonly call sacrifice. Sacrifice entails breaking open our lives. We break them by means of selflessness and service. We break them open by means of self-denial. Yet, a true sacrifice always means that we have clear purpose. That purpose is to let others live, flourish and grow. A sacrifice must benefit another, not just empty me. If you break the bread of sacrifice, it is not enough that you go hungry. Others must eat. Your freely chosen impoverishment must give birth to unexpected enrichment in another. It is not wise to break your bread if there are none with hunger enough to eat of it. Such bread will only grow stale. It is not wise to pour out your wine when there are none to drink of it. Such wine will only spoil and sour.
(III)
Which raises a final issue. Will we live a life worthy of the Eucharist? Will we live a life worthy of the sign of the cross? Will we break the bread of our tables? Will we break the bread of our lives? The only way we can be sure that the Eucharist of this night and the Cross of tomorrow’s sorrowing have engraved the divine image of our Lord and Master into us, is if we are caught in the act of breaking the bread of sacrifice.
In the breaking of the bread, a father or mother might abandon a career-making opportunity for the sake of the children. Thus, they break their bread of power and personal fulfilment, in order that their children can feed on their presence and attentive love. Expensive theatre tickets might be left unused, because a friend’s need was greater than our taste for entertainment. In that moment, the bread is broken, and we give of what is ours to feed another.
Jesus asks the disciples after the foot washing, »Do you understand what I have done to you?« When we forsake a long anticipated pleasure, because greater duty commands our presence; when we give up golf links for the sake of great loves; when we turn off the favourite TV program to listen to the weeping of our children, when we give up a day off to make someone else’s day; then we can faithfully answer the question of Jesus. Yes, Lord, we know what you have done for us. You have taken all that is yours, broken it for sharing, and given it to us that we might yet live. And we have done likewise.
To walk the path of sacrifice requires one overwhelming reality above all others. You must consider someone worthy of a sacrifice. You must see that person’s life as valuable enough, precious enough, to break your own life open for its sake. If you cast your gaze upon another, and consider what you see to be beneath your dignity, beyond your contempt, and too woefully inadequate to merit your care, I assure you that you will make no sacrifice for them.
All that fashions Holy Thursday is made of a quiet joy tinged with sadness. Indeed, there is a quiet joy, for we know that his breaking is our blessing. There is a touch of sadness, for we know that not just Christ’s bread, but his body must be broken. It is imperative to know this to be the way of all our breaking. It will be marked by a quiet joy, and tinged with sadness. You will know the quiet, satisfying joy of restoring life and blessing to the shadow lands of shattered hearts. Yet, you will also know the touch of sadness that comes with sacrifice, for real losses are suffered. This is a critical hour. It can lead the heart to bitterness and resentment. Looking back, we will notice some of our dreams were left unfulfilled, certain aspirations were necessarily lost, and certain pleasures were denied, all because of others we have loved more than ourselves. Then, like Christ, indeed with Christ, we must answer the ultimate question. Were they worth it? It is with trembling that we must come to this night of Holy Thursday, for after knowing all that he endured for us in the foot washing, in the Eucharist, and on the cross, this is the place, this is the hour in which Christ whispers to us: You were definitely worth it.
Erik Riechers SAC
Holy Thursday, April 1, 2021
What sets the resurrection and the life in motion?
In Johns Gospel (John 11, 1-44), the Evangelist weaves a magnificent tale about the death of Lazarus, a friend of Jesus. At the beginning of the story, his two sisters, Martha and Mary, take center stage. Here are two sisters who suffer the same fate, namely, the loss of their brother. Each of them goes on to have a personal encounter with Jesus. Both of the sisters start off their conversation with Jesus by saying exactly the same thing to him. »Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.«
The obvious expectation would be that two such identical encounters would lead to the same result. But that is not how it plays out.
Martha starts off her encounter with Jesus with her statement: »Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.« She sheds no tears, shows no emotion. She also does not give Jesus a chance to respond. Instead she forges ahead with a theological declaration. »But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.«
For his part, Jesus does not directly address her theological statement. He goes directly to the heart of the matter, namely, that which Martha’s aching heart most needs in this hour: »Your brother will rise again.«
Martha takes this very existential, personal reassurance and moves it into the realm of abstraction. She speaks of far off days when wondrous things will happen. »I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.«
Jesus responds to her by bringing the topic back to the present moment. »I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?«
Martha responds again, this time by professing her belief in him as the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. But she utters not a word about believing that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, here and now. She speaks about faith in general, but not about her earthy, pressing need for resurrection and life in her grueling moment of need.
Then she goes home. And then it is Mary’s turn. She goes out to see Jesus, who is still outside the village. »Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.« An astonishing moment, because it shows us that the encounter with Martha did not set anything into motion. He is still exactly in the same place he was before he spoke with her. The Resurrection and the Life have not moved.
Mary starts off the encounter exactly as her sister did. »Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.« But she says this while on her knees and weeping. Her encounter has no statements and professions of faith. But it is full of tears.
»When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved.« And immediately the resurrection and the life are set in motion. First Jesus asks where Lazarus lays buried. Then he joins in the weeping. From there, he goes to tomb, accompanying the mourners to the place of their loss and grief and to the wellspring of their tears.
It is the tears that move him. It is not the discussions, not the professions of faith, but the tears. Because tears are the language of the affected and the afflicted. They are not born of our thoughts on bereavement and loss, but of our existential experience of what these things do to us. As important as the discussion about faith is, in the end, if it does not reach the heart, it remains a cold, clinically-detached and lifeless reality. It will not set anything into motion. For the heart is the place where everything is decided.
The starting points for real movement toward resurrection and the life are the experiences of life that knock us to our knees and fill our eyes with tears. Pure doctrine will not be enough to bring us to the place where the resurrection and the life can be experienced. But we will weep our way there, for where we weep, we reveal ourselves for what we truly are and show what we genuinely need. Those tears speak of what is really happening with us and within us. They reveal what is we normally keep well hidden within our hearts. Tears are the place of encounter. They are the language of the soul. And they speak to God. And they set the resurrection and life in motion, because they move the heart of God.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 31st, 2021
Allow ourselves to be grasped
Perhaps personal experiences of unhappiness make us more thin-skinned.
Perhaps the uncertainties and threats posed by the pandemic, that has lasted so long, make us more sensitive.
Thus, it may be that as we enter Holy Week we feel more strongly about the kind of journey on which we are accompanying Jesus during these days of remembrance and what tremendous tension is expressed in the narratives: the tension grows, the conflict comes to light, who can still be relied upon? Words and actions take on an even greater importance in the face of death. Everything is of critical importance.
In the 12th chapter of his Gospel, John recounts Jesus' last visit to his friend Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary, before he goes from the east up to the Mount of Olives and then on a donkey down to the city. Mary lovingly anoints his feet with precious nard oil. Immediately the rift among the disciples becomes apparent as Judas makes the accusation of wastefulness. Jesus, however, speaks of his burial. How confusing and frightening for all who hear it!
Jerusalem fills with people on pilgrimage to the Passover; but Jesus' enemies lurk on every corner and the crowd distances itself from him - nothing is to be expected from those who called out to him at the solemn entrance.
Then there is the last meal in the closest group around the master. Jesus speaks of the utmost, of blood and dedication, »for you and for all«. Every word a legacy. John prefaces his narrative with a poignant account: Jesus kneels on the ground and washes the dusty feet of his own on the last day of his life. Earlier it is told, that Jesus knew »that he had come from God and was returning to God« (Jn 13, 3). What an anchoring and perspective!
And then there is no more evasion: betrayed and arrested, accused and paraded, mocked and cruelly humiliated, lonely and abandoned at the mercy of the mob, tortured, tormented, murdered. And at the end the word: »It is finished!«
During no other week of the year are we so confronted and challenged to live life authentically, faithfully and fully, so as not to repress suffering, but to endure this tension. These last days of Jesus can take hold of us so that we become fellow bearers and are borne along with our own crosses.
I believe it is the only way to experience Easter.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 29th, 2021
By the side of the road
Palm Sunday B 2021 Mk 11, 1-10
We often speak of this moment in the grand Gospel story as Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is a language I prefer to avoid. While I am quite sure that the spectators along the way felt something of triumph in this procession into David’s City, I am equally sure that Jesus did not.
This is a story about a path taken. Where such stories are told, a number of things happen. Who will the traveler meet on this way? How will they meet him? What will others do to help the traveller along the way? This story is no exception. Thus, I would take a closer look at what the people in the tale are willing to accompany Jesus on his way, and the one thing no one is willing to do for him in this moment.
While Mark will tell us what many will do (will spread cloaks and lay down branches), that does not tell us what everyone does. What we can say, is that no one active tries to hinder or impede Jesus on his way. Many will remain as neutral observers and unobtrusive bystanders. They place no stumbling blocks in his path. That is the path of minimalism. It shows no support or encouragement for Jesus, his mission or his way, but it equally does not discourage him. There is no investment, no involvement here, just the cool distance of the spectator and the withdrawn aloofness of those who avoid taking any position whatsoever. That is how we often experience people on our own path through life. They are not our enemies, but they are certainly not our companions either.
Then we see the two disciples who have been sent to secure his transportation. Having fulfilled their task of procurement, Mark tells us:
And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.
They make the first effort to make a contribution to easing Jesus’s way. But the image is more nuanced than we might notice. They “threw” the cloaks on the colt. When we throw something to a person or over the back of an animal, it is an image of rough, inattentive, and gruff living. It lacks the tenderness and thoughtfulness we experience when a person takes time to attend to our needs with time and sensitivity. It conveys the idea, that this is something we want to get over and done with. This, too, is an experience we have when we are on our path. There is always an experience of being helped along, but it lacks warm and heartiness.
Then we meet the many. Of them Mark says:
And many spread their cloaks on the road.
Notice the change in tone. These people do not throw the cloaks, like the two disciples. Instead they spread them out, an image of attentiveness and taking the time to make careful preparations. It is an image of deliberate action. We would immediately notice the difference if a person welcomed us to the table by throwing a tablecloth over it, of if they took the time to spread a tablecloth over it. That would make a difference to the way we feel welcomed.
For a second time, cloaks, garments, are invested. A garment is something that belongs to us, which is readily at our disposal. We do not have to go far to find a garment. There is rarely a time when we are wearing them, carrying them everywhere we go. The many spread their garments on the road, and thus make the path somewhat softer and gentler for Jesus. However, once Jesus has passed by, we can easily take them back again, brush off the dust or wash them, and even repair them if necessary. Then we can put them back on and return them to the service of our needs.
There is nothing negative about that. It is a small help offered to another to make his or her path a little easier, to make their journey somewhat more comfortable. We have known such people on our own path through life, and surely have appreciated their small gestures and kindnesses. They let us borrow a tool, share a room or use their facilities. Then they reclaim for their own purposes.
Mark then moves on to describe yet another response:
And others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.
This is an image of a greater and heightened investment and effort to ease the path of Jesus. These people do not reach for that which is close at hand and readily available (their cloaks). They move out to the fields, move out in the greater world, in search of other resources and means with which they might smooth the path Jesus is taking. And they make the effort to gather them in and carry them back. Furthermore, what they are willing to lay down is something they are willing to leave behind. Unlike the garments, these branches serve the sole purpose of making Jesus’ path somewhat softer, easier and more comfortable. We, too, have known such people on our path through life. They have made a considerable effort to smooth our way. But they go a step further than garment-spreaders. They invest resources they are not getting back. Such are the people who share a meal with us, knowing that they are not getting the food back afterwards. The gratitude for such people is usually also a little deeper, for they also go a little further for us.
So, what is lacking? What is the one thing no one is willing to do for Jesus in this moment? No one offers to go share the path he has taken, to go all the way. Every one of these moments, precious as they are, show us temporary aid, not long term accompaniment. Mark tells the tale very subtly:
And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, »Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!«
Some go before him, but only for a short stretch of this path. Other go behind him, again only for a short stretch of his journey. But no says to him: I will walk the whole way with you. This is not to demean or belittle the other offers, but they all stop short of the one thing we all will need on our long journey through life: companionship.
This has consequences. Sharing short stretches of a person’s journey, especially the exciting or particularly pleasure parts, is not all that difficult. Easing our journey and preparing that way for us are valuable gifts, but in the end they cannot and will not suffice. We also need companions, people who will walk with us through every landscape of life, rick every curve with us, and weather every season with us. The consequence of this story in Mark’s remarkable Gospel is very clear: no one will stand with Jesus at the foot of the cross. Mark tells the starkest story of all the Gospel writers, leaving absolutely no one near the cross of Jesus when he dies. The other Gospel writers soften the scene in their telling. But I hold with Mark. If we have no companions on our journey, but only bystanders, then we will be alone when we reach our Good Fridays.
We have encountered all these types of people on our journey through life. Yet, we should not leave this story on this note. Instead, where do we stand in the story? Are we bystanders who ease the path for others, to a greater or lesser degree? Or are we companions who offer others the accompaniment on all the paths their journey may take?
I invite you to join me in prayer with Padraig O’Tuama. May his words lay a gentle yet rich blessing upon our Palm Sunday.
Jesus,
person of privacy and publicity
popular - for a while - but not populist;
you held your centre,
based on what you understood to be your call.
Help us to hear a call,
not to greatness, or grandiosity,
not to position or prominence
but to the deepest call of all:
love, creativity and justice.
May this carry us, through
the lauds and lamentations
of our lives.
And may we be faithful to love, creativity
and justice, as you were. Amen.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 28th, 2021
But only he who sees takes off his shoes
In my last reflection (Moses and Maud) I wrote about finding the bush that God sets on fire to summon us. Yet the moment we find that burning bush, we must understand and abide by one of the great rules of mystery. We must take off our shoes.
The English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning spoke elegantly and lovingly of this basic rule of mystery and equally eloquently about what happens to those who do not heed it.
»Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.«
The lesson is about sensitivity and how to foster and maintain it. Nothing is lost more swiftly nor more easily that our sensitivity toward the experiences of the burning bush. Therefore, let us take a closer look at what happens when we remove our shoes.
- We step gingerly and cautiously.
- We watch where we step.
- We slow down.
- We do this because without a shoe to protect us, we are restored to vulnerability and extreme sensitivity.
What Moses and Maud and Elisabeth learned about the Mystery of God is that we must do this before every mystery we encounter, be it the Eucharistic life of our Lord or the playful lives of our children. This must be our posture in the hour of courtship, friendship and colleagueship. This must be our way in matrimony, parenthood and priesthood. Otherwise we will trample over moments of mystery. Then we will not have the life-changing conversations that Moses enjoyed with God. We would have none of the paintings of Maud Lewis to thrill and sooth our weary souls, if the worlds she depicted in colour and form did not first thrill and soothe her own soul. And there would be no poems from Elisabeth Barret Browning, only blackberry harvesters. These people had the depth of the encounter with God, because they followed this rule of the deep heart: approach the mystery with care, with gentleness, with time and with sensitivity.
These should also be the four golden rules of our Lenten springtime, a new and more attentive way of moving through life.
- We should step gingerly and cautiously, for everywhere we turn we can find the Mystery of God.
- We should watch where we step. There are no godless places or encounters in the world.
- We should slow down. We cannot see, recognise and appreciate what we race past.
- We desperately need to restore our vulnerability and our extreme sensitivity. The rough and course manner in which we deal with life, love and longing, often hides, disfigures or even abuses moments that should open us unto mystery. The lack of sensitivity will kill the poetry within us, blot out the colouring and shaping of our creativity and stifle the conversations that lead to extraordinary life.
If we want to live well with the mystery that graces our lives, we must take off our shoes.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 26th, 2021
Moses and Maud: Those with eyes to see the burning bushes of life
When I was studying narrative theology in the west of Ireland, there was a creative exercise that we would often play. We were to name two people from history or literature and then bring them together for a conversation. Then it was our task to create an imaginary dialogue between them.
I recently was reminded of this exhilaratingly creative exercise while watching the life of Maud Lewis, a Canadian painter from Nova Scotia. Both her life story and her paintings are a source of profound inspiration. In all her paintings she draws a world without shadows. She is usually referred to as a folk artist, but I have also found references to her work as primitive art. I could not disagree more. There is something sublime and sophisticated in her art, because she had the ability to show others what a deep inner gift made possible for her: she had the ability to shows us wonder.
Therefore, if I played out the exercise of imaginary conversation again, I would set Maud Lewis across the table from Moses. I believe that they have something in common. Both of them knew something about recognizing and moving toward a burning bush. Therefore, both of them knew something about how to approach and stand before the mystery of God.
I think that each would recognise in the other a kindred spirit. Both of them were children of wonder. Wonder, however, is the beginning of faith. If Moses was not moved by wonder, he would never have turned aside to view the burning bush, but that would mean he would have missed the encounter with God.
Wonder moves men and women to the encounter with God. You cannot gaze upon the paintings of Maud Lewis without being touched by her never failing sense of wonder. She found wonder in trees, birds, fishing boats and tulips, housecats and cows. These were her burning bushes.
We have our own burning bushes. Burning bushes are those moments of wonder that God places in our daily path in order to stop us short. They are moments in which the beautiful God summons us to an encounter that demands a long loving look at the real. They are our first, toddler’s steps toward God.
Moses and Maud Lewis would warn us about the one great peril that lays between us and our burning bushes: out ordinary, unassuming daily grind. Moses was not out looking for spectacular experiences of the divine. He was tending sheep. Maud Lewis did not travel the world for inspiration, but painted what she saw in the world at her doorstep, never travelling more than an hour’s drive from the place of her birth.
When we are caught up in the travails of our daily grind, the question that most troubles our hearts is, »Where are these fabled burning bushes of which you speak?« Yet, the real question is: »Where are the sons and daughters of Moses and Maud, who stop, notice and draw near to the burning bush moments of life?«
A bush is burning when men and women come upon the moment in which they recognise in one another a companion with whom they could forge a community of life and love, and welcome one another into the mutual commitment of the covenant. Yet, the wonder does not hold them all and too many refuse to leave the common path, to step aside and contemplate a life that is not just about them.
The bush burns in the soaring thoughts of impassioned and sparkling oratory of great storytellers of faith. Yet, it is all too easy to pass it by and to give ourselves over to the constipation of thought and the diarrhea of mindless words on television.
The bush is burning when we are startled to find new life within the womb, the astonishment of genuine love, moonlight kisses, tenderness in trial, and hands held through hell. But each of these summons to a new encounter with God can easily we ignored, belittled, even derided with an unadulterated arrogance that believes itself too sophisticated to deal with such trivial matters of wonder.
For this reason we are given a Holy Springtime. This is a race that does not go to the swift, but to the enraptured. The issue is clear. Where are your burning bushes, and do you still have what it takes to turn aside for the path you have chosen for the sake of the God who summons you? Can you be a spiritual son or daughter of Moses and Maud?
Erik Riechers SAC, March 24th, 2021
Regarding Fidelity, Perseverance and Companionship
Exactly one year ago, we launched our offer: »May you be sheltered!« The spread of the pandemic and the establishment of the first lockdown unsettled us all; our lives became unusually and painfully restricted, we were literally thrown back upon ourselves, as worry and fear spread. At the beginning of spring, darkness fell. None of us had ever experienced anything like this. Thus, we started out on our communal way in this situation - writing and reading. Today, we are still walking it together today and have just started our 53rd week. It's not as easy as it sounds, for both sides. Neither of us knew a year ago where the path would lead and how long it would be. We had not chosen this adventure, it was completely new. And yet we went and continue to go together day by day and remain on this path until this day and beyond.
In no way can this be taken for granted. It demands loyalty, consistency and perseverance, on both sides. Of course, there are moments of temptation to drop out. When it seemed like the hardest part was done, there were voices that whispered, »That is enough: it more than suffices. Now we ae done. « We remember this from last summer. We know voices such as these from many protracted and challenging times in our lives, and on our own we might succumb to that temptation: stop writing, stop reading. But a sober look made it clear that the crisis was not over and Covid19 was by no means already under control.
Thus, we were challenged more and more to practice the big theme of our Wellspring Days from one year earlier, maintain our breath for the long march. The great works of J.R.R. Tolkien, »The Hobbit« and »The Lord of the Rings« were our companions at the time. Together we now practice what it means to say: » All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. «. We set priorities. We reject whining. We do what is possible. We keep an eye on each other. We address what should not be suppressed. And we show one another what is valuable, essential and beautiful.
The shadows are still there, the road much longer than expected. A look at Tolkien may remind us again and again: » Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens «.
We have embarked on this long journey through darkness together and are now entering our second year. Perhaps one of the most important experiences is this: Not without companions! Companions share bread with us and raise us up when we stumble; they encourage us when we get tired, they sing with us in the dark and make us laugh when our gaze gets too narrow. All of this is possible while respecting the rules of distance and hygiene. We have all been bearing witness to this for 52 weeks.
That is why we continue: Not without companions!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 22nd, 2021
Like Grains of Wheat
5th Sunday of Lent B 2021 Jn 12, 20–33
Thirty years ago, while sitting in a park, I observed as a child came running up to its mother, sobbing and clutching a jar to her chest. Somehow amidst the wailing and howling the mother managed to discover the nature of the tragedy that had befallen the child. She had captured and carefully preserved a butterfly in that glass jar. After several hours in the sun, without any ventilation, the poor creature died, much to the horror and stunned disbelief of the little girl. Gently her mother brought her back to a semblance of calm and then said a short and simple sentence. »Honey, it was never meant for that.«
That in a nutshell says everything about the Gospel story about the grain of wheat. »Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and dies, it shall remain alone.« Jesus is teaching us that we must not resist every form of dying in our lives. Indeed, there is a form of dying that is of paramount importance to a life well lived before God and his people. There is a form of fruitfulness that can only be born through an experience of death.
Tragic is the realization that we cannot capture and carefully preserve our lives in glass jars. Perhaps we will sob and howl our protest to the heavens, much like the little girl. Jesus will then answer us with a short and simple sentence: »You were never meant for that.«
Look at a grain of wheat. By its very nature it must die in order to bear fruit. That is part of its make-up, part of its essence. If the farmer decides to carefully preserve it in a glass jar, then he is not shielding it from death. Instead, he is denying it the fullness for which it was made, to which it is called and for which it was always meant. The grain of wheat is the image of potential for life and fruitfulness that is yet unfulfilled, a life chock full of possibilities that has yet to unfold itself into the world. Those who would cling to the grain of wheat, must be gently chided: »It was never meant for that«.
Humans are much like grains of wheat. Part of our essence is to die unto fruitfulness. It constitutes part of our nature. No one is going to pretend that it is a pleasant or particularly enjoyable part, but a part it is. Dying to parts of our lives is painful, unpleasant and difficult. It is also necessary if we would become that for which we were created, that which we are meant to be. Every attempt to refuse this death unto fruitfulness is a denial of ourselves, of the fullness and the destiny for which we are intended from the start.
A change of venue is in order now as we turn to a vignette of Father Pedro Arrupe's life, a former Superior General of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). In his memoirs he writes of a young man of twenty-two, a victim of the horror that was Hiroshima. The radiation from the atomic explosion had left half his body as one, large, festering wound. Standing before Arrupe he said, »Father, help me.«
Arrupe sized up the situation immediately. »It's going to hurt a lot.« To which the young man replied, »Father, don't hesitate to hurt me; I can take it, but just save me«. There followed what can be described only as a time of terrible healing. The cleansing of the burnt flesh had to be done with boric acid, with the pus already hardened beneath the burns. For two and a half hours the terrible process dragged on. Arrupe wrote that »at the end he was prostrate with suffering, and I was exhausted with the tension«. Then comes the telling comment. »I had to become like an executioner to this man if I was to save his life«.
We are like that man. There are wounds to be borne in our lives and we are covered with the sores of moments when we have lived beneath our potential and dignity, where we have failed to do justice to our relationships to God, neighbours, and creation and to ourselves. Cleansing these wounds entails pain, and it hurts to remove the scabs in order to be what we were created to be: healthy and strong. Self-preoccupation stripped away from us is painful and causes us suffering, but there is no other option if we are to be that which we are meant to be, a people of service. We must die to egotism, because we are created for self-emptying and selflessness. Greed must perish, for we are meant for generosity. Rugged individualism is peeled away from those destined for community. Racism must pass away in a people intended for justice. Hatred has to die in a heart forged for peace. It hurts to die to all these things. But it is a necessity to die to them, for we were never created for them, never destined for them. If our lives are filled with all these sinful realities we will hear God whispering into our ears the words of the wise, young mother: »You were never meant for that.«
When we encounter a serving, self-emptying, generous, just and peaceful person of communion, we know that this life has forged a life that is something beautiful for God. Yet, we should never forget, that this is a beauty born of a deep dying. None of us can walk away from this process of painful cleansing and still fulfil the purpose of our lives. Through dying we come to life. Through death we are fruitful.
Occasionally we are tempted to turn our back on the natural rhythm of things, desiring to spare ourselves or others the hurt and suffering and thinking ourselves noble and true as a result. Years ago I met a very gifted spiritual director. He made the remark, that he often heard a complaint from people he accompanied. It was never about a lack of kindness, compassion or understanding. It was about his clarity. He admitted that this often cut him to the quick. He was a man in whose heart resided a deep and personal concern for all the people in his care. Yet, his was a real compassion and not a false pity. He called them by name to be the truth, beauty and goodness that God intended them to be. He saw in them potential and fidelity, a real power and loving nobility. But often it was fettered, covered up or weighed down by sin and neglect. Unwilling to let them settle for less, he practised a true compassion by inviting them to liberation, uplifting them to freedom and showing them a vision of what could yet be reality for them all.
When I heard this old man’s story, I thought he must feel much like Pedro Arrupe. In the end it is often the only way to heal, the only way to save a life. »Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it shall remain alone«. How compassionate would Arrupe have been if he had spared that man the awful pain? It is a telling lesson of our faith. We may spare another the pain of dying naturally like the grain of wheat, and discover that we have actually denied them authentic life.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 21st, 2021
A Man »put in place as a rock« *
A faithful companion,
who takes good and reliable care of his wife and son,
who knows what to do in case of danger and acts accordingly,
who does not put himself in the foreground, but always lives up to his responsibility for thos entrusted to his care,
who maintains a deep connection with God -
who would not wish for such a companion, such a father?!
Matthew and Luke tell us all this about Joseph from Nazareth.
And it is precisely this that makes him a role model for many people in their lives: caring like him, listening to God's voice and reliably assuming responsibility. How many institutions in which needy people are cared for bear his name for this reason! In our world, however, self-promotion and big words seem to get more attention; when things get difficult, patience and perseverance are lacking, excuses quickly pass our lips and God is a foreign word for many.
The Jesuit Alfred Delp lived and suffered in his world during the years of Nazi rule. But he persevered and won his very own connection and devotion to St. Joseph. Because of his connection to the resistance, he was arrested in July 1944 and wrote in prison:
Joseph » is the man on the margins, in the shadows. The man of silent assistance and help. The man in whose life God constantly intervenes with new instructions and missions. His own plans are silently overtaken. Always new instructions and missions, new departures and new exits.
He is the man who serves. The fact that a word of God binds and sends is self-evident to him. The willingness to serve, now that is his secret. (...) He is the man who wanted to prepare for himself a sheltering domesticity in the silent splendor of the adored Lord God, and who was sent into the insecurity of doubt, of the burdened mind, of the tortured conscience, of the drafty and wind-open streets, of the unhoused stable, of the unreal foreign life.
And he is the man who went...« *
This brings us closer to the deeper reality of the meager words of the Gospel. Alfred Delp knew what it means when plans are thwarted and fidelity to one's mission is challenged again and again, urging one to set out - into foreign lands, against fears, even into death.
Joseph was a man who endured the tensions of life and moved within them without losing himself. He was able to live all that the evangelists narrate succinctly because he was deeply rooted in God.
He was the kind of person of whom Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: »… a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock..« (Mt 7, 24-25)
The world needs people like him today as well, especially today - how good that Pope Francis places him especially close to our hearts this year!
* Alfred Delp, Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 199f
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 19th, 2021
A Legend of St. Patrick
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. May his blessing be upon you.
As soon as we speak of St. Patrick, we are surrounded by a plethora of legends that have built up around his person. And as soon as we hear the legends, we become bemused. We do not take them seriously, because we consider them a little childish, or worse, something for the simple-minded and the superstitious.
The legends around Patrick were born of popular perception. This is how the people saw and perceived him. These stories are a different way of approaching the historical person of Patrick. They are not born of the historical-critical eye of the scholar. They spring forth from the awed and deeply touched heart after the encounter with Patrick. These are not the cold, analytic depictions of the scientific mind, forever condemned to stand among the bystanders and spectators of the world. These are the stories of encounter, of the warmth that was felt, the horizons that opened the hearts that trembled because they were privilege to meet Patrick. They knew that what they experienced in the encounter with him was riven with God. These storytellers were never spectators, but participants.
Permit me to share my favourite legend of Patrick. One of the stories begins when Patrick takes leave of his parent’s home in Britain to return to Ireland. He takes his beloved walking stick with him, made of the wood of the ash tree. On his journey, he repeatedly stops to gather the folks, break the bread and to tell the stories of God. He takes every opportunity he gets to preach the Good News of Jesus.
When he would pause in a village, it was his habit to thrust his walking stick into the ground. For him it was a sign that he would not just move on, but was ready to stop and stay awhile. One day, he reached a village and decided to stop there to share the stories of God and the stories of faith with its people. As usual, he thrust his walking stick into the ground. Yet, this time it took a long time for the stories to be heard. Troubled hearts, anxious hearts, and hardened hearts did not immediately open and welcome his words. There was hesitation, confusion, reluctance and resistance. So Patrick stayed much longer in this place, telling the tales and preaching the good news. And because it took so long a time, the walking stick made from the wood of the ash tree developed roots and turned into a living tree. The place where all this occurred was thereafter called Aspatria, meaning ash of Patrick.
Now let us turn to the people who told this story. They chose the tree as the symbol of what they experienced. In biblical narratives, the tree often serves as a symbol of the human being and his or her growth. The tree enjoys a broad diversity, which one sees in the branches and leaves and fruits it bears. Yet, this diversity forms a mysterious unity. The unity is the trunk from which everything branches out. This unity (the trunk) gets its life from roots. Roots, however, are buried deep in the earth and do their life-giving work in places we cannot see.
In deeply symbolic language, the people who encountered Patrick are telling us what they experienced, what touched them and what they took away from the encounter. If we stop to listen to Patrick’s stories of God and stories of faith, then what happened to his walking stick will also happen to us. They learned that we have to draw strength from the hidden places. We have to grow in two directions at the same time- We have to grow deep in order to keep connected and well grounded. We also have to grow upward, to stretch toward the heavens, to toward the light. Our lives need to branch out, grow higher and broader, bear fruit and ward the heavens and the light. And we need to trust the unseen parts of this process, happening in the depths (the roots) even while on the surface nothing is apparently happening.
If we move among these people, they will reveal to us the nature of the awed and touched heart after the encounter. What do they remember? What do they ache to tell us about their encounter with Patrick?
Let me write for you an imaginary letter. One night the storytellers behind the legend sit down to write us.
»Friends of the future. We pass the legend on to you, because what is precious to us we would not deny you. We knew Patrick, touched his hands and were touched by his hands. His voice still echoes in our hearts long after they stopped ringing in our ears. To have met the man was to have known something of God. And who can then keep silent? Here was a man who had patience with us. Even when he realised that his message took a long time to get through to us, he did not walk away, curse our ignorance or belittle our lack of learning. He stayed with us, accompanying us by giving us the time and the space we needed to open ourselves to the unknown God.
It is something we have never forgotten. In our day we have often been written off by the powerful, belittled and derided by the learned and treated with disdain, even by preachers. In all likelihood, the scholars of your day, will treat us and our stories in much the same fashion. But we pass our stories on to you, not to them. From Patrick we received dignity. From him we learned, that genuine storytelling and authentic preaching are not ventures for those who are looking for the quick profit and the easy win. In this man we learned that genuine storytellers and authentic preachers are looking for God’s people, seeking out their hearts, aiming to touch their wounds.
And we saw in his walking stick the process that was taking place and unfolding within us. It took a long time for us to take root, dear friends. We had to go deep, not to be fast. So we tell our story to all who have ears to hear. If you do not go deep, you will never be more than a walking stick. If you do not go deep, you will never become a living tree.«
»Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit!« Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you.
Erik Riechers SAC
The Feast of St. Patrick, March 17th, 2021
But whoever does what is true. . .
We are quite far advanced on our way through the »holy spring«. Many of us now love this old name for Lent very much and indeed, we have made good progress. Temporally speaking, this is definitely true, as we are now already in the 4th week of Lent. But is it also interiorly consistent and true? A look out the window can guide us. Outside it is currently quite cold, yet life is bursting forth everywhere. What has begun in the darkness of the earth can no longer be stopped. It shows more and more: snowdrops and crocuses, daffodils and the first tips of the tulips, and shoots of perennials where I didn't expect anything at all. Variety shows in the garden, where my eyes had become accustomed to monotonous, lifeless brown. The growth began invisibly, tentatively in the dark, and is now making its way into the light.
Do I also feel the first signs of vitality in me, tender beginning, perhaps, of processes that increasingly need space and slowly strive outward? Do I allow them to break through when the time comes? May they show themselves? Perhaps - encouraged by silence, prayer, good company - the truth finally breaks through in my heart that God looks at me, loves me and thinks well of me. This makes me grow and drives me out to a completely new vitality, more color, creativity and agility. It must be allowed to show itself. It wants and must go out into the light.
»But whoever does what is true comes to the light«, we heard in yesterday's Gospel. Jesus says it to Nicodemus, the respected Pharisee and teacher, who only dares to seek Jesus by night. Longing has moved him to take this step, but at the same time he is afraid. He trusts the familiar securities of his position more than what Jesus' words have triggered in him. He does not seem to be a man of spring.
People of the spring trust the still invisible germ in themselves and let it come into the light by starting to live this found truth. Life that begins to grow within us must at some point be translated into action, into doing. People can talk a lot about what is going on inside them, what ideas and desires they have and what they want to do. But if this is never transformed into action, if the smallest drive of new life is not yet visible in their actions, then they do not live their truth and threaten to wither away. Talking about it is not yet living. When I perceive the truth in me, when new life stirs in me and moves me, then holy spring can come: Let us dare to take the first steps, let us show ourselves to the world, let us go, let us act! With the first shoot of a tulip breaking through the ground, the whole flower is not yet there. But if this breakthrough into the light does not happen, there will be no tulip - no color, no fragrance, no food, no joy, nothing!
I wish us that we dare to do our truth, so that we grow into the paschal light - sometimes timidly and slowly, sometimes courageously in larger spurts - but always on the way to more life. Indeed, elsewhere Jesus says to his disciples, »the truth will set you free«, (John 8:32) – let us enter into this!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 15th, 2021
Mercy is more than a word
4th Sunday of Lent B 2021 Eph 2: 4–10
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in our trespasses,made us alive together with Christ…
Mercy. Hardly has the word fallen and already we feel what longing it awakens in us. It is very welcome in a cold and merciless world. Who among us has never longed for mercy?
But mercy is not just a word. It should be a way of life. Therefore, we should ask ourselves 2 questions so that we take seriously this experience of mercy, which is also an experience of God.
1. How does mercy work concretely? (Is it more than being kind?)
- How does mercy make us come alive?
The great narratives of the Gospel can be of great help to us, because they trace the path of mercy. Three great characteristics emerge, the primordial experience of all believers in their encounter with their God and the reasons why they experience him as rich in mercy.
- The first step toward mercy is to have understanding for that which overwhelms others.
In Gospel narratives, it is clear that Jesus he has understanding for the excessive demands on his people, including his disciples. Again and again he shows this understanding when people are not able to carry more, to hear more, or to receive more. They are not able to do more at the moment.
Jesus has this understanding even though it costs him something. This overwhelming of the people and the disciples means that, for the moment, he cannot carry on with his program, even though he still has »many things« to say. But there is no mercy without this first step. Just ask the Samaritan of the parable. It costs him time, oil, wine, and money to help the beaten man. But while he does this, he cannot continue his journey and carry out his plans.
I am fairly certain that we have all had experiences of exhaustion, powerlessness, and being overwhelmed. There have surely been hours when we simply could not go on. I am also sure that in such hours we have occasionally encountered the painful experience of people who showed no understanding for what we were going through. And in that moment we knew, they also have no understanding for us.
Very often there is no understanding, because the other person only hears that what is overwhelming us could now become his problem and that this could change, delay or cross out her plans.
This is what a man told me years ago about a conversation with his boss. This man had brought a multi-million dollar contract to the company, but became very ill in the process. Now he needed treatment as well as time off. Immediately the boss complained about the problems this would cause him and what impact it would have on the duty roster. He never once asked about the well-being of his employee nor about his prognosis.
If there is no understanding for us when we are being overwhelmed in these situations, then we cannot live well. In that moment, no one feels that they are treated mercifully.
- The second step toward mercy is patience.
Jesus sees the overburdening of his people, but he does not assume that it defines us. Just because we humans cannot carry something at a certain point in time does not mean we never will.
But patience is a tricky business. I once confessed as a teenager to my impatience and its devastating consequences in my relationship with my father and received the not-so-helpful advice, »Be patient!« My response was not patient either as I told the confessor in frustration, »Thanks a lot for that useless answer. If I could already do that, I certainly would not be here confessing impatience.«
What I needed at that time was help. What does patience look like? What steps do I need to take to live patience? Patience will always challenge me to give another person two things, space and time. Patience means giving people the space and time they need for growth, inner processes, maturation, unfolding and development, and for becoming whole.
This is the second step toward mercy. And we know it, because we do not feel mercifully treated when someone does not give us space for what still needs to grow and mature in us. How often do we experience that our tears, our fear and sadness are not given much needed space? No one feels mercifully treated when someone does not give us the time we need to deal with what is still going on inside us. However, we often experience the relentless pressure to be functional. If we are ever sick, sad, or exhausted, there is a merciless pressure that we should be restored and operational as quickly as possible.
The merciful must be able to wait for processes that cannot be accelerated. In this way, mercy can make a person come alive and become vibrant. In such moments of distress, who doesn't benefit from hearing, »Why don't you take the time you need?«
- The third step toward mercy is the support and fostering of growing greater than we are at the moment.
This third step toward mercy lies in Jesus' promise to send the Spirit. This Spirit will come and deepen what we have before us and within us. In the Gospel of John, Jesus expresses this as follows:
»He will not speak on his own authority. . .
. . . he will take what is mine and declare it to you.«
(John 16: 13-14)
Jesus does not pronounce a vote of no confidence in these moments of our lives. His message is not: Well, you have nothing, there is nothing available and therefore we have to start all over again.
Quite the opposite. Jesus expresses his confidence that more is possible than what is presently available. That is why he sends the Spirit. With this he wants to say: what is already there, I will accompany, deepen, support and promote. I will build up what is there, what I find.
To know that I am supported in my desire to become greater, healer, more loving, more just, healthier or better lets me breathe a sigh of relief and revive.
It's not always like that, though. Sometimes we are simply written off as hopeless. Sometimes we just hear that we should change, but get no support. And sometimes we are told that the way we are right now is not the way we should be. It is always a merciless moment, when people to refuse to work with what we have to offer.
Having understanding for being overwhelmed, patience (time + space) for necessary processes of growth and unfolding, and support for becoming greater than what we presently are form the path of mercy. This is the mercy of which God is rich. In this way he gives us a space in which to live.
Mercy is much more than just taking a burden off someone. In the long run, that creates inferiority in the receiver (I can't do it!) and mistrust in the giver (You're right, you can't do it, so I'll take it from you). God's mercy does not want the inferiority of His people, nor does it want to express His fundamental distrust of our ability. The God who is rich in mercy wants us to live, freely, responsibly and creatively.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 14th, 2021
A Swelling Mercy
In my last reflection, I told the story of the Ennis Sister and their song, »I will sing you home«. Yet, as my beloved teacher often said, »Every good story gives birth to other good stories«.
A few days ago a friend sent me a video in which »I will sing you home« is performed. He wrote me: »This moved me on so many levels and since I heard it, it rolls around in my heart, day and night. It comforts and encourages me in ways I cannot describe, but which I feel so deeply. I have no words for it, my friend. But I know you do. So I send it to you, because I know you will turn it into something beautiful for others.«
On the video I heard the Holy Heart Chamber Choir sing the song. This was a project that started under the constraints of the Corona pandemic, the students who normally participate in the school choir were concerned about being able to sing under the constrictions of masks and social distancing. Yet, they were confident that their choir director and music teacher, Mr. Robert Colbourne, would find a way. And they were not wrong.
First he listened to what was moving his students’ hearts. Together they chose and arranged this song, which spoke to them about loss and loneliness, love and comfort, and of a courage that sings us home. As one student put it, »It was a song that meant home to us«. In the first moment, they sang for themselves.
But mercy swells and grows. Before long, the choir and their director decided that their singing should be shared, that what they sang could comfort and strengthen others. So they decided to make a video for a music competition sponsored by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).
But mercy swells and grows. The choir decided to be more inclusive and to translate one of the verses into French, thus allowing a group of another mother tongue to participate more fully in the message and comfort of the song.
But mercy swells and grows. As they grew into the song, and the song grew in them, a greater inclusivity began to unfold in them and they wanted to speak for everyone afflicted by the feelings and experiences that they knew all too well. They wanted to sing everyone home.
So they decided to reach out and include the deaf community. They invited a deaf choir member, Paula Coggins, to sing with them. The Newfoundland Deaf Choir helped the students to learn sign language and to appreciate it as a truly expressive language that employs the whole body as an expression of a deep culture.
On the hauntingly beautiful video of their performance, you will see the result of their efforts.* You will see Paula Coggins singing with them in sign language. You will see shots of students holding up signs with the various reasons why they sing. You will see a series of students holding up signs with a common message: »I sing, because when I sing, I am home!« And you will see the entire choir sing the last verse in sign language.
A tiny group of lonely, frightened, disoriented and isolated people created a video that integrated, included and reached out to innumerable people in their loneliness, fear, disorientation and isolation. A small beginning became something big, because mercy swells and grows. And that is the story behind the story.
»Every good story gives birth to other good stories.« Rosemarie told us a story about Moses learning a song from God and left us with the question questioning impulse, »Do we have a song for times of trouble?« Her story awakened in me the story of the Ennis Sisters, three women who turned a personal story of tragedy of a suicide in the family into a story in song form. Like mercy, a good story swells and grows. At the moment, it swells and grows in you, beloved reader.
My friend sent me this video, because this song set his heart a swirling. It also moved him to do something more: »So I send it to you, because I know you will turn it into something beautiful for others.«
I just did.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 12th, 2021
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEIFBbHN0PY
I will sing you home
»Do we have a song for times of trouble?« The question that Rosemarie posed in her last reflection has stuck with me since I read it. The line that struck me most was when she wrote of God’s song for troubled times:
»For times such as these God once dictated a song to Moses. Moses, at the end of his life and leadership, had to write it down and teach it to the people; the people had to memorize it for times of trouble and distress that tend to follow sated, self-satisfied times.«
The sheer loveliness of the scene touched me. What wondrous love is this, that stops to teach us a song, learn it by heart and make sure it is part of the toolbox of the heart, ready at a moment’s notice when the need arises?
Now I am sure, that many of us are touched by that scene. The question is whether we are moved by that scene. Would we follow God’s lead?
In Newfoundland, Canada, a singing trio of sisters, composed such a song. The Ennis sisters wrote a song entitled »I will sing you home«. It was born out of a tragic, painful and emotionally taxing experience in their lives. A young cousin of theirs took his own life. Maureen, one of the sisters, recounts:
»When this happened with Steve it was quite a shock to our family and through that winter, moving through that kind of grief, I really had no idea how to do it. So my writing partner Mark Murphy suggested that we sit down and write a song and so the song came out of a very necessary point in my life of trying to heal through the grief.« * That was in 2008.
Since then, many hundreds of people have sung this song to navigate the turmoil of their personal troubled times. In 2015 the Ennis sisters sang it as part of the service to remember the fallen Soldiers during the 100th anniversary of the catastrophic Battle of Beaumont-Hamel during World War I. In 2019 the three sisters stood on the shores of Juno beach in Normandy and sang their song to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day.
Maureen, Karen and Teresa, the Ennis sisters, followed God’s lead. First of all they wrote a song for troubled times. Secondly, they took a deeply personal experience and shared it with others, teaching them a song for their own troubled times. Thirdly, countless people learned the song by heart. You can see them singing along at their concerts, at these commemorations, without notes and song sheets. And finally, people bring the song forth during times of trouble. They sing it where grief envelopes them, sorrow overwhelms them, despair is their constant companion and the rawness of life needs a soothing balm.
What God did for Moses, the Ennis sisters did for others in their world. And when people do what God did, I believe we are standing in a privileged place, a holy place, a place where God dwells with the beloved community.
And I believe they found a lovely turn of phrase to describe the holy, healing flow that God set into motion in days long ago. »I will sing you home.« It is what God does for his people until this day. It is what his people do for each other when they live closest to his magnificent heart. This is what such a moment sounds like in the lyrics of the Ennis Sisters.
Too soon to leave this earth.
How could all your work be done?
Ash to ash and dust to dust.
Seemed to me you’d just begun.
When grief invades my soul
there's comfort in a prayer, I find.
Though these candles honor you
They burn for those you left behind.
Chorus:
I'll sing for you because I need to.
Right now this is all I know.
I’ll sing so we will not forget you.
I will sing you home.
I will sing you home.
Know that you will live
on the lips of those who knew,
what it was you had to give
and what it was they learned from you.
This is my prayer for you
and maybe someday I will know,
if it helped your journey home,
or if it helped me let you go.
Chorus
We're born unto this earth,
generations one by one.
Ash to ash and dust to dust,
there is nothing left undone.
Chorus
We are living in some fairly troubled times right now. Perhaps we could take up this grand tradition. Perhaps we could move beyond our personal grief and struggle and open it to others. Perhaps and say to one another, »I will sing you home«. It is a work worthy of God.
*CBC News, October 29, 2015
Erik Riechers SAC, March 10th, 2021
Do we have a song for times of trouble?
We were sated by so much for so long - and would like to be again.
We followed idols - and did not notice.
Self-confidently we planned our days - and thought it would go on forever.
We had everything under control - now we are standing on shaky ground.
We let nothing be said to us - now we cling to every voice.
Yet: Which one is right? Which one should we follow? Where are we going?
Small boats and big ships are all swaying. We cling to thin sticks: numbers, regulations, ordinances - what is valid today, what tomorrow?
Where is solid ground, a rock in the surf, reliable and faithful?
For times such as these God once dictated a song to Moses. Moses, at the end of his life and leadership, had to write it down and teach it to the people; the people had to memorize it for times of trouble and distress that tend to follow sated, self-satisfied times.
This is how this old song begins:
Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! »The Rock«, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you? Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. (Dt 32, 1-7)
In detail, the song continues to tell the whole story of the people, once chosen, saved and led, and at some point sated forgetful of God.
Will we find and listen to such a song that sings
of the reliability and the faithfulness of our God, who was and is and will be,
who waits for us like a father and in whom we can entrust ourselves?
And if we ourselves still know such a song -
do we sing it to those who do not know it?
In a time of crisis, Simon Peter said to Jesus, »Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.« (Jn 6, 68)
Huub Oosterhuis lets us sing:
»May you speak the word that comforts and liberates and that leads me into your great peace. Open up the land that knows no borders, and let me live among your children. Be thou my daily bread, as surely as thou livest. You are my breath when I pray to you.«
Indeed, we have the words and songs for troubled times. Let us practice them again during our Holy Springtime!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 8th, 2021
What kind of House is this?
3. Sunday of Lent B 2021 John 2:13-22
All four Gospels tell the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. But while Matthew Mark and Luke tell the story toward the end of the Gospel in the time when Jesus Passion and suffering begins, John makes a boldly different choice. He tells us this tale at the very start of the Gospel when Jesus’s public ministry is just beginning.
What happens at the beginning of a story awakes an expectation. We keep the event in mind, because we want to see how it all plays out. As the story unfolds, we begin to understand the fuller meaning and power of the earlier event, realising there was more here than we suspected.
By putting the cleansing of the Temple at the start of the story, John is already showing us something that will play a distinctive and significant role in the way Jesus accompanies us through life. The cleansing of the Temple is a story of disruption, of being willing to be loud when others hide behind hushed tones and of speaking and living plain truth in places where people choose accommodation as the path of least resistance. When we read this story at the end of a Gospel, it suggests that this is one of the reasons why Jesus is finally arrested, tried and executed. But by placing it at the very beginning of the story, John is saying to us, here is an approach to life and faith that belongs to Jesus from the very beginning, an essential part of who he is and how he lives. Thus, it becomes an essential part of what his apprentices will learn from the Spirit Master.
In this story, we are placed before the Jesus who does not quietly appease all the parties involved. He is willing and quiet able to be confrontational in matters of great importance to his heart.
That, in turn, raises the question, what was so important to his heart, that he overturned tables? What was happening here that made him openly, clearly and publically confront it? What harm or danger did Jesus see here that made him react like this?
The Temple was designed as a set of courtyards that moved ever closer to the Holies and Holies. There was a courtyard of the gentiles to which everyone had access. That was followed by a courtyard for women, then a courtyard for the men, followed by the courtyard of the priests and finally the Holy of Holies. Each successive courtyard became more selective as to who could draw closer to the holiest dwelling place of God.
Thus, the first courtyard, the courtyard of the gentiles, was the most democratic, most egalitarian place in the temple. It was accessible to Jews and Gentiles alike, men and women, and even the unclean were permitted to enter it. Thus, it was the one place in the house of God for everyone. For many, it was the only place in the House of God, because they would by faith, gender, religious status or ritual impurity, not be allowed access to any other courtyard.
Jesus reaction to the business being conducted here has everything to do with that. The one place in the temple that was meant to embrace everyone willing to enter in, was now becoming a place of business and market forces. And one thing we all know about markets, is that they always become a place of separation.
By setting up their stalls here, the merchants let a poison enter the temple: can you afford to be here? If we walk down any street with shops and restaurants, we will subconsciously practice this subtle form of separation and exclusion. We read the menu posted outside the restaurant, check out the prices and then we know, whether we can afford this place. The stores we shop in are silently chosen by that criteria: can I afford this place? If we do not have the money, we do not enter. That is how marketplaces work.
The poor would thus enter the courtyard of the gentiles and quickly realise that they could not afford to be here. They had no money for the animal offerings required for cleansing rituals. It is comparable to places in the world, where people have not baptised their children or celebrated their marriages, because they could not afford the stipend or the fee. This is something that deeply bothers Pope Francis and which he repeatedly challenges.
It bothers Pope Francis, because this is what bothers Jesus. How could the entrance to his Father’s house be the place where the first and deciding question was: Can you afford to be here? Have you ever entered a rather expensive store to simply look and seen how the staff look you over, giving you the distinct impression that they doubt you can afford their products?
The first and deciding experience of entering into the house of God is unmitigated welcome. Jesus is saying: the entrance to my Father’s house is a place where all are welcome. But the first experience and encounter with God is not elitist. It takes place in the rich, chaotic mixture of peoples, in every shade in which they come. The best and the worst we have to offer is welcome here. Where men and women, young and old, rich and poor, sinner and saint and everything in-between can come together and know themselves welcome, that is the place where the encounter with God begins.
And Jesus is not afraid to name this, call it out, and confront it. He does so openly and publically.
That is the challenge of our Spirit Master. We all too easily look away when things are uncomfortable. We do not easily name injustice like this. Because there is a hidden trick to this story. In fact, Jesus could easily have kept silent, because he could afford to be there. His circumstances did not exclude him from entering the house of the Lord. Therefore, he is confronting an injustice that does not directly affect him. He is raising his voice for others. He is overturning the tables for the excluded.
The Church is much afflicted in these days, indeed, battered by many problems, many of her own making. But the most serious problem we as the people of God face today, is whether how we set the starting point for the encounter with God. If we do not start with indiscriminate love and welcome, we turn entrance to God’s house into a marketplace. If we ask, whether they are moral enough, religious enough, pure enough, then we are asking: Can you afford this place?
Religiously elitist groups practice this to this day. They want to welcome only the people they deem worthy, who fit into their image of »appropriate«, who meet their criteria. If you do not have what they are looking for, they let you now in no uncertain terms, that you cannot afford to be there. Some build schools that only accept the children of the wealthy elite. I have seen spiritual programs designed entirely around the executive echelons of businesses. They are created to cater to the powerful, the influential, and of the upper class of the business world, satisfying their needs and serving their agenda. There is no doubt that one must pass the test of the temple merchants to enter this world.
I have also seen the great welcoming spirit of Jesus, in communities that make it clear that money is no obstacle to receiving the finest pastoral care and spiritual accompaniment. I know of superb ministers of the Gospel who make sure that any person can receive the pastoral care they need, regardless of their ability to pay. They go the extra mile to ensure that no one feels uncomfortable, unwanted or »second clas«” because they do not have enough money.
The starting point cannot be what we are able to bring to the house of God, but what we seek in this house.
That is why John puts this story at the start of his Gospel. This is where it all starts. The culture of first welcome, of first encounter, of first contact: it will determine the rest of the story. We need to cleanse the temple with the same passion as Jesus. It is, after all, the way we open the doors to the House of God to a waiting world.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 7th, 2021
Despair or promise?
Today, we have a hard time with the word promise when it comes to our personal lives. We are used to having so many more possibilities than the people in biblical times that we have long been on the track of having and holding a great deal, even everything, in our own hands and also of having to deal with it. We are currently experiencing an example throughout the world. A pandemic has been spreading for over a year and at the same time scientists are developing vaccines against it at an unprecedented pace, which can now already be administered. This is extraordinary and wonderful. But it also reinforces in us the feeling that we can and must save ourselves, and we unconsciously transfer that to all areas of our lives.
But what if it doesn't work? What if my illness is not curable? What happens when people deeply disappoint and hurt me and I can't do anything about it and am powerless? What about when a faithful companion has left me and I can't fill the void with anything? Are only resignation and despair left? Or is it precisely here that completely different possibilities and ways open up to set me on the track of my promise?
Through progress and secularization, something went lost in us. The person of the Bible, on the other hand, saw clearly, that agonizing pain needs space and time. And in this moment he was able to turn to God, to whom he unstintingly poured out his heart about what was troubling him. Thus, it became possible for him to find a new perspective on his promise. Psalm 77 is a powerful example of this. The person praying does not mince his words in his distress. He cries and complains, his spirit is desperate and turns in circles at night - we know the feeling. And then he asks: Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? (Ps 77, 9) And he pauses in the next verse and says to himself: And I say, “It is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will remember your wonders of old. (Ps 77, 10-11). He remembers the history of salvation of his people and the faithfulness of God, and can enter again into the community of all bearers of the promise of life and future.
However, this does not happen as quickly and easily as it may sound here, and everyone who honestly goes through painful times in his life knows that. How often God repeated his promise to Abraham! How insistently and to the point of exhaustion the prophets reminded the people of Israel of the promise! For the way is long and often irritating. Yes, it requires a long breath and faithful companions and perhaps also the advice that Henri Nouwen gives us for such times: »Cling to the promise«. We cannot find access to it outside; it does not help us to tell our story to all kinds of people. »You must close yourself off to the outside world«, Nouwen advises, »so you can enter your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God will send you the people with whom you can share your affliction and who will bring you closer to the true source of love.« He then reminds us that God is faithful to His promises and will give us in this life the love we long for.. »Things will not turn out the way you expect. Your needs and wishes will not be met. But your heart will be filled and your deepest desires will be satisfied. Hold to nothing but this promise. Everything else has been taken from you. Cling to this naked promise in faith. Your faith will heal you.« (from: Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love, , 51998)
We all live because there is a promise upon us - ancient and eternally young. Let us walk with it and keep it alive within us, so that we remember it when doubt gnaws and despair threatens.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 5th, 2021
People of the Spring
Lent is intended to be a holy springtime for us. While nearly everyone feels the charm and attractive quality of this image, springtime also carries within it a spiritual challenge as well as a spiritual responsibility. It calls us to be a people of hope.
My mother was a daughter of the springtime. On every March 1, she would declare loudly and to all of us that spring had officially begun. This declaration was bold indeed, for on the Canadian prairies, winter was still reigning with unbroken power over our lives. The temperatures were cold, the wind icy, and the snow deep. Moreover, we all knew that winter’s grip would last well into April, and occasionally into May.
Therefore, I would gently tease my mother about her declaration of the official beginning of spring by pointing to the prevailing conditions. With unbroken resolve, she would recite to be a verse from a poem she had learnt as a child.
Und dräut der Winter noch so sehr
Mit trotzigen Gebärden,
Und streut er Eis und Schnee umher,
Es muss d o c h Frühling werden.
And while winter yet threatens
with defiant gestures,
And scatters ice and snow around,
It must become spring.
This is the first verse of a poem by Emanuel Geibel (1815-1884). The poem is entitled Hoffnung. (Hope).
In Hebrews 11:1 we read this line: »Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not being seen.« And that is what my mother was practicing every year. She believed in warmer, gentler days ahead while winter winds whipped about her. She felt assured of a new blossoming life, while icicles hung from every tree branch. She was convinced of the glory of spring while unrelenting cold chilled her bones. That is what people of the springtime do: they defy the momentary experiences of the wintry season and already start living differently, because they are confident that new life is coming.
My sister is such a defiant daughter of the springtime. (The greatest strength flows through the veins of the women of my clan). Every spring, with breathtaking defiance, she sheds her socks and walks barefoot in her sandals, no matter how many times winter returns with snow, how many times the cold reasserts its grip and how bitter the winds blow across the prairies. I have teased her gently as well over the years, but once the socks are off, there is no going back. That is what people of the spring do: they already start living differently, because they are confident that new seasons are coming.
When the surprising winter snows arrived here in Germany this year, my colleague went for a walk through the snow piled up in her garden in her bare feet. A tiny, humorous and joyous act of defiance in the face of the wintry season. That is what people of the spring do: they refuse to allow the prevailing experience of the moment dictate how they will live. There is a fierce streak of resistance in them.
That is what the 40 days of the Holy Springtime wishes to restore in us. I leave you with the words of a hymn, so beloved in my home and native land, »Now the Green Blade Riseth«. It is a song of hope for the beloved community moving through the forty days. It is the song of all those who in the midst of the wintry season remain spring-believers, sock-shedders, and bare foot snow walkers. It is the song of resistance for the people of the spring time.
Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
In the grave they laid Him, Love who had been slain,
Thinking that He never would awake again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
Forth He came at Easter, like the risen grain,
Jesus who for three days in the grave had lain;
Quick from the dead the risen One is seen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.
When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,
Jesus' touch can call us back to life again,
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.*
* A gorgeous version can be heard here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En28Je8ehDs
Erik Riechers SAC, March 3rd, 2021
On the trail of loneliness
One of the increasing plagues and laments of our modern world is the suffering of loneliness. The pandemic has intensified this distress and it is worth taking a deeper look at the phenomenon of loneliness.
A young woman, then in her early 20s and very familiar with this feeling because of her unfolding fidelity to herself and her very unique gifts, told me many years ago, » It's becoming ever clearer to me that we humans come into this world alone and end up leaving it alone.« She began to accept that the feeling of being alone is part of life.
I couldn't help but think of her when I came across a text by Henri Nouwen these days. It comes from a book that Nouwen himself called his »secret diary« and wrote during a very difficult time in his life. In great distress at the time, he went into self-chosen exile and wrote down, step by step, everything he went through and learned. Of course, the feeling of loneliness played a significant role there and he appeals from his own experiences to approach its source:
»Whenever you feel lonely, you must try to locate the source of that feeling. You tend to either run away from your loneliness or settle into it. When you run away from it, it doesn't actually diminish, you just push it out of your consciousness for a short time. Settling into it only intensifies your feelings, and you slip into depression.
The spiritual task at hand is not to escape your loneliness, nor to allow yourself to be drawn into it, but to seek out its source, to pursue its reason. It is not an easy undertaking, but if you somehow succeed in identifying the place from which these feelings emanate, they will lose power over you. Determining this source is not an intellectual task, but a task of the heart. You must search for this place with your heart and without fear.
This search is important because it leads you to discover something good about yourself. Suffering your loneliness may be rooted in the depths of your vocation. You might come across that your loneliness is related to a calling to live fully for God. Thus, your loneliness may turn out to be the other side of your unique gift. Once you can experience this truth in your innermost being, you will find your loneliness not only bearable, but even fruitful. What at first appeared to be a pain may afterwards prove to be a feeling, albeit a painful one, that opens the way for you to a deeper knowledge of God's love.« (from: Henri J.M. Nouwen, Die innere Stimme der Liebe,5 1998)
The young woman of that time drew nearer to her loneliness, cautiously, with increasingly less fear and a growing openness. In the process, she came to know herself more and more and finally found wonderful companions who were close to her heart.
She became ever more courageous and authentic, in order to venture into her life freely and in responsibility before God and herself, ever anew. And she is no longer afraid of loneliness!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March, 1st, 2021
A Tale of Two Transfigurations
2. Sunday of Lent B 2021 Mark 9:2-10
Every second Sunday of Lent we hear this story of the Transfiguration. The first thing that happens, is that our eye is drawn toward the transforming light that envelopes Jesus. The story draws our eye toward the glory. Yet, our ear is drawn toward a heralds’ voice from Heaven. The sounds and the sights of this story move us in very different directions. For the minute the voice from heaven’s heights is heard, its message turns our eye back to the person of Jesus. Furthermore, the voice emphasises what it sees and loves in Jesus, and it is neither the light, nor the glory. It is the belovedness.
So today I thought I would get into the action as well and draw your eye away from center stage. Instead I would draw your attention to the other side of the story, where Peter, James and John are huddled together, mesmerized and confused at the same time. This is our side of the story. Charles Dickens once wrote a novel entitled: »A Tale of Two Cities«. Well, my brothers and sisters, this is a tale of two transfigurations. Across from the trio of Jesus, Moses and Elija, there is a group of three also being gradually transfigured by what they are seeing and hearing. And from their midst, Peter utters an important line: »Lord, it is good to be here«.
This story tells us quit vividly how Peter, James and John arrived at this transformative moment:
- Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves
They climbed the mountain with Jesus, moving out of the everyday experience to a more privileged mountaintop moment, where you have a greater overview of life and the world, and are a little more isolated from the hustle and bustle of the valleys and the plains.
- And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.
All of a sudden, the Jesus so familiar to them appears in a totally different light. His whole appearance changes, and they see him from a side they never experienced before. Moses and Elijah appeared next to him in splendor, and for the first time they recognise the wide world of his relationships, a world considerably larger than the one in which they have walked and talked and broken bread with him until now. Like all transformative experiences, this one lets them see old things with new eyes, old relationships in a new light.
- Then Peter said to Jesus, »Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.« He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
Peter does the talking here, but he speaks on behalf of his companions and, if we are honest, for us. Who wants to leave such a moment behind? We are deeply enough aware of its importance that we know, there is more here than we can grasp and take in all at once. We need more time. We need to linger a little.
Peter wants to make three dwellings, because he wants to stay in this experience and to hold on to this moment.
Over and over, preachers roundly criticized him for this attitude. I will not add my voice to that chorus of complaint. After all, I am just like him. Every place that has ever »held me in thrall«, made me want to build three tents, to stay and enjoy and relish. In every place, occasion and moment that has mesmerized me, I have never once felt the urge to leave.
I seriously doubt that it is task of that moment to want to leave. The question might be better re-framed: What will we do when this moment ends? Having seen what we have seen, and heard what we have heard, is it not possible to go to other places, less thrilling and hardly as overwhelming, and still seek and see and name the belovedness of Christ as clearly as the voice rumbling out of the clouds? Is it possible, that we might go elsewhere and still say of the less overwhelming moments and less dramatic places of life: »Lord, it is good to be here.«?
I cannot help but like Peter. He is so much like us. His instinct is our instinct, and our instinct in these moments of glory is to try and capture the experience. At the same time, we also know that we really do not know what we are saying in this moment, because our own experience tells us this will end badly if we try. Thus, we bring back wine from our holidays, but it just does not taste as good at home. We bring home the recipe for the meal that delighted us and we cook it in our own kitchen, but it is never really the same. Why not? Because genuine moments of transformation always elude our imprisonment. We cannot hold them fast. It does not work in the worlds of our memories and not in our video clips, selfies, and Facebook posts. Whatever dwellings we build, they cannot contain the purest, deepest part of the transforming experience.
So we need to recall the transforming moments of our lives and ponder them somewhat more exactingly. Remember the moments when mountains became moments of mystery and not just piles of rock, when spring blossoms spoke to us of God, when the first word of a child was as moving and momentous as the ten words from Sinai, and a glance across the breakfast table at partner and companion became a feast of revelation.
Linger as long as you can. Don’t waste your time building dwellings, but drink in the moment with your eyes and ears. Be silent with gratitude. These are moments not unlike those Peter, James and John experienced. And therein lays the deep truth, the clue that unveils the mystery: Transfigurations don't happen on mountains. They also do not happen in parks or street corners. They happen in us.
I think of less dramatic transfigurations in my life.
Sitting with a group of old people whose memories are few and realizing that God sees each of them as he created them, as his perfect child. This was a place that had none of the spectacle of Tabor, but all of its splendour. It was a place where I had to say: Lord, it is good to be here.
I once sat at the deathbed of a woman who opened her eyes one last time and said: Thank you for not leaving me alone! It was sad, painful, and sorrowful. When I recall the moment, I feel it transforming me still. And I still can say: Lord, it is good to be here.
I have often sat in my chair reading a good book and my eyes grew wide and I knew what I needed to know without needing words. The book drops from my hands and I am at peace. Is this not the place to say: Lord, it is good to be here?
Like our biblical companions, we too will come down the mountain and ponder a question: What can this rising from the dead mean? Transformative mountaintop moments of life do that for us, leaving us with questions that continue to rouse us from the slumbers that threaten to put our spirit to death. »What can this rising from the dead mean?« is a question that can wake us from passivity, indifference and numbness toward life, love and mystery. What can this rising from the dead mean, when we walk again along the common paths of life, and dwell once more among faces so familiar and places so well known? Will we allow these moments to awaken a deep passion, a consuming fire within us that lets us see them in a new light? Will we allow a voice from the cloud to point out the belovedness in the world beyond the ordinariness that can dull us, just as it called us to see the belovedness beyond the glory that can blind us?
Nikos Kazantzakis once wrote: »God is not found in monasteries, but in our homes! Wherever you find husband and wife, that’s where you find God: wherever children and petty cares and cooking and arguments and reconciliation are, that’s where God is, too. The God I’m telling about, the domestic one, not the monastic one, that’s the real God.« (The Last Temptation of Christ, Page 70)
May this grand storyteller, who understood our side of this story so well, do us one last favor. Let us listen to a parable that flowed from his quill to bring this to an end:
A man came up to Jesus and complained to him about the hiddenness of God. »Rabbi,« he said, »I am an old man. During my whole life, I have always kept the commandments. Every year of my adult life, I went to Jerusalem and offered the prescribed sacrifices.
Every night of my life, I have not retired to my bed without first saying my prayers. But . . . I look at stars and sometimes the mountains - and wait, wait for God to come so that I might see him. I have waited for years and years, but in vain. Why, Why? Mine is a great grievance, Rabbi! Why doesn’t God show himself?«
Jesus, in response, smiled gently and said: »Once upon a time there was a marble throne at the eastern gate of a great city. On this throne sat 3,000 kings. All of them called upon God to appear so that they might see him, but all of them went to their graves with their wishes unfulfilled.
Then, when these kings had died, a pauper, barefooted and hungry, came and sat upon that throne. ‘God,’ he whispered, ‘the eyes of a human being cannot look directly at the sun, for they would be blinded. How then, Omnipotent One, can they look directly at you?
Have pity, Lord, temper your strength, turn down your splendor so that I, who am poor and afflicted, may see you!’ Then - listen, old man - God became a piece of bread, a cup of cool water, a warm tunic, a hut and, in the front of the hut, a woman giving suck to an infant.
‘Thank you, Lord,’ he whispered. ‘You humbled yourself for my sake. You became bread, water, a warm tunic and my wife and son in order that I might see you. And I did see you. I bow down and worship your beloved many-faced face!’«
Erik Riechers SAC, February 28th, 2021
Why we should not speak of the Pandemic as a Lenten Experience II
Fasting is more than imposed abstinence
In my last reflection, I pointed out that unlike the pandemic, Lent is voluntary and not inflicted. We choose to practice Lent because we see it as a meaningful way to restore what has been lost to us. The pandemic is not a choice, but a tragedy we are forced to cope with.
During the Lenten springtime, we turn to the practice of fasting, but here, too, we need to avoid comparing this to the imposed and forced abstinence of the pandemic.
In Isaiah 58, 1-9 the prophet points out that fasting cannot consist in mere abstinence. Simply refusing to eat is a hunger strike, not a fast. The prophet is brutally clear on this matter. Fasting has to open us up to new horizons of service, justice and mercy. Otherwise it is displeasing to God. That is not what pandemic measures do.
In fact, it is a simple lesson for us to learn. I have found it incredibly easy to fast from food in my life, and never widen the welcome of my heart one whit. At other times I have fasted from food, but let my spirit gorge itself on anger, bitterness, and even selfishness. At yet other times, I have fasted and found myself more querulous than I was before the fast. The prophet’s words ring with fine rebuke in my ears. »Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.« (Is 58, 3-4)
This is powerful, provocative language. »You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high«. (Is 58,4) Two things are implied in this statement. First it tells us that improper fasting does not gain us an audience with God. However, in the second instance it reminds us that proper fasting is defined as that which garners us a new hearing from God. If you fast, and it does not bring you closer to God, the fast has failed.
My friends, fasting can bring us closer to God by making us more profoundly aware of the concerns of His heart. While we eat, drink and practice merriment, our lives are intensely focused on the concerns of our own hearts, on our personal pleasures. Fasting creates hunger. The question is »What kind of hungers are awakened in us?« After putting down your pork chops, chicken legs and rib-eye steaks, do your hearts have the same cravings found in the heart of God? These are not questions raised by the imposed abstinence of the pandemic measures.
It is not that hard to give answer to this biblical inquiry. What are the cravings of the heart of God? Simply this:
»Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?«
What is the hunger of God’s heart?
»Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?«
If we fast, then what burns in the heart of God must become the heartburn of humanity. If you fast from bread and never let a morsel of it touch the lips of the hungry, then you are simply stockpiling bread. If you refrain from consumption of any and every kind, and give none of what you have saved to those who never have the luxury of fasting because they have nothing to give up, then you have not only spared yourself, but also denied them. None of the enforced abstinence of the pandemic has brought forth such fruits.
Permit Lent to unfetter your joy. Isaiah promises that it will be so. If you let Lent alleviate the greeds of your heart with the needs of God’s heart, then »your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appea; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.« Now that is what I call joy. Yet the fullness of joy found in the fullness of the fast, is that it will grant us a hearing before our beloved God. It is the final promise of the prophet. »Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.« Think long and lovingly on this, beloved of the Lord. What morsel could you possibly eat that would satisfy your heart and soul as much as knowing that in every hour the Lord will answer your plea with his presence?
Erik Riechers SAC, February 26th, 2021
Why we should not speak of the Pandemic as a Lenten Experience I
Some people have complained about this Lent after a year of the pandemic. I have often read commentaries that say: »Why should we practice Lent this year after 11 months that have been nothing but one long, continual season of Lent?«
While I understand the frustration the last year has brought with it, and the restlessness that comes with it, it dismays me to hear the pandemic compared to Lent. To use Lent to describe the year of the pandemic is to employ the worst of all possible stereotypes we have about the Forty Days. This question is less a statement about the effect of the pandemic than a revelation of a very negative and false understanding of the forty days. It suggests that the only purpose of Lent is to impose a time of misery, hardship and discontent through imposed sanctions and practices. It suggests that suffering and pain are the purpose and goal of the Forty Days.
That is not all that surprising, considering the way Lent is often practiced. This is supposed to be a holy springtime, but often it was reduced to one over-simplified question: What are you giving up this year? Entirely lost in the process was the question: What is the purpose of all this? What are we trying to achieve in this season in which abstinence and fasting have a very real role to play? And what is the role of fasting (abstinence) in all of this.
When we use Lent as a description of this time of the pandemic, we employ a cheap caricature of Lent. Lent is not comparable to the pandemic for several reasons. And knowing them will help us to remember the deepest and genuine meaning of Lent.
First of all, the season of Lent is voluntary and freely chosen. Unlike the pandemic, it is not inflicted upon us. It is not thrust upon us, but freely and willingly taken up. We choose to practice Lent, because we see it as a meaningful way to restore what has been lost to us. The pandemic is not a choice, but a tragedy we are forced to cope with.
Secondly, the season of Lent is a conscious act. The measures we have been forced to undertake during the year of the pandemic do not require a conscious choice on my part. They are proclaimed from the outside, without regard for my inner consent. The state decrees them, demands them from us and enforces our adherence to them. Lent is a movement born of inner choice, will and desire. Its measures are consciously taken up. If I do not choose them, there is no who will demand or enforce my adherence to them. There are no penalties, no fines, if you sneak a bite of chocolate, sip your wine or eat meat on Friday.
Thirdly, the purpose of Lenten practices renewal and reinvigoration. As a holy springtime, it wants to restore flow where things have come to a standstill. Like spring restarts the flow of sap within the trees after the cold of winter, so the Lenten spring wants to set love flowing again, where wintry seasons have brought it to a standstill. The measures of the pandemic have a different purpose. They are not trying to set new life in motion, but are exercises in avoidance. They want to avoid contact with what is harmful and not to renew contact with what is life giving.
Finally, the ultimate goal of the Lenten springtime is the restoration of fullness of life. Every exercise of Lent asks what we need to do to find our way back home, to the place where a full and meaning life is possible. The measures of the pandemic are by their very essence not restorative, but preventive. They wish to protect us from potentially harmful infection that can harm us, but that is all. Even if you never catch the virus, it will only mean you have preserved your present state of health, but you have not grown healthier. That is a critical difference to the Lenten spring time. It does not want to avoid winter, but lead us to summer. It does not wish us to avoid hell, but to guide us to heaven.
(To be continued)
Erik Riechers SAC, February 24th, 2021
»From the mouths of children and infants«
»From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise « - a part of verse from the Psalms that many of us know and love, that seems easy to understand and which we lightly pass over.
Let us take a closer look. What do we hear from the mouths of the smallest ones? They cry out when their needs are existential, they babble to themselves, they try to imitate sounds, they test out their voice: when they get bigger, they often blabber lively and say what comes to their minds; they pose question after questions or tell us what their imagination inspires in them. Children express plainly everything that they feel: Pain and joy, fear and tension, homesickness and the desire for life. All inner processes of liveliness flow past their lips. They have an unmistakable sense of what is real and true, something we have mostly forgotten out of deference to conventions and acquired patterns of behavior. Is it any wonder that God, who loves all life, deems this as praise? Everything that lives and expresses life praises the Creator of all life. Thus, He »creates« praise for Himself from all that the youngest naturally and freely let sound from their mouths. We often deem this incomprehensible or simply cute or try to explain it or even demean it. For God, however, it becomes the praise of life in general, the praise of Him as Creator. Because what the little ones express is existential, pure, honest and true.
This verse is at the beginning of Psalm 8, which praises both the Creator and creation, and goes on to emphasize the greatness and dignity of man.
»From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise on account of Your adversaries, to silence the enemy and avenger« - unexpected are the further words of this verse. But let us remember: When from praise of the Creator flows naturally from the mouth of children, then all those who neither appreciate nor love life have nothing more to say. They are not on the side of the Author of all life. We all know the voices of people who are know-it-alls and judge everything, who can no longer marvel, who have forgotten how to express their feelings and prefer to repress them. How many people have cut off parts of their inner life? They speak about what »one« wants to hear. They follow a tactic, but not the diversity of life. What counts is what is useful to them, but not what truly serves life.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus holds this very sentence up against the powerful: »But the chief priests and scribes were indignant when they saw the wonders He performed and the children shouting in the temple courts, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked. Yes,’ Jesus answered. ‘Have you never read: ‘From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise?’« (Mt 21, 15-16).
Anyone who takes notice and takes seriously the little ones and what they say feel how close they come to real life through them. No hour that we spend in this way is wasted time - not for the children, but also not for us. It is an hour of truthfulness. With their help, let us return to the genuine depths of life.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February, 22nd, 2021
Why we need deserts
1. Sunday of Lent B 2021 Mark 1:12-15
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.
And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan.
And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
Mk 1, 12-13
None of the evangelists recounts Jesus' desert experience as briefly and succinctly as Mark. Here no detailed temptations are described. He does not spare a word about stones that should be turned into bread and no one has to bow down before the tempter to possess the kingdoms of this earth. Mark does not tell us about the temptation to throw oneself down from the pinnacle of the temple in order to test the rapid response times of the angels.
This brevity of words has a great advantage. Mark pierces through to the heart of the matter and a very fundamental decision. Like Jesus, we hear the words of God revealing to us that we are his beloved sons and daughters. Yet, the story does not end there. As in the Gospel itself, what the Father’s voice speaks to us at the Jordan is where the story begins. We are beloved people, but whether we want to live as such is another question, and one that tests us to the core.
To find out whether we want to live out this dignity as beloved sons and daughters, we need three things: 1. a desert, 2. wild animals, and 3. servant messengers of God.
- A Desert
We need places where we are not distracted, where we are thrown back on the essentials of life. T.S. Lawrence answered the question why he loved the desert with the sentence: »It is clean«. Deserts are about curse and blessing, life and death. In deserts we experience life stripped down to the basics. Deserts have no distractions, no amusing entertainments and no superficial conversations about trifles that make us forget what we don't want to notice, look at and tackle.
We need such places and times of desert to find out what really matters to us, what our real convictions are, what really moves us. We need them, because they give us the place where we can break through to the heart of the matter. In the desert, this pursuit is no longer sidelined by the pleasurable distractions life has to offer.
- Wild animals
In such desert situations we also live »with the wild animals«. Wild animals devour what they find in the desert. They are looking for prey, and the more vulnerable the prey, the better. They exploit the helplessness of their prey and turn it to their advantage. They turn the plight and weakness of others into something from which they profit.
This experience is not exactly foreign to us. There are also wild animals in our times of crisis that sense an advantage for themselves and relentlessly make use of it. They see when others are helpless and at their mercy and exploit their situation for their own purposes. The Bible also has another word for this: human sacrifice. Human sacrifice is the willingness to sacrifice other people so that I can live better.
We need this experience of the wild animals to examine what we really want to be: Do we want to join their ranks? Do we want to be just as cold and calculating in seeking our advantage, no matter what the cost to others? Do we care less about the fate of others as long as we get off easy?
The temptation is great. In the great refugee crisis of our time, there are people who put their heart and soul into helping maltreated people. There are also others who are smugglers and exploit this great human suffering to enrich themselves. In the pandemic there are people who tirelessly care about others, but at the same time people who think only about their benefits, who demand to jump the queue and be vaccinated first, regardless of the people around them who suffer more and are at far greater risk than themselves. There are is not shortage of wild animals in our deserts. .
- Servant messengers of God.
It is said that the angels served Jesus in the desert. This is also our experience in times of desert distress. People are sent by God to serve the life that is destitute, endangered and exposed. There are wild animals that kick us when we are already down. There are also servant messengers of God who lift us up from the dust so that we do not fall by the wayside. There are wild animals that can hardly contain their glee at the mishaps of others, and there are servant messengers of God who share our suffering and pain. There are wild animals who see the anguish of others as an occasion to be triumphant (let's think of such phrases as »I knew it« or »I told you so«). But there are also servant messengers of God who give help and relieve pain to bring a person back to life.
And here we are confronted with the third possibility of a desert experience: what kind of person do I want to be? Because the beloved son or daughter of God is not a wild animal, and should not behave as such. The beloved child is a servant messenger of God, a bringer of salvation, a guardian of the inexperienced and a comforter of the afflicted.
What Mark is telling us is fundamental: what kind of people do we want to be? And only in deserts will we really test what kind of answer slumbers within us.
I hope and pray that we will take this instruction of God to heart. Is there anyone among us who has not made the painful experience that is reflected in a saying of my homeland: When the chips are down, you will discover who your friends are? Well, when we are in the desert, we will discover who our true friends are, but whether we ourselves are cut of the cloth of genuine, loving, serving friendship. There is nothing like a desert to rid us of our self- illusions.
Erik Riechers SAC, February 21st, 2021
»The Holy Springtime«
Every year I observe with gladness, in myself as well as with others, what the first signs of spring are and how they affect us. The light increases, the days grow longer and the shadows are already noticeably shorter. The sun is gaining strength; sometimes you can sit in a sheltered corner sunlight and enjoy the warmth as early as February. Gradually, more color comes into the world - the witch hazel is a very early harbinger of yellow and what will follow. Birdsong delights us in the morning, large flocks of wild geese make themselves loudly heard in the afternoon on their migration north.
They are all signs of life, new life, and resurgent life! It lures us out, we feel the desire for purification and more lightness, as well as setting forth and for new beginnings.
In ancient times, there was the custom of the »holy springtime«, called "ver sacrum": young men born in the springtime who had in the meantime grown up were sent out among the ancient Italic peoples, or expelled, to conquer new land and found a new tribe there. So here too: more life, new living space, future possibilities, at the same time saying goodbye and courageously starting anew.
In the early church, people spoke of our Lenten season as the »holy springtime«. It is important to consider the word »holy«. In the Bible, only the Holy One is holy, God Himself. Nothing is holy of itself, but only through contact with the holiness of God. Where the shadow of the Most Holy falls, there the beauty of holiness is to be found.
The 7 weeks before Easter are meant to bear all the signs of spring, as they now increasingly appear in our latitudes. They should serve as a sacred time of departure into new life when and because we walk through them in contact with God and in relationship with Him. God loves life in all its facets, and we can make this season of preparation a sacred time by making space for all that we perceive and love in nature during the springtime. We can make it a sacred time by perceiving ourselves anew in relationship with God, entering into ourselves and looking at what God has placed within us. »Become what God made you to be« could allow a springtime burst forth: with more glimpses of light where we saw so much gloom; with more warmth where we dealt coldly with ourselves and others; with more color where we had already become so accustomed to monotony that we hardly recognized it; with more voices and music where we wanted our peace and quiet; with more vitality in ourselves and with others, where we were bored.
Indeed, to this end it will good and necessary to renounce the habits that have kept us from all this for too long. But that is the magic of spring, where the dead old leaves are pierced by the pointed shoots of the tulip bulbs and the young shoots of the perennials. New things grow from within and the old may quietly pass away. How much life is within us - let us help it gently and persistently to sprout and eventually blossom.
Let us be told anew: God is a lover of life - it is something sacred to love life. Thus, let us enter into the holy spring.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 19th, 2021
How do I get back home from here?
This question is the theme of our Wellspring Days in 2021 as well as of our Shea Course. Only two months into the year, we are hearing how the theme has found deep resonance with so many people. The reason for that is simple enough: We are all feeling a little lost.
The deepest effect of sin, of living beneath our dignity, is estrangement. This is a remarkable word in the English language. It stems from the French estrangier »to alienate«, and from the Vulgar Latin extraneare »to treat as a stranger«.
It perfectly describes our experience of being lost: living like aliens or exiles, far from what home is and means to us, living like strangers within the lives we have chosen for ourselves and made for ourselves. We know that dreadful feeling of living like outsiders looking in at wat we crave but cannot gain access to. We can experience this in every relationship we know: treating the God of our lives like a stranger, alienated from the world that surrounds, sustains and carries us, exiled from our brothers and sisters, near and far, and even estranged from ourselves.
For many, if not most people, Lent is perceived as the time when we focus on this estrangement. To a degree, that is true. Yet, the Lenten spring is more precisely and accurately our annual pause to pose the question that arises from the ashes of estrangement: How do I get back home from here? How do we get back to the home and the hearth of our hearts?
Ash Wednesday offers a first answer to this question. Six times Jesus will speak about a hidden place (krypto or kruphaoi).
But when you give to the needy,
do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
so that your giving may be in secret. (krypto)
And your Father who sees in secret (krypto) will reward you.
(Mt 6, 3-4)
But when you pray,
go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen (krypto).
Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, (krypto) will reward you.
(Mt 6, 6)
But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen (kruphaoi) and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, (kruphaoi)) will reward you.
(Mt 6, 17-18)
Go to the secret, the hidden, place. Jesus is worried about getting this right. Whether it is giving alms, praying or fasting, all laudable practices in Lent, none of them will lead us home if they are not born from and flow out of our secret place.
That is the first place we need to go in order to find our way home. It has a rich tradition in Gospel storytelling. Jesus uses it in the parable of Father and his prodigal sons. The youngest son begins the journey home only after this line is said: »Now coming into himself...« That is the secret place. Only then does his saving memories surface and he says: ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, »Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you«.
When we come into ourselves, we find what he does, the memory of a father who treats his servants better than anything he has known at the hands of his present employers. He remembers a house of bread while starving in a pig sty. He remembers there is a home to which he can return. What he remembers gives him the first step in the answer to the question: How do I get back home from here?
Whatever we choose to do during this Lenten Springtime, we should begin here, in the secret place of our hearts, that room where we come into ourselves, not distracted and waylaid by outer appearances and performances put on for the sake of others. That is the way that leads to estrangement. We should be focused on getting home so that we can say, »I will arise and go to my father.«
I remind us all of a truth we speak often this year that is particularly important during the Lenten Spring. »The path home is long, hard and complicated, but you don’t have to take it by yourself.«
Thus, I wish us all together a good journey home.
Erik Riechers SAC, Ash Wednesday, February 17th, 2021
Life with Promise
Here in the Rhineland, many people are sad these days, because Carnival is not taking place during the pandemic. They miss the exuberance, the celebrating, dancing and singing together. Many console themselves with the beloved music of this time, share pictures of past carnivals, and plan for the future.
But life always holds an incredible palette of shades, and so these days there is also sadness of a deeper kind. In front of me is a death announcement: from my circle of acquaintances an almost 94-year-old woman died. Her family speaks in it of love and gratitude for a full life and a peaceful death.
At the top of this announcement is a promise that touched my heart, because I immediately felt the attitude with which this family looks at the life of their mother and grandmother and how they go through this time of mourning:
»Do not fear,
for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name,
you are mine!«
(Is 43)
This promise – pointing beyond death – stands over the life of the old woman. Here a family mourns in the face of the final farewell from a loved one, in the deep faith and trust that what Isaiah pronounces as God's word to his people in exile was also spoken precisely to this woman .
Do not be anxious, do not worry, do not fill yourself with fearful thoughts of lies ahead.
For I myself have already delivered you, you are free.
You are already called, by me.
You, I have called you by your name, it is YOU who are meant.
Do not forget: You belong to me.
What a boundless offer of home and belonging! You no longer have to roam about and look for a place to stay: You are mine, always have been. Come home!
Whatever weighs down the heart of each of us, whether our stage of life is easy or mighty boulders lie before us: This promise is valid for us as well. Let us hear it anew, let us absorb it into our hearts and shape our lives from it. So that we can go through this and all days with a joyful spirit.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 15th, 2021
All for one and one for all
6. Sunday B 2021 Mark 1:40-45
»I never thrust my nose into other men's porridge. It is no bread and butter of mine; every man for himself, and God for us all.« Miguel de Cervantes lets Don Quixote speak these words in his masterpiece. The quote mirrors an attitude that we come to know in various forms and disguises in our lives, our relationships and in our society.
By contrast, Alexandre Dumas lets his Musketeers Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan say something altogether different in the face of the trials, adventures and challenges life has to offer: »Un pour tous, tous pour un« (All for one and one for all).This word also reflects an attitude, but this time it is about standing together rather than standing apart.
These two words are never far from our hearts when we face a crisis and have to make a choice. When waves of refugees shiver at our borders, we can say, »This has nothing to do with us,« or we can say, »We can deal with this together.« Those two words reflect the struggle for dominance over the human heart. Now that a vaccine is available, there are people who feel that once they are vaccinated they should be free from the restrictions of lockdown, no matter how others in society are faring. The fight for enough vaccine makes some countries simply insure that they enough for their population, while other countries worry that developing countries will have as much access to the vaccine as their own citizens.
In today's Gospel, we see the mindsets of these two words grappling with one another. In the laws regulating the lives of the lepers we see more the mindset of Don Quixote. It is the mindset of separation and distance. We separate ourselves from what is unpleasant, dangerous, or troublesome to us. As long as we get what we need, what do we care about the fate of others?
Jesus' way of thinking and acting, on the other hand, speaks more of the attitude of the musketeers. This encounter between Jesus and the lepers is a narrative against the mindset of separation and distance thinking in favor or hearts and minds that think and feel in terms of solidarity.
All the characters in this narrative, the lepers as well as the healthy, are first influenced by the mindset of separation and distance. Thus, the come up with a simplistic formula: The sick should stay away from the healthy.
Many would argue that this formula is not simplistic, but merely common sense. That perspective is only possible if you are counted among the healthy. Take a closer look at Leviticus 13:45-46. It states that the leper should wear torn garments to stand out from the well-groomed garments of the healthy. The leper should let his hair hang down loosely to clearly distinguish himself outwardly from the well-groomed appearance of the healthy. The leper should live separately, not among those who are healthy. The leper has his dwelling place outside of the camp, so that the healthy ones, can carry on with their lives in peace. Even a child would recognize that the spirit of »one for all, all for one« does not prevail in these »common sense« regulations. All the obligations, restrictions and sacrifices are demanded of the sick. Nothing is demanded of the healthy.
This is how the story in the Gospel is supposed to unfold. But Jesus refuses to have anything to do with a way of thinking that separates and distances itself from other human beings, because this destroys human solidarity. Jesus goes the opposite way.
- Jesus had compassion for him.
Jesus himself is not sick and unaffected by the consequences of alienation, loss and isolation that leprosy brings with it. His life is intact. Yet, although he lives in a world of salvation, the broken life of the leper touches and moves his world.
- »He stretched out his hand«.
As soon as Jesus does this, he bridges the separating distance that exists between his world and that of the sick person. Jesus breaks the boundaries of separation and distance that the rules have established. The moment he stretches out his hand, he makes his own rule.
- »He touched him«.
Once again we return to a much loved theme of Mark: the touches. Through touching, the worlds, experiences, and people that should remain separated from each other come into contact with each other and a touching place is created where before only emptiness filled the space between us.
- »And he said, I will it - become clean!«
Here we hear a clear confession of Jesus: He reveals his motivation. He does not say, »I can«, but »I will«. He wants to restore this person to health, home and hearth, and that is why he takes on the arduous effort of these steps, all of which are omitted if he would only rely on the mindset of separation and distance.
These are the four clear steps to overcome the mindset of separation and distance. But Jesus is never exclusively about the rejection of a negative way of thinking, but about the acceptance of a life-giving way of thinking. For him, it is always about the dominion over the human heart, and that is why he cultivates and promotes a different way of thinking. He looks at people, at the relationships they have with each other and with God, and emphasizes what binds and unites us, what we have in common.
Unfortunately, this way of thinking is not easy to achieve. We always practice what we already know how to do. We are used to thinking and acting in the categories of competition. And when this competitive mindset has us in its grip, we identify with the physical, psychological and social advantages we have that set us apart from others. Then the phrase »I never stick my nose in other people's porridge« wins out. »It's not my bread and butter; every man for himself and God for us all« gains dominance over our hearts.
This in turn leads us deep into the world of comparison. We can then say, »I have better health, I am more intelligent and I have more money than the other«. But it also works the other way around: »Unfortunately, I have worse health, am less intelligent and have less money than the other person«. The world of comparison makes us constantly oscillate between »I am better off« and »I am worse off«. We vacillate between pity for those who have less and envy for those who have more. Either way, in both cases, we withdraw from the other. The clear message is, »That's not me.« In the end, we have drawn clear boundaries, born of the mindset of separation and distance, a mindset that Jesus is working hard to reverse.
When we approach this story, we do so from the role of the healthy. Thus, we assume that the leper is one who is worse off than we are. If we come into contact with him, his circumstances, his situation, his condition, could be contagious, that is, we could be affected ourselves. And already the strategy of withdrawal, separation and distance is off and running. In a flight of piety, we may perhaps even ask the protective God to save us from their plight.
Jesus does not look at the disease, but at the person who has to bear this illness. The disease does not bind us to one another, because we are not lepers. But Jesus' way of thinking asks about being human and not about the illnesses they happen to have.
What binds and unites us? What is the common ground on which every life rests?
We all have value, dignity and meaning. We are all loved, wanted.
Only when this way of thinking replaces our separatist mindset will true compassion be born.
For true compassion is a deeply felt perception that we share what is common to all human beings. Having value, dignity and meaning, being loved and wanted is the world that we all share. If we cannot find this world, we will never be able to sincerely say »All for one and one for all«.
Then we walk the four steps of Jesus:
- We have compassion and let our ideal world be touched and moved by the broken lives of others.
- We reach out and bridge the dividing distance. We break through the boundaries of separation and distance that our inherited interpretations and their ways of acting have built up.
- We touch the lives of others and come into contact with the worlds, experiences, and people that were originally meant to remain separate from us.
- And we say »I want it«. We can also make a clear confession that we are not willing to let others fall by the wayside in order to save ourselves.
Mark draws our attention to this profound truth. The experience of the other is also my experience. In his play »The Merchant of Venice«, William Shakespeare has Shylock appeal to this common humanity: »I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die?«
We should not overlook that this biblical narrative ends in irony. The leper who was obliged to always proclaim he was unclean and impure is now the man whom Jesus asks to be silent. He does not do so. Instead, he uses every chance he get to tell others of the one who saw him, stretched out his hand, touched him and told him that he desired his healing. »But the man went away and proclaimed at every opportunity what had happened.«
Yet, now that Jesus has the reputation of being a healer, two things happen.
- He is not allowed to show himself openly in any city
- He can only dwell be in solitary places.
This is the irony, because according to Leviticus, this is normally the fate of the lepers.
- They cannot show themselves openly in any city
- They can only stay outside the city in lonely places.
How does this ironic twist come about? It is simple. Wherever people think only of what they need or want, regardless of the cost to others, then the others’ well-being will be sacrificed, even if the other is Jesus of Nazareth. Roy T. Bennett is right when he writes in his book »The Light in the Heart«: »Most of us must learn to love people and use things rather than loving things and using people.«
Erik Riechers SAC, February 14th, 2021
How do we look at the world?
There are days when I feel the restrictions of this time particularly strongly - not so much as an aggravation, but rather more as an impoverishment. Then I am tempted to view all of my experiences through these glasses. However, again and again I am shaken up by the realization that life is more than all that makes the present situation oppressive. The impetus for this was - as I sometimes feel – heaven sent. It comes in the form of a conversation or through a radio broadcast or a story I happen to come across. That is how I recently discovered the poetic author of rhyming riddles and the lyricist, Erika Beltle. She had met her future husband, Theo, during World War II, and he was soon drafted. Their correspondence throughout the war was published years ago. She writes the following in a letter at the beginning of 1942:
»Dear Theo, ... Today I once again wished that feelings did not always have to be first clothed in thoughts in order to be understood by the other person, but that they could be transmitted immediately. The path from the heart over the head is so cumbersome, and the essential is lost. I am in a very cheerful mood today and would like to chirp like the birds. Despite war and a thousand devils, life is beautiful! Perhaps it is because I have planned something like a regimen, a direction, for my future life. One would like to think that a path that is planned almost by the hour has something compulsive about it and would be constricting or oppressive, but just the opposite is the case: it sets me free inside. Because I always experience freedom in connection with a feeling of happiness, I have such a feeling today. ... Erika«
(Erika und Theodor Beltle, Für Dich will ich leben: Ein Briefwechsel aus dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, 2009)
»Despite war and a thousand devils, life is beautiful!« - How is it possible for her to write such a thing in the midst of a war?
Well, she had a good sense of herself. She had a perception of herself and thus discovered the treasure within herself, got to know her own heart, in which much more was alive than words can express. Because she took herself seriously, she could live and create from within herself, and in her situation - she is barely 21 years old when she writes this - that meant making plans for her life - despite all that is cruel and terrible and uncertain! And she made a grandiose discovery: this liberated her interiorly. And she observes very precisely: to feel this personal inner freedom causes a feeling of happiness - in January 1942!
For me, this is an extraordinary testimony to what we have often discussed: true life flows from the inside out. It cannot be consumed. That is why the thoughts of the young woman of that time can be a help and impetus to rediscover ourselves, especially in these months of the minimisation of many facets of consumerism. We are all burdened to varying degrees by what this pandemic forces upon us. But we are free to choose how we look at life and what, of all that is within us and is longing for expression, is allowed to live. We could nurture and foster it like a gardener, we could share it with each other and slowly push forward to happy moments - despite an extension of the lockdown.
And I set aside, for days when I am again overburdened by much that is heavy, a poem from Erika Beltle's later years:
Gardens of Closeness
I have drifted off
like a boat
from the land of your soul.
Fully laden
it sways
on breadths of the sea.
But I throw,
piece by piece
ballast overboard
and strive
to return to the shore,
for only one,
light as a butterfly,
finds the gardens
of closeness
the vicinity,
wherein you dwell.
(from: Erika Beltle, Gesammelte Gedichte - Ausgewählte Werke Band II, 2008)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 12th, 2021
Poorly told Stories
Just a few days ago I began to read a new book by Pádraig Ó Tuama and Glenn Jordan. The book looks at Brexit, borders and belonging and turns to the book of Ruth to hear and heed a story that has the potential to open our eyes to very different horizons of hope and healing. I will surely return to this book in later reflections.
But what caught my attention right from the start is the emphasis on what happens when we only hear poorly told stories. The entire bluster around the Brexit campaign is described as »blunt stories told poorly to push changes forward«. We have witnessed this repeatedly in the last years, be it the AFD in Germany or Donald Trump in the USA. Complex realities are simplified to the point where we have a caricature of the reality we live. The heroes and villains are divided up with fundamentalist zeal and every nuance or fact that complicates the story is immediately ignored, dismissed or decried.
That is no mere happenstance. It arises everywhere in history and the world here people ae unable to deal with complexity. When the multi-faceted, deeply complex realties of real life become too hard to bear, then some people will bend, twist and contort it all to fit into a much more black and white version and vision of reality. This is the atmosphere in which poorly told stories are born.
What we need are well told stories that stretch us, even when we do not feel like being stretched. Here is what Pádraig Ó Tuama writes:
»Stories have the power to face us with ourselves. If a story is told well, it upsets some of our conveniences and challenges the previously unchallenged. Stories have unexpected twists and turns. Stories find heroes in strange corners. Stories reveal something about the behaviour of people previously considered to be above reproach. In stories we find our hearts drawn towards multiple characters, locating ourselves in this one and that one. Stories contain our projections and prejudices, and if we’re lucky – we hear the story enough times that some of those projections and prejudices are coaxed into a new imagination.« *
Indeed, we need such stories, but we need two other components as well. We need storytellers who make these well told stories come alive and who are tenacious enough to tell us stories we need to hear precisely when we do not wish to hear them. Thus, we need storytellers of considerable courage, because well told stories will never simply go with the flow and confirm the prevailing wisdom of the status quo.
Further, we need talented story-hearers. It takes a considerable skill to hear the story you do not agree with in advance. It also takes the gift of courage, the willingness to engage and grapple and wrestle with those multiple characters who rattle our cages and widen our way of look at the world.
I remember once asking John Shea what the sure sign of a poorly told story is. His answer is etched into my heart. »A poorly told story will lead you to every place you always wanted to go.« It will lead us to landowners, but hardly to the woman at the well. It will lead us to supermodels, celebrities and power elites, but hardly to a widow who puts two pennies in the plate. The poorly told stories will lead us to the rich and powerful men and women who guide the destiny and fates of millions, but they will not lead us Ruth.
Let us be on our guard in these days. The long haul of this pandemic has wearied and bruised us. That makes us more susceptible to poorly told stories. But even now the world is filled with good stories and great storytellers. This book I am presently reading is an excellent example of that. I also believe the world is filled with great story-hearers, including the 7000 of you who come to “May you be sheltered” four times a week. Pádraig Ó Tuama asks in the introduction: »Can we be held in some kind of narrative creativity by a story whose origins we do not know?« *
I believe we can.
* Borders and Belonging:
The Book of Ruth: A Story for our Times,
Pádraig Ó Tuama and Glenn Jordan
Erik Riechers SAC, February 10th, 2021
My life can be glorious - »quite heavy«!
In yesterday's homily, Erik laid out what aids and life lessons there are for us in the few verses about the healing of Simon's mother-in-law. You probably felt like I did: you were amazed. And then you began to draw from it - remembering your own experiences and looking to what was to come. But all this presupposed that you really read this sermon in its fullness, without shortcuts, without »I've heard it before«, without premature abandonment.
This is a challenge that we encounter again and again in life: we are offered a fuller and richer life, more salvation and joy. But how do we deal with this offer? Unfortunately, it happens again and again that we do not open ourselves to it. Sometimes we do not listen properly, perceive an offer only superficially and do not break through to the treasure that could be in it for us. Often we are impatient: a church service is too long, an article too detailed, a person talking to us takes too long, and we drop out before we have really gotten started. But there are also challenges to which we open ourselves, but need to work through piece by piece: Yes, I can hear that, but it's so difficult - yes, but what would be the point - yes, but I can't get away with that, . . . yes, but. . . , yes, but! Then we come to a standstill on the inside, stick to what we already know, indeed, to a certain degree we get stuck and then try to justify this. I think this is what Psalm 1 means when it warns against standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the circle of scoffers. It invites us to engage in God's instruction of life, persistently, patiently, steadily: here those are called blessed whose »delight is in the law of the Lord, and meditates on this law by day and by night.« The law of the Lord is the word which the person, who is called blessed, allows to draw near to him and in which he takes delight. But that alone is not enough. It is constantly in his mind; during the day he will look at some things differently than in the night, but he sticks to it and draws from it for his life: »He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.« Life can then become glorious, and the Hebrew word kabod for glorious means something like: quite heavy!
Thus, why would we pass by it lightly when a source of life opens up to us? Would it not be an outrage against ourselves?
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 8th, 2021
A Touching Place
5. Sunday B 2021 Mark 1:29-39
As I was looking out my window a few days ago, I saw an elderly couple I am acquainted with walking past. It was slow going, because for some time this woman is gradually sinking into dementia. At that point, she dropped her gloves to the ground. Her husband bent over and picked them up. Visibly annoyed, he threw them into the basket on the front of her walker, shouted at her to be more careful and then walked off in frustration. That little scene troubled me for the rest of the day.
It is a scene that is repeating itself in many ways on many levels during these drawn out days of the pandemic. It is not unexpected. Confronted with continuous and on-going crisis, we weary, lose our patience, our perspective and sometimes our nerve. In such moments, we are not at our stellar best. These interminable days can grind us down to such a degree, that we no longer feel that we have any resources left to deal with the never-ending story that has become our crisis. We are suffering from the malady of the exhausted soul.
Today’s Gospel can offer us some gentle guidance through this troublesome time. The story we hear today is the continuation of a story that began last Sunday. It is a story that meanders through one complete Sabbath day in the life of Jesus. The journey through this Sabbath is all about a grand restoration. As Jesus moves through this day, Mark tells us in three episodes how the Spirit Master is giving back to the Sabbath its deepest meaning and purpose. First we hear how Jesus restores the depths of authentic faith and worship through the casting out of the unclean spirit in the man in the synagogue (episode 1). Then we hear two further episodes of this ongoing tale. There is the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law so that celebration might once again be possible (episode 2). That is followed by the healing of the people at the gates of the city after the sun sets on the Sabbath (episode 3).
»And immediately coming out of the synagogue they went into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother–in–law was lying down with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. And approaching her, he grasped her hand and raised her up.
Then the fever left her, and she began serving them.«
You will surely not be surprised when I begin by telling you that there is more to this story than meets the eye. Subtly woven into the fabric of this story is a path forward, through crisis and exhaustion. This path answers the question that burns in our crisis-ridden lives: So what can we do?
Allow me to unveil for you seven steps within the story.
1. Tell the story that is not apparent.
»They told him about her.« As soon as Jesus enters the house of the brothers Simon and Andrew, they tell him about the suffering and need of Simon’s mother-in-law. That is a very good place to start.
We need to tell the stories of need and grace in our all too concrete lives to people who cannot know them or note them if we do not speak of them. We need to tell the stories of the people in our lives who are burning with fever. We need to tell the stories of the people who are out of sight and out of mind for the outsider. Without this story, Jesus does not know the drama taking place in another room of the same house. Without this storytelling, we cannot know the dramas being played out in the other rooms in the lives and hearts of our fellow human beings. Storytelling opens the doors to hidden suffering that would otherwise forever go unseen. Yet, once it opens that door, it leads to solidarity, companionship and an immediate offer of aid. Open a new horizon in the hour of crisis!
2. Tell the story without undue delay.
Moreover, Jesus does not need to wheedle it out of his apprentices. »And immediately they told him about her.« There is no hesitation, no waiting for a better, more appropriate or more opportune moment, no beating around the bush. Social niceties and conventions are all fine and good, but how many times do they make us too timid and hesitant to speak of what is really going on, inside our houses, as well as inside our hearts? I have seen it often in the decades of spiritual accompaniment. People will sit and talk about all manner of things before telling the story that brought them through my door in the first place. Even worse are the coy games we play with each other, hinting at the predicament that plagues our hearts, without coming straight out and telling the story. We drop enough clues in our words, gestures and body language, in the hope that others will pick up the trail and ask us what is really bothering us.
Not these companions of Jesus. They told him »immediately« about her. This gives Jesus the opportunity to act immediately, to make an offer of assistance and healing right away. Do not delay hope in the hour of crisis!
3. Choose to approach the other.
»And approaching her…« The story does not dedicate even one full sentence to this simple step. But it is a step nonetheless, and of no small significance. Hearing a story is not the same as being moved by a story. We can also listen quietly, express our sympathy and then swiftly change the topic. We can hear about places of suffering without seeking them out. We can hear the stories of suffering people without experiencing any impulsion to visit them.
Jesus chooses to approach this woman. That is a real choice, a conscious and deliberate decision. To do so, he moves to another room in the house. This is the classic movement we need to practice, moving from the place where the story is told to the place where the story is taking place. This requires us to move to rooms other than the ones we are presently occupying. We are called to leave the rooms in which we have already settled in, that have a warm and comfortable feel about them. When we do this, the places of their discomfort become the places of our discomfort. We approach the other in his or her suffering and need, by entering the rooms of life where suffering is unfolding. This is genuine mercy, because real mercy is not a feeling, but the willingness to enter into the chaos of the other.
Set out to offer presence and help in the hour of crisis!
4. Create a touching place
In this story, Mark tells us that after approaching Simon’s mother–in–law, Jesus »grasped her hand.« Like many actions in biblical stories, this looks simpler than it is. The next step to healing is touch. Better said, it is to create a touching place. The cold touch heals nothing and no one. The healing touch requires a space in which a two-fold action can evolve.
The first part is what Jesus does. It is the action of the giver, the offer of connection that shows that he is not afraid to encounter and touch what ails another. To touch as Jesus does in this tale is already an act of storytelling, for it unveils to the troubled person that we are willing to come into contact with them. Moreover, it demonstrates a willingness to connect with all the parts of their life and not just their choicest moments. We are called to be the companions of all their hours, not just their finest hour. Anyone can embrace and kiss the attractive, appealing, beautiful, and charming people of the world. We usually thrill to it. But only Francis of Assisi can embrace and kiss the leper. He does this from the same deep place of the soul out of which Jesus acts.
In stubbornly longstanding crisis, we need to touch the ugly parts, the leprous parts, the feverish parts in the lives of our brothers and sisters. This touching place shows our brothers and sisters, that we are not afraid of all that makes up their personal story, that we will not pick and chose what is attractive and neglect all the rest. To touch like this is to show one another that we are not fair-weather friends. At the same time, it bestows the afflicted the gift of encouragement. If we will not be shunned due to what ails us, then we are less afraid to show what ails us.
The other part of the touching experience is what Simon’s mother-in-law does. She does not pull back. She allows herself to be touched. When was the last time you let yourself be touched in your distress? When was the last time you allowed another touch you in an hour when you were far from being at your best? I once tried to visit a woman in a hospital who had suffered a nervous breakdown. She, however, refused to let me visit her. Through her husband she expressed her gratitude for my offer, but rejected it every time. This forth and back of offer and rejection went on for months. Nearly a year later, after she had recovered, we came together for a conversation. The first thing she did was to thank me for my repeated offers to visit her. But immediately thereafter she added. »I did not want you to see me like that.« To which I sadly commented, »I understand, but now you hardly need a touching place.«
We need to create a touching place. This will have to happen often. A favorite hymn of mine is entitled: »The Touching Place«. Its refrain beautifully recounts the mission that must be bred in the bone:
To the lost Christ shows his face,
to the unloved he gives his embrace,
to those who cry in pain or disgrace
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.
The verses of this song name a myriad of people whose need to be touched we must learn to feel. We must feel for the people we avoid, who appear strange to us, are bereaved or never employed. We must feel the need of a touching place for the women and men who fear that their living has been without purpose or meaning, for parents who have lost their child, for women whom men have defiled, and for the baby for whom there’s no breast. We must feel the desire to create a touching place with Christ for the weary who find no rest, for those confused by life, riddled with doubt, lonely of heart and afraid of new beginnings.
Touch the wounds in the hour of crisis!
5. Lend your strength.
As important as it is to create a touching place, this is not enough. The next step for Jesus is described as he »raised her up«. Here we are given a gentle warning. The willingness to touch a person is not the same as being willing to raise them up.
What Jesus does is simple. He adds his strength to the woman’s. He lets a portion of his strength flow through his touch, so that she can draw on it and start to move back into life. The willingness to raise another up speaks volumes about the heart. It tells the other that we will not abandon them midway through the journey. We are reliable companions on this trek. We raise them up to demonstrate our stubborn refusal to leave anything behind. Just because one of our companion has stumbled and fallen for the moment, does not mean we are willing to abandon to forces of darkness and misery. We do not expect our companions to go it alone, to manage it by themselves, at any juncture of our common adventure.
Jesus does not merely touch this woman and then walk away. That is precisely the lesson. Like the Spirit Master, what we touch in the hour of crisis we must also be willing to strengthen.
6. Heal in the ordinary places of life
Where can we do all this? In the very first sentence of this episode of the Sabbath tale, we are reminded that we are no longer in the synagogue, in a sacred space. Now we are in an ordinary home. This is a down to earth place where a sick woman lives, and suffers and burns with fever. »And immediately coming out of the synagogue they went into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.«
Everything Jesus does for and with this woman happens in the ordinary places of her life. He does not expected her to seek out a more exotic place to find healing, a holier space that breathes a more rarefied air than that of her home. Where she lives, she is healed. Where she suffers, she is lifted up.
Yet, the moment we follow Jesus lead, then we help restore the backbone of an enfeebled tale of grace. Instead of seeking sacred places, we must learn to sanctify the places in which we are found. Make sure that you do not spend your whole life looking for a special place where God touch you. Instead insure that you make every place special by opening it to the potential and power of God. Make the home, the hearth and the sickbed holy!
7. Restore life and thus restore service and joy.
The tale ends with the soft line: »Then the fever left her, and she began serving them.«
That is why this episode is vital to the story of the grand restoration of the Sabbath. The restoration of life will always lead to the restoration of service. This woman was exhausted by a fever that was burning away her strength and will to live. Now she is able to enter into life again. She has the strength and the will to contribute to the well-being of others under her roof. She is restored to active participation in the life of the community
That, in turn, leads to the restoration of joy, a critical element of all Sabbath living. The hospitality she offers, the tables she sets, are not the menial tasks of servants, but the loving care of hosts. She is a key participant in creating a place of welcome, celebration and belonging, because she has been freed from the feverish bonds that shackled her strength and bound her to passivity.
Thus, we should ensure that in the end all these steps lead to this destination. It does not suffice to be merely relieved after the crisis. Once we are beyond it, we should restore and reinvigorate service and joy.
John Keats once wrote, »Touch has a memory«. Whether we touch each other and how we touch one will create lasting memories. We will not forget them once these days are done. I would leave you with a final story, the counter point to the one with which I began.
It is told by Michael Leetch. He lives with his wife of over forty years, Vickie. She is now in an advanced stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Listen to a short excerpt from what he writes about getting up in the morning with her.
»We go through our familiar liturgy of hygiene and getting dressed, Vickie first. It takes about as long as an early morning Mass by a priest and an altar boy who want to get it right even if nobody's watching. We hug before we go downstairs, and I say, ‘You done good, sweetie,’ and she says, ‘Thank you,’ two words she has always remembered, and I remember Meister Eckhart's saying, ‘If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.’« *
That is a touching place, a home that has been sanctified. And, as we may well note, even in the grip of Alzheimer’s disease, two words are remembered. Indeed, »touch has a memory«.
*Michael Leetch,
»Life is all about getting up in the morning«
Erik Riechers SAC, February 7th, 2021
»And the people stayed at home«
In the last 10 months, most of us have certainly been on the Internet more than ever before, because communication is possible in this way. Repeatedly we enjoy pictures and texts that are forwarded to us. For example, I was given a poem whose origin has been the subject of controversy on the Internet and which probably did not come from a 19th century novel, but from an American woman who worked for a long time in palliative care, Catherine "Kitty" O'Meara. She was sad and worried in the spring of 2020 and fearful for her former colleagues. She wanted to help her friends and as worry and sadness grew in her, her husband advised her to write. So she simply sat down, wrote down her thoughts, and published the poem on Facebook; she had done that before. But she had never had such a response. Read it for yourself:
And the people stayed at home
and read books
and listened
and rested
and exercised
and made art
and played
and learned new ways of being
and stopped
and listened deeper
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their shadow
and people began to think differently
and people healed
and in the absence of people
who lived In ignorant ways
dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
even the earth began to heal
and when the danger ended,
and people found each other,
grieved for the dead people,
and they made new choices,
and dreamed of new visions,
and created new ways of life
and healed the earth completely,
just as they were healed themselves.
What is the reason that these words have had such an effect for months?
Two thoughts come to my mind.
We are touched by the fact that a woman expresses here what is going on inside her, how it is affecting her. At a time when the pandemic in the U.S.A. was becoming increasingly catastrophic, she found words and spoke them to the world.
Second, her words are thoroughly positive in their simple rhythmic sequence. She speaks of life and of life's possibilities being seized and unfolded from within. »People« no longer) allow themselves to be entertained and determined from the outside, but by staying at home they begin to act freely, to become active themselves, creatively and diversely. Because we are no longer good at this, so many have been complaining for months that the days no longer differ and they more or less one into the other. But it doesn't have to be that way. We could practice . . . and learn . . . and listen . . . and pray.
This poem was created out of a longing for life and salvation - and this longing is in many of us. Let us give it room!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 5th, 2021
Space for God
Recently, in a serious conversation about difficult life issues, the phrase came up, » But we must not forget: in everything, we also have the dear Lord on our side!«
The other person paused and there was a long silence. And then it slowly burst out of him. How he had struggled! What had he tried and done! But instead of things getting easier, more and more problems seemed to arise. He was a believing man - and this thought frightened him. No, it was not the thought itself, but how far it had been from him. He himself had constantly tried to keep everything in perspective; he had worried far into the future, worn himself out on the inside. » How could I forget that?«, he asked himself, murmuring softly, » Why did I think and feel and worry as if it were all up to me?«
I have not been able to get this out of my mind ever since. Why do you have no faith? Why is your faith so small? The disciples of Jesus were already confronted with these questions. They reacted with shock, dismay, amazement. They had to practice it, just as we have to practice it. Much is in our hands, but not everything. This should not frustrate us, but it may encourage us to do what is ours and leave to God what is His. Then, instead of endless worry, gratitude may grow in our hearts about so much that succeeds in the togetherness of God and his people.
The short psalm 67 gives expression to our trusting petition, with a grateful heart at the same time:
May God grant us grace and bless us,
may he shine his face upon us.
To know on the earth Your way,
among all the nations Your rescue.
Nations acclaim You, O God,
all peoples acclaim You.
Nations rejoice in glad song,
for You rule the peoples rightly,
and nations on earth You lead.
Nations acclaim You, O God,
all peoples acclaim You.
The earth gives its yield.
May God our God, bless us.
May God shall bless us,
and all the ends of the earth fear Him.
In the Bible, the fear of the Lord is considered the beginning of knowledge, respect for his instruction in life is considered wise. Because: He is with us on the way, come what may, until the end of days.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, February 3rd, 2021
The Magnificent Defeat
Recently I found myself rereading Frederick Buechner’s book »The Magnificent Defeat«. It is a collection of homilies by this now 94 year old American theologian, novelist and pastor. My favourite homily within this work gives the book its name, his homiletic reflection on Jacob wrestling with God at the Jabbok.
In this homily, Frederick Buechner points out how often Jacob has achieved the victories and successes of his life through deceit and his willingness to play fast and loose with the rules. He becomes rich, increases his wealth constantly, and has two wives and a multitude of children. He is prospering on every level that matters to us human beings.
After twenty years in exile, he decides to return home. It is just before he crosses the border back into his homeland that he experiences a stunning reversal of his good fortune and goes down to defeat at the hands of a stranger. His string of wins has come to an end.
The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Genesis 32:22-31: 22
At this telling moment in his life, a turning point, Jacob does not attain the greatest and most stunning triumph of his life. Instead he suffers what Frederick Buechner describes as »The Magificent Defeat«!
But then Buechner goes on to pose a fascinating question. Why would Jacob, having just suffered such a debilitating defeat, cling with such ferocity to the very opponent who inflicted this ignominious downfall upon him. Why does he insist: "I will not let you go, unless you bless me!" Normally, we like to walk away from those who beat us and forget the entire episode as soon as possible.
I remember the first time I read Buechner’s answer more than 35 years ago. And I share his words with you, in the hope that they will move you, as they moved me, and that you will learn to love them as I have grown to love them.
»The darkness has faded just enough so that for the first time he can dimly see his opponent's face. And what he sees is something more terrible than the face of death-the face of love. It is vast and strong, half ruined with suffering and fierce with joy, the face a man flees down all the darkness of his days until at last he cries out, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me!’ Not a blessing that he can have now by the strength of his cunning or the force of his will, but a blessing that he can have only as a gift.
Power, success, happiness, as the world knows them, are his who will fight for them hard enough; but peace, love, joy, are only from God. And God is the enemy whom Jacob fought there by the river, of course, and whom in one way or another we all of us fight-God, the beloved enemy. Our enemy because, before giving us everything, he demands of us everything; before giving us life, he demands our lives - our selves, our wills, our treasure.
Will we give them, you and I? I do not know. Only remember the last glimpse that we have of Jacob, limping home against the great conflagration of the dawn. Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken feet out of the tomb toward the Resurrection, bearing on his body the proud insignia of the defeat which is victory, the magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.«
In this pandemic, we have struggled hard to come up with a great and stunning victory over the Corona virus. For the most part, this triumph has eluded us. Despite our money and technology, the things we most trust, we have suffered a long series of defeats. We have suffered many annoying and frustrating set-backs on the road to the healing which now appears on the horizon. Even when we finally get there, we will still have to deal with lingering and lasting human, spiritual, psychological, medical and economic problems that have arisen from the pandemic, likely for years to come. We will walk away from this pandemic, but we will walk away limping.
Perhaps this is our »magnificent defeat«. Perhaps this is our Jabbok where we can learn that modicum of modesty that become us as men and women of faith who journey with God. We have managed to manufacture vaccines against the virus, but we cannot manufacture what we have come to crave most in these hours of loneliness, isolation, fear, suffering and uncertainty. »Power, success, happiness, as the world knows them, are his who will fight for them hard enough; but peace, love, joy, are only from God.«
Erik Riechers SAC, February 1, 2021
Practicing Authority
4. Sunday B 2021 [nbspMarc 1:21-28
Today's biblical narrative is quite dramatic. Unclean spirits are shouting at the top of their voices in the synagogue, destroying what should be a rather quiet experience. This is because people gather in a synagogue on a Sabbath to praise and pray to God. When we go to church on Sundays, we, too, do not expect high adventurous dramas to take place. But there are no spaces, not even these, that are immune from the presence of Jesus and the upset it brings.
Jesus is teaching in the synagogue when a man with an unclean spirit cries out:
»What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are—the Holy One of God.«
The time and the place do not hinder Jesus. Sacred times and sacred spaces have their own rules, but when it comes to people and their salvation, the rules are secondary.
In biblical narratives, unclean spirits, like demons, are the powers that we ourselves make strong. We make them stronger than they are by the way we look at them.
- These powers appear in our lives. They will not go away on their own, nor are they easy to get rid of.
- We make them stronger than they are by the way we look at them. We see them as insurmountable, as invincible.
- Then we make them stronger than they are by the way we deal with them. The view that makes us see these powers as invincible then leads us to say, »It's no use anyway.« We choose resignation.
- Resignation leads us to three classic attitudes:
- Avoidance (we get out of the way of the problem).
- Denial (we act as if there is no problem)
- Suppression (we push it aside with work, entertainment, and distraction)
And these three moments are how we negotiate with demons.
- And already these powers have a free hand to do what they want because we call any resistance futile. They win not by defeating us in battle, but because we never showed up for battle.
Even worse, we can even strengthen and justify many forms of resignation theologically. Traditional teaching says: Avoid everything that is unclean, be it food, people or places. Keep your distance, do not come into contact with it. In this way, protect your purity and your holiness.
In this amazing narrative, there is now an unexpected turn. The unclean spirit, used to shocking others, is himself shocked. Since Jesus is the Holy One of God (as they themselves name him), he would have to avoid everything that is unclean. This is the inherited interpretation for this hour: separation and distance. That is why the unclean spirit is stunned when he detects another strategy in Jesus. »Have you come to destroy us?« Impure spirits and demons have their expectations of us, just as we have our expectations of them. We have the expectation that we are powerless and cannot do anything against them. They have the expectation that we will always continue to play by these rules.
Therefore, this unclean spirit has the expectation that Jesus will say to him: »I will have nothing to do with you«. But Jesus’ answer does not fulfil his expectations.
Jesus silences him. The original text even says: I place a muzzle upon you. Jesus does not negotiate with unclean spirits and demons. There is no strategy of resignation here.
- No avoidance (Jesus does not avoid the unclean spirit, but goes toward it).
- No denial (Jesus does not close his eyes and continue on as if nothing is wrong).
- No suppression (Jesus does not push it aside by taking on other healings, preaching sermons, or distracting himself with other more pleasant topics)
And Jesus drives him out. He is not willing to leave anything to the unclean spirits that belongs to his father, that belongs to the light and life of God.. Jesus recognizes the terrible price of the avoidance tactic of separation and distance: Then he would have to leave this man to the unclean spirits.
The people in the synagoge cry out: »What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.«
The new doctrine is engagement and elimination, not avoidance.
Jesus' attitude is clear. He has the intention to free people from everything that has a grip on them, what they are obsessed with. He wants to free them from everything that oppresses, plagues and terrorizes them. And the effects on the people of witnessing Jesus and his way of dealing with people and unclean spirits are positive and liberating.
This can be liberating for us as well. We also know powers within us that have a hold on us. They take a place in us and we feel powerless to drive them out. We have places in our thinking and feeling where we are so knotted up that we are paralyzed internally, and sometimes externally. We are afraid of what oppresses us and of what we judge to be beyond our powers to alleviate. Our only strategy is to evade or avoid.
But then we see someone who does not flinch, someone who confronts the unholy and exercises authority over it to empower people and improve life situations. We realize that there is another way of thinking and acting, beyond our old, habitual strategies, beyond our inherited interpretations. The inner knots of thinking and feeling are untied. What has held us in check until now is let go. We are free to think and act differently. We begin to experiment with exercising authority over that which oppresses us as human beings.
We can also exercise authority over what oppresses us and others. Many avenues are open to us:
Sometimes we just offer general help.
Sometimes we provide our specific resources.
Sometimes we enlist support.
Sometimes we go along as companions, standing by troubled people as they venture in new ways.
Sometimes we simply pray.
Sometimes we pray in addition to other possibilities.
It is important that we do not continue to practice a learned helplessness and resignation forever. We should always be looking for what we can do next, using our courage and creativity.
We are committed to bringing hope, healing and perspectives to people and situations that are in need. That is the mission that is bred in our bones. We have authority. Jesus has shown us the way. We follow him by exercising authority.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 31th, 2021
Situate yourself!
The pandemic with all its challenges, which has now lasted a good 10 months in Germany, is among many people »friable«. They feel increasingly worn down and exhausted. The caution and extreme reluctance to make contact are tormenting them. Uncertainty about how much longer it may last makes people tired and despondent - or careless and reckless. Gerald Hüther, a neurobiologist, writes in his latest newsletter: »Many people, including some politicians, are unsettled and at a loss and are just trying to hold on somehow. Despair and resignation are spreading. The mood in the country is not good, nerves are on edge. Tolerance, prudence and foresight are fading, we have also lost our sense of humor, and anyone who says something inappropriate is immediately suspected and is fought against.«
Each individual can tell his or her very own story of being affected. Those who like to be on the road and have usually already planned and booked some undertakings and trips by this time, find it difficult to look ahead to the next few months without any such perspectives. Those whose family live widely scattered suffer from still not being able to get together. Those who earn their living in an industry that has had to close down again and again have existential fears. Those who live in a care facility feel increasingly lost and forgotten. Overanxious people no longer dare to do anything, impatient people can't wait to get back to living normally, and unreasonable people do it anyway.
We are in danger of becoming more and more preoccupied with ourselves. This pandemic could teach us something in a special way: Your story is situated in the story of the community in which you live. Your I belongs to a larger WE. More than usual, we realize how much my way of acting has consequences for the community on a small as well as on a large scale. When have we ever been able to see this so clearly as in these long months? In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, for example, people are living so responsibly in this long crisis that there are always days without a single new infection - this spurs individuals on to continue to take good care of themselves and each other and to gratefully live out what community is possible again because of the low numbers. Every I is situated within a WE!
Narrative Theology teaches us a second form of embedding: The story of each WE belongs to the grand story. There is a story of God with us humans which transcends everything and in which everything is situated- every We and every I. For what other reason would God say to his people:
»Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.« (Dtn 6,4)
Why would Jesus response to the question about the most important commandment with:
»You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.« (Mt 22, 37-39)
Love yourself and unfold your very personal story. Thus be on the way with the others, love them and write your story with them. And remember: everything is situated with the great story of the ONE God.
For me, this means: My personal story is valuable, unique and important, for me, for the community and as part of the common story. But it is also part of the great whole of God's story with His people, which only He oversees and holds in His hands. I like to situate myself in this - it also takes away the pressure of having to do everything myself. It takes away the mistaken belief that everything depends on me. And it strengthens my confidence that everything has a meaning.
Widening our view in this way makes even this long crisis livable.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 29th, 2021
I raise my voice
On November 11, 2018, I preached a sermon in the Koblenz synagogue on the Reichspogromnacht. At that time I spoke the following words:
When I came to Germany from Canada as a young student, I came from a country that until recently was convinced that it had no problem with anti-Semitism. And I admired a country that dealt so intensively with their history. Today, anti-Semitism is growing worldwide, including in Germany. A few weeks ago, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks gave a speech in The House of Lords on the subject of anti-Semitism. He sent me the text from which I would like to quote a few lines:
»Antisemitism, or any hate, become dangerous when three things happen. First: when it moves from the fringes of politics to a mainstream party and its leadership. Second: when the party sees that its popularity with the general public is not harmed thereby. And three: when those who stand up and protest are vilified and abused for doing so. All three factors exist in Britain now. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime. That is why I cannot stay silent. For it is not only Jews who are at risk. So too is our humanity.«
Sadly, these factors do not exist only within Britain, but through the world.
On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I am disturbed and saddened that the words of Jonathan Sacks have become even more prophetic today. We have all seen the images of the Capitol in Washington being stormed by Trump supporters. But what haunts me is the anti-Semitism that was openly and undisguisedly displayed there. One demonstrator wore a T-shirt with the message »Camp Ausschwitz« and underneath the phrase »Work brings freedom«, a reference to »Arbeit macht frei«.
Such public anti-Semitic slogans can also be seen in Germany. A particularly insidious and despicable tactic used today is T-shirts with »6MWE«. This is short for »Six million wasn't enough«. They were seen at a demonstration in Berlin one year ago.
The fact that there are people who think like this (if you can still call it thinking) does not surprise me, but the fact that they appear like this in public and that there is hardly any protest shocks me. As Rosemarie so aptly put it to me, »This, too, is a virus«. Unfortunately, anti-Semitism is also a pandemic.
And like the Corona pandemic, it has the best chance of spreading when people are indifferent as to how they act. Mask deniers, people who hold parties anyway and don't keep any of the social distancing rules are people who don't care what happens to their fellow human beings. And when indifference has spread far enough, then any virus can spread.
Elie Wiesel, himself a survivor of the Shoah, put it aptly and warningly:
»I have always believed that the opposite of love is not hate,
but indifference.
The opposite of faith is not arrogance,
but indifference.
The opposite of hope is not despair,
it is indifference.
Indifference is not the beginning of a process,
it is the end of a process.«
This indifference allows anti-Semitism to take root in our midst. When Rabbi Sacks made his speech against anti-Semitism in the House of Lords in 2019, he figuratively showed how acceptable this sickening and pathogenic hatred can become.
»I’ve just returned from a conference in Warsaw. It’s a city I don’t know well. And I was shaken to discover that the Warsaw ghetto, which existed between November 1940 and May 1943, was pretty much in the centre of town. With its 9 foot high walls topped by barbed wire, holding 400,000 Jews, its existence must have been known by everyone in Warsaw.
And it was there that Jews were systematically starved and enslaved. In the summer of 1942 254,000 of them were sent by train to their deaths by gas in the extermination camp called Treblinka. In April and May 1943, the Germans set about the destruction of the ghetto and the extermination of its population. 300,000 of them killed by bullet or gas. 92,000 who died through typhoid and starvation.
This happened in open view in the centre of one of the great cities of Europe and no one protested.«
Take note, you hatemongers, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, anti-Semites, right wing extremists and all who harbour or aid them:
I protest. You shall not have my silence as your ally.
You shall not build your house of hatred in the midst of my city.
I raise my voice and name the evil that stands in our midst.
I raise my voice, to speak on behalf of my Jewish sisters and brothers in the face of mindless vitriolic hatred.
I raise my voice against those who think it is fashionable, funny or acceptable to wear symbols that celebrate the torture, death and extermination of our fellow citizens.
I raise my voice against all those who belittle and taunt the memory of the Schoah and the ravaged dignity of its victims.
I raise my voice against those who insult the survivors of the Shoah, who even today are willing to deepen their pain.
They are my brothers and sisters.
You representatives of inhumanity, I see you and I name you, whether you skulk in the shadows or walk openly in the public square. I will not downplay your toxic presence. Your cruelty, hatred and bigotry cannot turn my heart to indifference.
I raise my voice. »For it is not only Jews who are at risk. So too is our humanity.«
Erik Riechers SAC, January 27th, 2021, International Holocaust Remembrance Day
Walking against the fear
He was young - and he was an anxious kind of person. He had completed his education well. Now he was supposed to look for a good job. But it was all going too fast for him. He felt another challenge. And it came from deep within him. There was a desire in him to simply set off for a few weeks and go on pilgrimage here in his homeland, which he knew so little about. The thought grew in him, took shape; but soon other voices arose: How will you live? How can you finance it? How will you get through such a summer with your allergies?
He confided in his uncle and he really listened. He perceived his nephew's longing - it was the longing of a pilgrim. Again and again he strengthened this longing so that it did not suffocate under his anxiety. He did not need to do more. In his heart he was on his side.
And the young man chose an external road, travelled to the heart of Germany and set out from there.
On his back he carried everything he needed, in his pocket a little money, in his heart fear and joy and the words of his uncle: » I look forward to hearing from you and I will help you if you need anything.«
His journey had begun. It was summer and sometimes he spent the night in the forest. He grew bolder and after a few days, as he passed through a village as evening drew near, a friendly couple in a garden returned his greeting and struck up a conversation with him. He readily entered into the conversation and ended with an invitation to camp in their garden for the night.
From then on, he kept asking people along the way if he could use their garden for a night. And it was usually possible.
Joy grew in him, as well as a gradual realisation: If I dare to walk again and again, against my fears, and just keep walking, I have good experiences every day. I move forward and most of my worries do not occur at all.
Confidence grew in him - confidence in himself and in the people he met.
When his uncle told me about this pilgrimage of his nephew, he was still on the road. His uncle spoke of it with pride, but also with emotion. Every now and then, his nephew would call briefly, the young man who had taken the risk of setting out against his fear. He had not chosen a spectacular destination in an exotic country - and yet he was exploring a previously rather unknown terrain: himself.
Can we too rise against our fears again and again, enter a new day and dare new ways of acting? I very much hope so.
May the Old Irish blessing be upon him and us:
May God keep you on your way through life.
May God warm you when fear makes you cold.
May God strengthen you when doubt gnaws at you.
May God encourage you when longing moves you.
May God hold you when sleep envelops you.
May God flood you when love makes you hope.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 25th, 2021
Hither! After me!
Sunday B 2021 Mk 1, 14–20
Jesus proclaims a most disturbing secret. »The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.«
This sounds very comforting, but it is actually meant to make us all wide-awake. Because if the kingdom of God is here, the time of waiting is over. And if the time of waiting is over, then the time for change has come. And it is not just a little that needs to change. We have to change the way we think, see and judge. We have to change our actions and our behaviour. The paths we take will have to change and we will no longer be able to take some directions to which we have become accustomed.
The Kingdom of God means its intrusion into our worlds. It is the in-breaking of our God who wants to bring out the fullest potential of our life and love. The kingdom of God is the entry of our God into our relationships with Him, with creation, with our neighbours and with ourselves to allow their fullness to blossom.
This movement into the kingdom of God, into this full, rich, unfolding of life as God has always intended it for us, will not happen without one of the ground rules that the story of vocation that we hear today proclaims. In the biblical narrative, Jesus first says, »Hither! After me!« It is an imperative, a command and not a mere invitation. This word is filled with a sense of urgency. There is a need in the world and a mission in the heart of Jesus that cannot wait. This is reminiscent of Jesus in John's Gospel. There he says to Lazarus who is still in the tomb, »Hither! Get out!« There is always an urgency in God to call us out of the places of death, be it the cemetery or the places of everyday life that threaten to become the graveyards of our souls.
Immediately after this »Hither! After me!« from the mouth of Jesus, an action follows on the part of the disciples: it is a »leaving behind«. (Greek = aphetes). Andrew and Simon leave their nets behind. James and John leave their father and the day labourers behind in the boat. There is no moving into the kingdom of God without the willingness to leave something behind in order to engage with something new that lies ahead.
How will we practice the art and craft of this leaving behind in order to move forward?
I doubt we will leave behind fishing nets, family members and colleagues, although for some of us that may still be the call. Yet, within the well-defined contours of our lives, there are more than enough examples of how our living and loving have evolved into unhealthy and undesirable patterns. There are relationships that were meant to foster and explore togetherness and equality that degenerate into dominance and subordination. Sometimes we are trapped in anger instead of liberated by love. Unhealthy arguments and even revengeful feelings arise at times. Enmities arise and hearts become poisoned. How could they ever lead us to where life is to be found?
Therefore, another part of the story should not be ignored: »Repent and believe the gospel!« We will not enter the kingdom and respond to God's desire for us to live in His full, rich unfolding of life if we do not change our chosen ways. That, however, will not happen if we refuse to turn back on those paths that lead us away from that fullness. Being on the wrong path is not fatal. Staying on the wrong path, once we know it cannot lead us into life, is fatal.
All this is necessary because the call of the Lord, the call of the Kingdom of God, is a call for the life of the world. In the venerable world of the rabbis, this mission is called »Tikun olam«, the repair of the world. This idea of world repair was deeply connected to the hope of a Messiah who would break into the world.
This call of Jesus is the call of a Messiah breaking into our world. It is a call out of the passivity in which we let the world and its agonies pass us by while we pursue our personal interests, hoping that at least we will manage to muddle our way through. This is an attitude we need to »leave behind«.
At the same time, it is a call to get involved, to get off the bench and onto the playing field and get our hands dirty. There is no conversion if we only change our opinions. Repentance means changing our actions, the way we live in the world, the way we move through our world. It is not our primary task to avoid or condemn this world, but to make it whole, to make it better. We should fix the world: Tikun Olam.
Opportunities to repair and improve the world abound. If we want to use them, we human beings must become guardians of love. Guardians look out for the places where love is not only possible, but required: racism, cruelty, injustice in the workplace, neglecting the poor in our midst, ignoring the plight of migrants, etc. Without guardians of love, we will not recognise these places for what they truly are: the places most in need of our love.
Being a guardian throughout the night requires some pretty basic skills:
1. It requires courage:
The places where the redefining and life-changing love of the kingdom of God is needed are unlikely to be found in the places of our comfort.
2. It requires creativity:
The places where the life-growth of the Kingdom of God are needed are places that have not yet been touched by it. Therefore, there will be no fixed and ready-made strategies. We will have to think them up, on the spot, on the run, off the cuff.
3. It requires perseverance:
For the emergence of the kingdom of God and its relentless desire for the fullness of life will never be a one-time experience. Around every corner, a new place will emerge. In every niche of the heart, in every corner of our relationships, whether in our families, in society, in the church, in the marketplace or in the workplace, new needs will arise to repair these worlds.
There is a moving gospel song entitled: »There is a balm in Gilead.« The biblical inspiration for this song comes from two passages in the book of the prophet Jeremiah:
»Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?« (Jer 8,2 2)
»Go up to Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! In vain you have used many medicines; there is no healing for you.« (Jer 46, 11)
The singers of this song see Jesus and the kingdom of God as this balm and thus proclaim:
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole.
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.
Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God as a balm, but it remains a most disturbing mystery. »The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.«
If we want to repair the world, make the wounded whole and heal the sin-sick soul, then we must rise up and go to Gilead. We must rise up and embrace the kingdom of God, this way of life that God has always intended for this world and his people.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 24h, 2021
Vincent Pallotti: The Man of Perseverance
In my last reflection I spoke of Vincent Pallotti as the man who stayed. However, Pallotti also knew very well that the struggle of a life becomes very long. That is why he asks us never to forget that no matter how many barriers are put in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the voices of millions of believers who are calling for God's relationships in this world.
I am continually inspired by the first generation of civil rights workers who marched with Martin Luther King Jr, protesting, practising non-violent resistance and facing physical violence, imprisonment and sometimes death. John Lewis died of cancer on 17 July 2020. He was a pioneer in the civil rights movement. A few weeks before his death, he wrote:
»Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime.«
He was 80 years old when he wrote this. He was 23 years old when he joined Martin Luther King. He knew what he was talking about. There will be no new world without women and men of perseverance.
Occasionally I hear that the intuitive vision Pallotti had, represented and shared with others is just words. Just words! What does that mean? When was the last time that words were not important? When was the last time that great people did not use words to move hearts and point directions? When was the last time a person did not use words to proclaim their deepest feelings and convictions? When was the last time that words could not be empowering?
We will always have these prophets of doom among us. They use fear as a weapon. They do not want us to dare to hope that there can be something better than what they want to feed us (and of course guide and control).
They tell us:
You are in the dark.
You have no voice.
You are powerless.
You cannot renew a world,
satisfy hunger.
make peace
create justice.
In Vincent Pallotti we have someone who not only describes our value and dignity before God, but who wagers on it. Here is one who tells us: Be proud to be called. Be proud that God has chosen you, sent you, given you such trust. Because he believes that you can do it.
That is why perseverance is so important. Because it shows us that God also values our perseverance. Even today, in this crisis, in this pandemic, we can act. We could rekindle our passion for God again and again, because »our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime.«
We are called by God. He sends us to all the towns and villages where he himself wanted to go. God has confidence that we can do what He can do.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 22nd, 2021, Day of the death of Vincent Pallotti 1850
Presence is the Programme
Vincent Pallotti: The Man who Stayed
The year is 1835. A cholera epidemic wreaks havoc in the city of Rome. Many left the city, fleeing to save themselves. But not Vincent Pallotti. He stayed. He was present in the hour of suffering and death of his fellow men and women.
He had no medical solution for cholera, but he stayed because he had the power to offer spiritual, human and also physical relief. He did not discover a vaccine, but he stayed because he could find creative ways to organise food for the neglected people who had nowhere to go. He could not prevent many children from becoming orphans, but stayed to give them shelter and educational opportunities so they could find a welcome in a brutal and unjust world. And long after the cholera epidemic ended and people returned to the city, he continued to work with strength to help people who continued to suffer from the side effects and repercussions of this devastating epidemic.
What can we learn from this story from the life of Vincent Pallotti? Presence is the programme.
Not only his words, ideas and visions have something to say to us, but also his life. St. Vincent Pallotti reminds us that there is a task for us as Christians that we cannot avoid: We are called to shape lives. We are called as mature Christians to seek solutions ourselves and to take responsibility. We are called to keep alive the enthusiasm and love that are within us. But this is not possible if we do not appear where the people are. Presence is the programme. That is why we have to stay.
Vincent Pallotti was convinced that God has given us the power to change the conditions of this world.
This power of God gives us the courage to set out for new shores. In the relentless wilderness of brutality, violence and inhumanity, we have the possibility and the power to offer life to our fellow human beings. This primal calling to be Collaborators of the Most High gives us undreamed-of power to change the conditions of the world and to shape them in such a way that they look like the Kingdom of God. Presence is the programme. That is why we have to stay.
We can eradicate some poverty. We can discover peace and justice as new territory. We can bake, break and share bread until everyone has enough. We can heal our church. We can renew the face of the earth. Presence is the programme. That is why we too must stay.
Too often we are paralysed because we cannot solve or redeem everything. Then we fixate on what we cannot achieve. Pallotti, on the other hand, was convinced that everything we have to offer is of value and counts. I learned from him: You can only fashion what is given. But this demands something of me that all considerations about optimal conditions never encourage: I have to show up. Presence is the programme. That is why I have to stay.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 20th, 2021
Questions
I want to be one of those people
who are not satisfied
with quick answers and
pragmatic solutions.
They search and ask.
When they hear well-meaning,
oh-so-sensible advice,
they sense another voice
deep inside.
They have the courage
- and the yearning -,
to follow it, in order to remain
to themselves.
They go their own way.
They question the appearance.
They endure dry spells.
They discover the sacred.
A great and versatile artist of the first half of the 20th century was such a person: Hans Arp. I love his sculptures; but his »Questions« make me think:
Questions
You stupid little days
does a dying word of redemption
never cross your painted lips?
Do you never kneel
before a cross?
You stupid little days,
you only know coming and going.
Do you not know
that at every moment
the holy infinity is gazing at you?
These questions make me pause and lead me to an old trail:
Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.
And I pray Psalm 1 anew.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 18th, 2021
We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.
2nd Sunday B 2021 1 Sam 3, 3–10.19
I once took part in a training course for pastoral workers. It was about pastoral counselling. It was just awful. Lofty words without any connection to real life were paired with methodological steps of appalling clinical coldness. And not once did we speak of the people, let alone their souls. No, they only spoke to us about clients.
One older colleague, a Protestant pastor, gave up listening at some point, opened a book and was absorbed in reading. During the lunch break I went to him and asked him about what he was reading. He held up the book and I read the title: Life Together. A book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Then he shared a passage from the book with me:
»There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother's confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.«
After that he only said: »True listening is an adventure of the Christian life.«
In great moments of life and story, a one-sided wish is awakened in us: we want to find someone who listens to us like that. What seldom happens is that we wish to become that listening heart for others. The complaint is clear: No one is listening to me. That drowns out the question: To whom am I listening?
The reading from the Book of Samuel tells how the young prophet learns from his old master Eli how to listen to God. This is an important theme for the spiritual life. What we completely ignore is the last sentence of the narrative.
Samuel grew up
and the Lord was with him
and did not let any of his words fall to the ground.
(1 Samuel 3:19)
Here God wants to teach us how to listen to the word of others so that they too can grow up: We, too, should take care that none of their words fall to the ground!
Let us take a closer look at this fine image. When we carry something, we are not always careful that it does not fall to the ground. That is not necessary. But with certain things we do! When do we take care that they do not fall to the floor? With things that are fragile, irreplaceable and precious to our hearts. They deserve and enjoy our special protection and care. When what we carry is coarse, insignificant, easily replaceable and disposable, our handling of it is more superficial, careless and careless. What is truly precious to us alters our attitude. Then we are careful, mindful, caring and protective.
Let's observe how an infant is placed in other hands: careful, mindful, caring and protective. No one takes that trouble and exercises that care when we pass a tennis ball from hand to hand in a group-dynamics exercise. Because we immediately recognise where the fragile, irreplaceable and precious lies, and it is not in the tennis ball.
To listen well, we must come to a deeper realisation. The delicate, fragile, irreplaceable and precious moments in people's hearts lies in their words. Our words express the innermost parts of our being, they reveal facets of our deep heart and are thus delicate and easily broken.
We learn this most easily when we want to confide something intimate, private and sacred to someone. How long does it take before we have the courage to entrust someone with the words that speak about these parts of our lives? And what happens when we finally dare to do so, but are met with ridicule, derision or scorn? That is the moment when our words are dropped onto the floor.
Because our words carry a part of who we are and what makes us, they are precious to the heart of God and worthy of protection. They must not be dropped on the ground, because their fragility reflects the fragility of the human heart. Therefore, people's words should be precious to us and worthy of protection.
Listening requires three steps in the Bible:
- perceive (be present)
- receive (integrate)
- taking along (shaping life from it)
Thus, true listening is at the same time a work of mercy. Mercy means that we voluntarily and consciously enter into the chaos of another person, just when we could easily avoid it.
And that is always what happens in true listening. It pulls us out of worlds we would prefer. Samuel would rather rest and recuperate than be jolted out of sleep three times, have to get up from his bed three times.
Listening to another person pulls us out of very pleasant and comforting worlds in which we feel and enjoy peace, strength and security. When I listen to another, I voluntarily and consciously enter a world of chaos that can rob me of sleep, exhaust me, and overwhelm me. Listening is entering into a world of pain, worry, abandonment, fear and hopelessness that is not mine and does not necessarily have to become mine.
Authentic listening will mean that I engage with issues that are not mine and that I could easily avoid by simply not listening. We know this truth and we are afraid of it. Why do we not answer the phone when certain phone numbers come up on the display? Why do we avoid meeting and talking to some people? And when we have engaged in the chaos of the other by listening, how often do we moan and say, »Oh God, if only I hadn't heard that?« Sometimes we put our hands over our ears and say, »I don't want to hear that«, fully knowing what chaos is waiting for us on the other side of listening.
God did not let any of Samuel’s words fall to the ground. God is merciful and enters into our chaos. Listening is a work worthy of God. But most of the time we find it quite difficult to participate in this work.
What happens when children tell us something that is important to them and we laugh at them or sneer at their words, because we dismiss what they have said as insignificant?
God does not allow any of these words to fall to the ground.
What happens when we mock other people's deepest convictions, when we scoff at what others hold sacred and speak disrespectfully about it?
God does not allow any of these words to fall to the ground.
We see what happens when people share their words on Twitter and Facebook, and they are subsequently harassed, savagely insulted, and even threatened.
Bonhoeffer was right: »But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share.« Here we have to make a fundamental decision of faith. Will we leave sisters and brothers in their pain and suffering because we are too afraid of their chaos? Or will we consciously and freely choose to notice, absorb and take with us what is happening in their lives? Only when we ask and clarify these questions will we really know whether words will fall to the ground or be caught.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 17th, 2021
The Strength to ask the right questions
Now that we have been in the Corona crisis for a long time, there is a growing tendency seek a solution and to damn the consequences. The longer the crisis lasts, the more intense the search for answers becomes. There are voices calling for vaccines to be admitted without proper testing. There are others who new measures be taken, harder or softer, without any reference whatsoever to the possible consequences. In search of a quick solution, there is a willingness to give up the search for the proper questions. The demand for quick solutions makes us ever more willing to dismiss burning questions as irritating inconveniences .Thus, once we have found a solution, we tend to ignore the proper questions such as: Is this the right path? Is this the only solution to our problem or only the quickest one? What will be the consequences of this path and who will pay the price for it?
When we become exclusively interested in answers and solutions, we start to grow ever more distant from the storyteller of God, the Jesus of the Gospels. His style of teaching does not depend on rote memorization of answers, unlike the subtle suggestion of our catechisms. Rather than people willing to take notes at his lectures, Jesus is interested in finding and fostering hearers of the word. And hearers of the word learn the art and craft of becoming genuine listeners. Jesus invites the hearers of the word to explore the stories of God and come to a conclusion. He will guide their thinking without telling them what to think.
The stories of God and the stories of Faith are not good teaching tools for people who seek simplistic answers. The Storyteller of God offers no quick, easy and patented solutions to the mystery of life. Instead, he has come to invite us to join him on a journey of great adventure. But adventures are nasty things for those who are care only for solutions: they make us wrestle with our assumptions, force us to confront our conveniently one-sided images of ourselves, drive us to wrestle with God and guide us to the humbling reality that there is someone greater than ourselves and even matters greater than our personal concerns. Once that happens, we start to seek the proper questions. As Abraham Joshua Heschel writes: »We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.«
This is real faith, and that is hard work. We live in a world in which we love to talk about being free, but then want someone to tell us what to think and what to do. We love to think of ourselves as free thinkers who have broken through and moved past the old, worn-out stories of the past. In reality, we took stories rich with layers of meaning and purpose and replaced them with cheap pseudo-stories. We took magnificent biblical stories that forced us to move beyond easy answers and replaced them with trivial tales of convenience, always tidy in their black and white depictions and always without complication.
The Storyteller of God is on the move through our world and still doing today what he did in the days of the Gospel: upending all inherited assumptions, ideas and concepts we hold to be beyond question. He hopes to move us to the faith of Mosche, described and admired by Elie Wiesel in his book Night.
»And why do you pray, Mosche?«, I asked him.
»I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.«
I think that is a very good idea in the midst of our crisis. For if we pray to God for the strength to ask Him the right questions, who knows what astonishing and unexpected solutions might be given?
Erik Riechers SAC, January 15th, 2021
What troubles your heart?
On New Year’s Eve, a friend of mine lost her mother. When I received news of this several days later, I was deeply saddened at her loss. I sat down to write her a letter of condolence, and I celebrated a Mass of Resurrection for her mother.
Over the course of the day, my sadness deepened. My friend was present at the funeral of my mother nine years ago and again at the funeral of my father just over a year ago. 8000 km separate Vallendar from Edmonton, and that makes that impossible for me to attend. But it troubles my heart that I cannot return this sign of closeness of heart, to practice this most essential form of presence in the hour of grief for a good and faithful friend.
It is so simple an action, going to a funeral and supporting a friend in the time of mourning. Like most simple actions, we take it for granted. But while we do so, we often forget those among us for whom it is not possible to take part in what we take for granted. As Jesus Sirach says: »The day of prosperity makes one forget adversity; the day of adversity makes one forget prosperity«.(Sirach 11, 25) It is the nonchalance of this forgetting in the day of prosperity that worries me more with every passing year.
Many thousands of people in these days, who have lost family and friends to the ravages of the corona virus, now enter this experience. They were often unable to visit and accompany their beloved people in their dying, and often not able to mourn their loss in a deep and necessary fashion. In places such as Bergamo, Italy, hundreds of people were not even allowed to attend the funerals of their family members.
And it troubles me. When the pandemic ends and the day of prosperity returns, we will gradually resume the normal routines of our lives. Will we then forget the days of adversity and what they tried to teach us? Will we then forget all those for whom the days of adversity do not automatically end when ours do?
For Jesus Sirach also says this: »When (the wealthy man) says: ‘I have found rest now I will feast on my possessions,’ he does not know how long it will be till he dies and leaves them to others.« (Jesus Sirach 11, 19). It is an old story in the biblical tradition. Luke picks it up when he tells us of a man who forgets everything else as soon as he is blessed with the unexpected large harvest. »‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’« (Luke 12, 18-20)
I worry what will happen to the people who have suffered the hardest losses. When we come to the unexpected harvest of blessing, will we forget everything else to build bigger barns, and never spare a thought for those who need to honour the memory and lives of their dead loved ones? In our time of ample gifts, when it is possible to relax, eat, drink, be merry, will we share with them the time and the space of grief and mourning? As life goes on for so many, will we permit it to flow past those, for whom it cannot simply go on as before?
Would it be worth it to survive a pandemic only to come out a colder, crueler and more self-centered people than before? »Let not your heart be troubled«. (Jn 14, 1) That is direct and good advice from Jesus himself. But there are times when it is good for our hearts to be troubled so that we can move into the next line. »You believe in God, believe also in Me.« I doubt whether the barn builder was thinking of God or life or anything else as he enjoyed his untroubled heart. And then a terrible thing happens. We wake up to the horrid realisation that our horizon of concern is the same as the width of our shoulder blades.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 13th, 2021
A Request for Blessing for Being Alone
A few years ago, in a beautiful neo-Gothic little church in Ireland, I took along a bookmark from the Benedictine nuns there. I liked the prayer text and the design very much. I rediscovered the beautiful little bookmark as this New Year began. And the words began to speak to me in a whole new way. Some of the experiences and hardships that people had recounted to me and over which they also lamented over the past months resonated with me.
Whereas before the pandemic the feeling of being alone could be covered up with all kinds of activities, many of us have been painfully confronted with it for months and are no longer able or willing to avoid it.
I invite you to look at the situation honestly and to take it into prayer. This can change our view, away from the perception of something lacking toward the perception of grace.
I Live Alone
Stay by my side, O Lord,
For I’m alone.
I need your presence with me
Night and day, to share my home,
To guide me on my way.
Keep me safe from danger;
Fill my heart with joy.
Give me your peace, your gift
To share with those whose hearts
Are troubled or despair.
And even when the shadow
Of the cross falls on my path
I see your Easter sunlight
Through the dark.
I live alone, dear Lord,
But I am sure
Your gaze is ever on me
As on an only child.
Abide in me, dear Lord,
That I may live in you.
Amen.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 11th, 2021
I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word.
Baptism of the Lord B 2021 Mk 1, 7–11
I recently had a most unpleasant encounter with two people, who took offence at the idea that they might be sinners. Like nearly every conversation of this sort over the course of the last thirty years, this one was also an utter waste of time. Where there is no nuance, there can only be caricature. Can we find a way to speak of the reality of sin in such a way that we can do the biblical stories and our lives justice?
I believe that a moment from the baptism of the Lord can help us. It is the moment when Jesus rises out of the water. Immediately three things happen: the heavens open, the spirit descends on Jesus and a love speaks to us of love and belonging. It is a defining moment.
When we descend into the waters, we know we need some cleansing. Something is sticking to us, clinging to us, of which we would rid ourselves. It is a deep moment in the recognition of sin. Wilhelm Bruners defines sin in this way: Living beneath our standard. It is simple yet decidedly biblical. When people sin, they slip beneath their own personal standard, no longer living as they would prefer to live. It is a matter of failing ourselves, of not living up to a standard we know to be truly fitting and suitable for ourselves.
Yet, it has become close to impossible to have this conversation about slipping beneath our standard, because we tend to fall into the extremes. The one extreme is utter denial of this experience of sin. Yet, sin is part of our experience. We do not always act worthily, justly or with dignity. Our love often is lacking. Denying this is futile, because we are often dismayed, disappointed and disheartened when such moments occur. We know that we are not always that which we wish to be and what we are called to be.
But the other extreme is to believe that these moments define us. To sin is to slip beneath our standard. But it is not an expression of who we are. When we act sinfully, we often say: I hardly recognise myself anymore. We often do not know what drove us to say or do something, and usually do not wish to identify ourselves with these moments. Because they do not define us. The sin is not our standard, but the moment when we slide beneath it. For the most part, it is not an expression of our deepest conviction, not the manner in which we would prefer to act, not the way we would normally choose to live.
The moment Jesus climbed out of the water, everything was washed away that does not truly belong to us. And everything of true significance remains. The sin is washed away, not the heart and mind and soul of a human being. The waters of the Jordan carry away the sins of mortal men and women, it does not carry away their dignity, goodness, kindness and loving care.
If we slip beneath our standard, admit it, wash it off and return to that standard. When we rise from the waters, the sin will be washed clean, but the heavens will still open. All the lines of communication with God will remain open, conversation will still be possible and even desired.
If we slip beneath our standard and return home to it, the cleansing waters will carry away what stuck to us for but a time, but it will not deprive us of the spirit of God. The spirit will still descend upon us, the Lord and Giver of life will still live and move and breathe within us. We will still know and be moved by his inspiring presence.
If we slip beneath our standard and seek renewal, the waters will rinse off the brokenness of our relationships, but not the relationships themselves. The voice of God will still speak to us of love and belonging. We will still be considered and called a child of our God, and we will still be called beloved. Our God will delight in us, take pleasure in us, and rejoice in us.
The ignoring of sin will make us self-righteous and arrogant. We will start to think that everything God gives us is based on strict reciprocity and that God owes it to us, because we have nothing dishonorable clinging to us. It will not allow us to experience the merciful and gracious love of our God, who speaks the word, seeks the encounter, loves the lost, even when we ourselves know that we have no claim to any of it, and that we can stake no claim to having acted so magnificently or convincingly, that we would be worthy that he should enter under our roof.
Exaggerating the experience of sin makes us equate our weaker moments with our standard. »Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.« (Romans 5, 20). Like Jesus, when you come out of the water, you return to the genuine standard of your life. Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote some fine words that only a person who comes dripping out of the Jordan like Jesus could write:
»God's grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God's grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word ... it's that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn't about God creating humans and flawed beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace - like saying, "Oh, it's OK, I'll be the good guy and forgive you." It's God saying, "I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.”« *
There is someone waiting for us on the other side of every slip beneath the standard. There is always a way home. There is always a way back to conversation, inspiration and loving relationship with our God.
*Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
Erik Riechers SAC, January 10th, 2021
»There is still enough time.«
One of the challenges for all of us in these long months is the testing of our patience.
Already in the springtime I heard: »Hopefully the lockdown will soon be over. Then we can live normally again.« When I remarked that the virus would also accompany us throughout the summer, I only received raised eyebrows.
Like so many things, this is being revealed and exposed by the pandemic, but it is not new. It has long seemed to me that patience is less and less a virtue of ours today. This is not only fed by experiences in traffic or at cash registers and counters, where queues of people can form and we repeatedly experience breaking in line, pushing or at least grumbling. We can observe this lack of patience in ourselves and in others in all areas of life.
We get sick and healing takes time - but we have to and want to get back on our feet quickly.
We want success at work - but quickly, please!
Instead of saving for a long-term goal, we prefer to take out a quick loan.
We consume supposed solutions instead of patiently practising living from interiority to the outside.
It is difficult for us to wait patiently without resigning, to persevere with a deep breath. We worry when we desire a good development for our children or friends and it doesn't seem to happen. We help and do what we can, but nothing seems to bear fruit. How impatient we can become then!
A few days ago I came across a dialogue that is unusual for our time. One person is very concerned about a young man whose heart is filled with hatred and sadness, and speaks:
» ‘But his heart is full of hatred for his father's murderer, and it is a damned chain that no one can break. Not even you, who allowed yourself to be crucified for these cursed, rabid dogs.' 'The world is not yet over,' Christ said serenely. 'The world is barely past the beginning, and in heaven time is measured by billions of centuries. There's no need to lose faith, Don Camillo. There is still enough time, there is still enough time.‘«
Indeed, her Don Camillo and Jesus speak with each other in the novel »Don Camillo and Peppone« by Giovanni Guareschi, published in 1957.
»There is still enough time.« When was the last time we heard that? Have we ever heard it and taken it seriously? Yet this sentence is like a balm for our harried souls. It takes so much pressure off us and suggests to our hearts:
Transformation will take place. Promises will be fulfilled. Paths will be taken. Maturation and growth are permitted.
We are not finished and we have enough time.
And we are part of a much bigger story. Our individual stories have meaning, our actions have consequences, but not everything depends on us and not everything has to happen immediately. »Being human takes time « Columban the Elder once said.
It is given to us, so let us take a deep breath.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 8th, 2021
The Favorite
Wanderer, you look tired. The disappointments of your life are etched into your face. Discouragement has drained the colour and the joy from your soul. You should not go on like this. Do not pass me by. Won't you sit with me for a while and warm yourself by my fire? I am but a simple storyteller, but you are welcome to share my bread and company. Come, sit down. While you eat, I will tell you a little story.
Many years ago, when the world was much younger, but already felt old a young man walked over to the fields to visit his grandfather.
He found the sitting on a finely carved wooden chair gazing at a camel. Everyone simply referred to this camel as the »the favorite«, for it was well known, that she had a special place in the old patriarch’s heart.
The old man looked up as his grandson approached and smiled. Even now, after all these years and having grown into manhood, the young man felt a wave of awe sweep over him and reverence touch the places of the deep heart. For his grandfather was one of the legendary 3 pilgrims of the star. Ever since he could remember, he had heard the story of his grandfather and his two friends following the star and finding the child of light. After the three star pilgrims had returned home, they continued to make rich contributions of learning to the land, but nothing they ever did afterward compared to the great journey they had undertaken. They were legends, and his grandfather was one of them.
Smiling back at his grandfather, the young man said, »You have come to admire ‘the favorite’ again? Why does your heart draw you here so often, grandfather, to this one camel? Surely you have more precious possessions than this old and worn out camel?«
The old man looked startled at the very thought. »I have many possessions that are more expensive than this camel, but none more precious. She was with me on the star journey and has ever a place in my heart.«
His grandson smiled. »It is fine, grandfather. I was just teasing you a little. We all know why she is your favorite, for she reminds you of the greatest adventure of your life.«
Shifting slightly in the chair, this old friend of the heavens and intimate confidant of the stars, furrowed his brow. “She is not a souvenir of my sentimentality. She was a teacher of a great life lesson to me and my companions.”
Immediately, instinctively, the grandson sat down on the ground and crossed his legs, leaning forward to eagerly hear a tale from this beloved grandfather, cupping his chin in his hands. It really is the only way to receive a story, Wanderer. The grandson had done this since he was old enough to walk, and never once regretted taking the time to hear one of grandfather’s stories. And here, too, the grandfather did not disappoint.
»When we had reached Bethlehem and found the child, we entered the house of Miriam and Josef. I have often spoken of it, but no tale has ever done my heart justice. We came out of the house, but we spoke no words to each other. There was joy, oh indeed, but only in silence. The words came much later.
Yet, our silent reverie did not last long, for a woman soon shattered our silence. We had paid her to care for our camels, to groom and feed them. She had done the job poorly and half-heartedly, for she was far more interested in eavesdropping on us then doing her wages justice. We were still deeply immersed in the experience of the finding, of the seeing and encountering when we saw her. We were so full of joy that we would have embraced her, but she began to talk. Her words were laced with the most vile and pernicious of all poisons, discouragement. It is injected through the ear, but it always reaches the heart.
‘All this fuss over that baby? And gifts of such value placed into the hands of peasants who do not know or appreciate their true value? You should not be the ones bending your knees. Those two should be doing you homage. That child is one of thousands of worthless peasants, and you are filling his parent’s heads with foolish ideas that he is some kind of king? Like his lowborn father, he will rule over sawdust and be glad if they even bother to toss him coins for his labours. What an idiotic waste of a journey. You will go down in history as three foolish men who were deceived by the stars, which you failed to properly interpret.’
For all the wisdom I have acquired over my long years, I have never known a silence as painful as that one. I was so grieved I could not find words. All the joy and reverence of my heart was wilting under the assault. It was what I least expected in such a moment of bone-deep holiness and haunting beauty. My companions looked as stricken and appalled as I felt.
At that very moment, as the woman continued to spew her venomous words over our joy, my camel became my teacher. With his left hind leg, he gave the woman a powerful kick in the backside, sending her flying ten meters through the air. We ran to her aid, fearful that great injury had been done to her. But we found her merely bruised, more harm done to her dignity than to her body. That is when the three of us started to laugh.
We laughed and laughed. We laughed until tears trickled down out cheeks. We laughed until our sides ached. In the end we were all sitting on the ground, racked with waves upon waves of laughter. We all ended up on our backs staring up at the sky. And then we saw it. The star. It never shone brighter for me than in that moment.
We had lost sight of it once before, while we were in Jerusalem, and were overwhelmed with joy when we found its light again. But his was different, in many ways more powerful. We had lost sight of the star, of our joy, of this deepest experience of our hearts due to the nagging, disparaging words of the woman. We let our hearts be poisoned by a person who could not hear what we had heard, could not see what had already seen with our own eyes, and could not pause in wonder before that which we had looked at and our hands had touched. Unable to honour the grandeur of this place and hour, she tried to strangle our joy with things of utter insignificance, with narrow-minded prejudice and small-heartedness. Her discouraging words had nearly managed to distract us from a deep satisfaction we already possessed.
In that moment, my camel saved us. She became my teacher. What use is it to find utter joy and meaning, if you cannot guard it against those who have none for themselves and would have others join their misery, hardness and cold-heartedness? My camel tossed her from the circle of holiness and awe, showing me that such people must not be allowed to remain in the holy places of our hearts and lives. Since then, she was ever my favorite.«
Now Wanderer, stay but a little while longer with me. For the tale does not end here.
Forty-five years later, this grandson told his own grandchildren of this moment with his grandfather. When the tale drew to a close, he told his wide-eyed grandchildren two things. Come closer, lean toward me, Wanderer, for I would not have the night wind steal my words before they can reach your ear. First, he swore that he saw the light of the star shimmering in his grandfather’s tears. And then he told them this: When he looked over with newly won respect at »the favorite«, the camel winked at him.
And do you know what the great-great-grandchildren of the star pilgrim did when they heard that, Wanderer? They laughed and laughed and laughed, until they too rolled onto their backs and saw the heavens.
Now, Wanderer, tell me truly: Does bread not taste better when buttered with a story? Does the fire not burn brighter and warm deeper when fed by a good story? It was good of you to share my bread, my company and my story with me, Wanderer. You already look a little less tired and a little less discouraged. My goodness, if I am not mistaken, I see a twinkle of the star in your eyes.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 6th, 2021
Let us walk sheltered
Thresholds
can be hurdles.
It helps if others
climb over them with me,
take me by the hand,
perhaps even carry me.
And then?
I cannot tarry here.
From behind I am pushed,
from before I am pulled.
In the distance I cannot
recognise anything.
That makes me
timid.
But to stand still
or even
to remain lying down
is not possible -
that makes me lifeless.
Thus, a first step, a second,
a third . . .
at my pace.
The path emerges.
I sense supporting ground.
I see people on my right and left.
The sky becomes bright.
And someone whispers to me:
»Go on! He who shelters you,
does not slumber!«
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 4th, 2021
Words that can light fires in our hearts
2. Sunday of Christmas Jn 1, 1-18
This prologue is like a manual of John's Gospel - it's all here in this poetic jewel. But precisely because it is a poetic jewel, we find it difficult. The language is hard to understand because it is not clear, plain and straightforward.
Broken hearts, shattered relationships, being wounded by someone, being betrayed, being lied to. Even trying everything to save a relationship and realising it was in vain. Now try to tell about it clearly, plainly and straightforwardly. As if everything in life could be described with the precision of an encyclopaedia.
John tells a story of true friendship without romanticisation. Because romanticisation takes neither the love nor the lovers seriously. And I want to help you understand his story with the help of another narrative.
In his book The Fault in our Stars, John Green tells the story of two teenagers who meet under difficult circumstances. Augustus is seventeen and suffers from a bone tumour. His friend is sixteen and has a brain tumour.
I would like to highlight one scene to help understand the prologue better. Here Isaac is talking about his friend Augustus at his funeral. It's about his friend visiting him in hospital after his operation. It saves his life, but in the process Isaac loses an eye.
»I was blind and heart broken and didn't want to do anything and Gus burst into my room and shouted, ‘I have wonderful news!’ And I was like, ‘I don't really want to hear wonderful news right now,’ and Gus said, ‘This is wonderful news you want to hear’, and I asked him, ‘Fine, what is it?’ and he said, ‘You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!’ «
This is John Green's way of describing what John wants to tell us in the prologue. God is an authentic friend who breaks in on our lives and not my invitation only. He comes unexpectedly, with wonderful news, even when are not in the mood to receive it.
Furthermore, the prologue not only tells us that that God can deal with broken relationships, but shows us how.
- The problem in the relationship is recognised and a costly plan of action is undertaken.
John describes this moment when he says that we human beings did not want to receive God and his message any more than Isaac wanted to receive his friend Augustus and his message.
»I was blind and heart broken and didn't want to do anything« is a state we all have been in. And yet that state is broken into, always a costly act, whether for God or for man. This lays in the poetic words »And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not comprehended it« as well as in the words »The true light that enlightens every man came into the world.« To recognise the problem in the relationship is already not that easy, but taking action beyond resistance and disinterest is the true art, and one that is mastered by our God. When we spend too much time proclaiming the terrible state in which God found his people, we spend too little time proclaiming that he is more than capable to dealing with us, regardless of the state we happen to be in.
- The Initiative is relational and personal.
When Augustus wanted to give his friend the good news, he burst into Isaac's room. He didn't write him a letter. Nor did he make a phone call or, worse, send a message on social media. He works relationally and personally. He appears himself. John tells it like this: »and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.« In verses 14-18 we have a description of Jesus' life when the Word »dwelt among us«, »pitched his tent among us« or »made his home with us«. The tent of presence was the symbol of God's companionship of his people on their 40-year journey through the wilderness. The life of Jesus, the divine presence in human form, thus reveals the relational and personal nature of God more fully than ever before. John is the storyteller who shows us that Jesus can show us what is really on God’s mind and, more importantly, in his heart. »It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.« [Jn, 1,18]
- Success is not guaranteed. This is an open offer. And rejection is an option
Isaac's first reaction to his friend's message was: »And I said, ‘I don't really want to hear wonderful news right now’.« When we dare to love, we assume that it must then automatically met with success. But love is an offer that can always be rejected, otherwise we wouldn't have to talk about daring to love in the first place. Risk is always included in love stories. And John is not writing a romanticised form of the love story between God and his people. He writes: »He came into his own, but his own did not receive him.« John is like a novelist describing the pain of unrequited love: Loneliness, isolation and rejection. In the face of a needy world, Jesus comes as God's Word with a gift that satisfies all longing, but the loving offer is also rejected. Even divine love stories do not have to have a happy ending.
- The act of love is unconditional. God does not wait until the »guilty« show that they have changed.
Augustus literally hears from his friend Isaac, that he is not at all open to his message. »I was blind and heart broken and didn't want to do anything.« This statement remains true even after his friend enters his hospital room. Augustus does not wait until Isaac changes his mind or his mood improves. He is not concerned with his level of popularity, but with a message his friend desperately needs so that he does not lose himself in sadness and hopelessness.
John admires the same tenacity in God: »the true light that enlightens every man came into the world. He was in the world and the world became through him, but the world did not recognise him.« Which did not stop God from showing up in the room of our pain any more than it stopped Augustus.
- God's initiative is a loving offer that shows that the motivation is the well-being of the »other«.
The wonderful news that Augustus announces shows that he is concerned about the welfare of his friend. When people tell us »I have wonderful news«, it is revealed afterwards that they have been promoted, got a coveted place at the university, got an excellent grade or the job they longed for. But Augustus shows that he is not concerned with himself. »You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!« What we shouldn't lose sight of is the fact that Isaac tells this story about a friend who himself does not survive his cancer.
When John tells us »In him was life, and the life was the light of men. But to all who received him he gave power to become children of God, we have seen his glory, from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace,« we hear his version of »You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!«
John's friendship story not only shows the manner in which God is a good and committed friend to us, but also that he is a God who approaches life from a perspective very different from ours. God is happy for us, as Augustus was for Isaac, because we have the opportunity to experience life in a new way. And God dares to tell us this for the same reason Augustus tells his friend Isaac: because he has not been spared this reality of life, but is in the middle of it, as we are. He pitched his tent right next to ours. God himself suffers the pain of unrequited love: loneliness, isolation and rejection. He shows us that love opened up ways for him to deal with it. And these ways are open to us as well.
Erik Riechers SAC, January 3rd, 2021
Walking under his name
Every day is a beginning, something new, unprecedented; but on the first day of a new year, we feel this especially. We become more aware of this threshold and - the older we get - also of what we carry across its threshold in terms of sorrow and joy, sadness and hope, anxiety and confidence, gratitude and disappointment. Really quite weighty!
Yes, life is like that, not only since the pandemic. But God says good things about precisely this life of ours! He blesses it! On the long and arduous journey through the desert, which often seemed hopeless, he pronounced this blessing in a way that we love to this say and place over the New Year:
The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
The good that God promises to His own has a threefold face: protection, grace and peace. Salvation is promised. It is a blessing that flows directly from God's name: I am here. When the way becomes dark: I am there. When crises shake you: I am there. When you become frail: I am there. When you feel lost: I am there. I see you, I shelter you, I look upon you. My name is upon you.
Blessed like this, we can go on, even today, when we may perceive the threshold to be like a hurdle and feel our way only hesitantly. We can entrust our name to this name. Then perhaps we can contemplate with Andreas Knapp:
Name
Your name
is not smoke and mirrors
but sound and image
a good omen
unmistakable writing
Alphabet of life
your name
invented by love
tenderly whispered
not a lonely echo
but an echo of the heartbeat
password to you
your name
lifeline in HIS hand
engraved more imperishable
than in the most granite tombstone
carressing- pet -name
unceasing
Andreas Knapp, Weiter als der Horizont
A blessed New Year!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, January 1st, 2021
The Swaddling Clothes of Welcome
When Jesus came into the world, angels appeared to the shepherds and sent them in search of the Saviour. In order for them to recognise him, they give the shepherds the following instruction:
And this will be a sign for you:
you will find a baby
wrapped in swaddling cloths
and lying in a manger.
In the book of the prophet Ezekiel there is a word that can bring the meaning of the swaddling clothes closer to us.
And as for your birth,
on the day you were born your cord was not cut,
nor were you washed with water to cleanse you,
nor rubbed with salt,
nor wrapped in swaddling cloths.
(Ez 16:4)
Ezekiel describes a birth of a very different kind. Here is a picture of the people of Israel being brought into the world without swaddling clothes. This is a metaphor of being exposed, of being at the mercy of others. And it is an awful image of a defenceless life left to fend for itself, abandoned from the start. For the swaddling clothes described in the Bible consisted of a cloth that was tied together with cloth bandages. After the birth of an infant, the umbilical cord was cut and tied, and then the child was washed, rubbed with salt and oil, and then wrapped in swaddling clothes. These strips of cloth were intended to keep the newborn child warm and ensure that its limbs grew straight. Swaddling clothes speak of warm shelter in a cold world. They speak of loving care and an appreciative willingness to protect and serve this life.
Years ago, John L. Bell wrote a wonderful carol about the search for the child.
I sought him dressed in finest clothes,
where money talks and status grows;
but power and wealth he never chose:
it seemed he lived in poverty.
I sought him in the safest place,
remote from crime or cheap disgrace;
but safety never knew his face:
it seemed he lived in jeopardy.
I sought him where the spotlights glare,
where crowds collect and critics stare;
but no one knew his presence there:
it seemed he lived in obscurity.
Then, in the streets, we heard the word
which seemed, for all the world, absurd:
that those who could no gifts afford
were entertaining Christ the Lord.
And so, distinct from all we'd planned,
among the poorest of the land,
we did what few might understand:
we touched God in a baby's hand.
And that is why Luke uses this detail of the swaddling clothes. The Son of God comes into a cold world, exposed to jeopardy, poverty and obscurity. But we should never paint the world in shades too dark. For there are also people in this world who protect, shelter and lovingly welcome the child. These are the people who wrap all new life from God in swaddling clothes.
And it can certainly does us no harm to remember who the people were who provided the swaddling clothes. May we be numbered among them.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 30th, 2020
Before the eyes of children
In these Christmas days or, according to old tradition, 12 Holy Nights until Epiphany, the stories of Selma Lagerlöf are fine companions for me. Timeless, they widen the view from the Holy Night into our lives and thus go with me through this time. One of these stories is »A Christmas Guest«.
Little Ruster, who is already getting on in years, is a poor musician and flute player. There had been good years for him, when he and others played music and led a lively life, but that was a long time ago. As Christmas approaches, he turns up at the splendid estate of a former comrade, the violinist Liljekrona - with nothing but his flute, a quill and brandy. He is reluctantly taken in; the lady of the house considers him as an imposition on the children. He disrupts the festive preparations that everyone here loves so much and who work toward the enchantment of Christmas. Finally, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, he leaves the estate with wounded pride - the stable-boy is to take him in a sleigh to another farm.
Yet, the enchantment of Christmas does not come to Liljekrona and his family. The violinist withdraws from his family and plays his violin so wildly in his room that his wife becomes frightened. In the meantime, Ruster goes from house to house through the snowstorm - no one takes him in. » Then all at once he saw himself. He saw how miserable and degraded he was, and he understood that he was odious to people. “It is the end of me,” he thought. « And as he looks at his life like this, he suddenly becomes very humble and he believes his life will come to an end in the cold and darkness of this Christmas Eve.
Only when he is suddenly taken in by light and warmth does he realise that he is back in Liljekrona's house - the stable-boy had wearily returned home, without Ruster having taken notice. The master of the house continues his romp with the violin, but his wife is transformed; she is filled with compassion and then she entrusts her boys to Ruster while she does some last chores in the kitchen. With children, however, the man is completely inexperienced: » He was almost shy of them, and did not know what he ought to say that was fine enough for them. « Then he turns to what he knows, his flute. And by means of the tones they come to the notes and through them to the ABCs. Yet Ruster is not satisfied with himself. » He was turning over the old thoughts from out in the storm. It was good and pleasant, but nevertheless, it was the end of him. He was worn out. He ought to be thrown away. And all of a sudden he put his hands before his face and began to weep.« Then Liljekrona's wife steps before him - full of understanding, full of confidence and with the offer to teach their children in the future. She admonishes him to look the children in the eye, but he does not dare to do so and says so. » Liljekrona’s wife laughed loud and joyously. “Then you must accustom yourself to them, Ruster. You can stay in my house as schoolmaster this year.”«
This laughter reaches Liljekrona. When he comes out of his room, he can hardly believe what he sees and what his wife has just arranged and he does not understand her courage and he asks what Ruster has promised. » ‘Ruster has promised nothing. But there is much about which he must be careful when he has to look little children in the eyes every day. If it had not been Christmas, perhaps I would not have ventured; but when our Lord dared to place a little child who was his own son among us sinners, so can I also dare to let my little children try to save a human soul.’ «
Liljekrona's face twitches with emotion - as it always does when he hears something noble. And he kisses his wife's hands.
Now Christmas is truly celebrated!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, December 28th, 2020
The Complexity of an Authentic Life
Holy Family B 2020 Luke 2,22-40
Normally when we think of the coming of the child, we expect a fairly simple and straightforward story. It should make us happy, comfort us and warm our hearts. However, many people have celebrated this Christmas season with mixed feelings. Sadness was mixed with joy. Many expectations were only minimally fulfilled, or not at all. There is a mixture of hard reality and stubborn hope, of the cold facts of life and the unquenchable longing of faith.
Today we hear a biblical story that is just as complicated and complex. The reason is simple: the reality of human experience is always complex. In this story of the coming of the child we see the fulfillment of a promise of redemption and at the same time a prediction of times of trouble and pain. This child is destined that in Israel many will fall through him and many will be raised up, and he will be a sign that will be contradicted. There is no escape from reality here. Here we have the real-life story of the Gospel. And we can take from it three life lessons for mixed experiences.
Do not speak ill of poor and feeble beginnings
It is easy to overlook the signs of poverty in the story, but they are present. Because Mary and Joseph are poor, they cannot afford to bring a lamb as a sacrifice to the temple. Therefore, they have no choice but to choose the option open to the poor: »a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons«. The very fact that they bring these offerings is already a humiliating public confession of their social and economic status. The constant frustration and humiliation that so many of their compatriots also experienced surely aroused a desire for God's promise of redemption to be fulfilled.
At this point Simeon and Hannah enter the story, two people who neither ridicule nor denigrate the poverty and simplicity of this young couple. Instead, they see something in their present situation, indeed in what they already possess, that is not only realistic and focused, but also generous and inclusive. So often in our crisis situations we experience sarcasm, irony, condescension, prophets of doom, and know-it-alls. Here, however, are two who find warm words for poor and powerless beginnings. For this is how all stories of God begin.
Grant others the life you long for yourself
Luke tells us that Simeon was a man on whom »the Holy Spirit rested«. What the Spirit wove in him makes Simeon show a remarkable openness. Intuitively, he felt the urge to visit the temple, and he took it as a guidance of the Spirit. Simeon not only sees the baby, but recognises the significance of the tiny life he holds in his arms. In a cascade of words that encapsulate Simeon's thoughts and prayers over the countless years, he speaks the words of what we now call the Song of Simeon.
When we humans hard pressed for long periods of time, the desire of our hearts can become too small. Then we want deliverance from what is oppressing us here, today and right now. Then it can happen that we wish it only for ourselves. Simeon, on the other hand, sees God's salvation as something that encompasses the whole earth. Not only his nation and his people should see and experience God's salvation, but all peoples and nations.
How often crises become nothing more than gaining an advantage over the enemy. But Simeon sees that God is inclusive and not partisan. God does not want to divide the world into winners and losers, but to let everyone share in the gains. His redemption is for the whole world. Here Simeon stands in a tradition as old as Genesis. For God's promise to Abraham says that through his descendants all the nations of the world would be blessed. This generosity is a fruit of the Spirit who dwells in us and rests upon us. The glory of Israel will be realised to the extent that Israel is a means of blessing to the nations. This was Simeon's vision of Jesus' life and ministry.
Speak blessing that touches the deepest realities of life instead of avoiding them
Simeon then blesses Jesus' parents. But even his blessing is complicated, for with the blessing come words of warning, of prediction, of conflict, of division, of opposition. (Behold, this Child is appointed to cause the rise and fall of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against). For Mary it will mean personal loss and suffering. (A sword will pierce your soul as well.)
Simeon's blessing is anything but a glossing over of reality, a whitewashing of the cracks with blind optimism and sentimental good humour. Simeon's blessing faces the reality that where the love of God meets the sinfulness of human beings, suffering is the inevitable result. The blessing comes from the knowledge that the way God has chosen is to deal with the suffering of the world by accompanying those who suffer as one who suffers with us.
Another remarkable person, Anna, then comes along. A woman who had experienced tremendous loss but refused to give in to bitterness and resentment and found meaning and fulfilment in prayer and fasting day and night! She was a person of faith and hope who looked to a better future. She was also open to see the significance of this child and shared her joy of this discovery with all those who were waiting for the »redemption of Jerusalem«. Anna had lost so much, but instead of being bitter or resentful, she found fulfilment.
These are the complex steps through all times of crisis that enable us to resist the bitterness of spirit after a great loss.
John Shea has taken a long, loving look at the realities in the Song of Simeon. May his words, also complex and mixed, help us not only to celebrate Christmas but to face the days ahead with grace and kindness.
The Song of Simeon (Lukas 2, 29-32)
When I sing the canticle of Simeon,
I envy his privileged place in salvation history.
His aged eyes see the child of promise,
his ears hear the infant cry of the Saviour.
This allows him to go in peace,
to take leave of life.
Simeon holds the child of promise in his arms
and sings that life has become so full
there is no need for more of it.
Fulfillment has arrived.
How many have wanted to be able to say,
»Now you can dismiss your servant in peace«?
I think of a friend who died
while his children were still young.
As I sat at his bedside,
he was agitated and unable to talk.
I asked him
if he was worried about his wife and children.
He nodded.
I told him they would miss him,
but they would do well.
He held up his hand
with the index and middle fingers crossed,
the sign for ‘Hope so!”
No song of Simeon for him.
We know how deep bargaining goes in us –
the parent prays to stay alive
until the child is married or a grandchild is born.
We hold out hope there will come a time
when we will be ready.
hope that when our time comes
We will have partaken of a feast
that will so satisfy our hunger
no more will be needed.
Then our fist will open
and we will let go of the tight grip we have on life.
We will surrender without regret
and lay down the burden of our days.
May it be so!
But I am not sure.
For many of us,
for me,
there may be no resolution within life,
no culmination of our efforts.
We may die unfulfilled, with work undone,
with others carrying on without us.
But if there is a chance
to make Simeon’s words our last song,
we must radicalise ourselves as servants.
It is the servaant who departs;
all others merely stop.
if we have given our life away,
we may know the Spirit well enough
to embrace its unfolding in ourselves
and in those we love,
to trust the larger Mystery
that connects us beyond separations.
Our heritage of service will sustain us
knowing that the One we have served
is faithful
in ways beyond our ability to image.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 27th, 2020
God starts anew in the child
Christmas Day 2020
(For Julia, Lukas and Johannes)
»For unto us a child is born« (Is 9,5). When we hear that, we could wonder if God really has it all together. Because even a brief glance at the painfully broken world around us tells us that the very last thing we could use right now is a child.
Every day we hear exactly the opposite from politicians and economists. They tell us: we need more troops to protect us from terror, not a child. We need ingenious people to develop new technologies so that we can once again become leaders in the globalised world economy, but not a child. We need heroic people to open up new worlds. We need entrepreneurs to get the economy going again and reduce unemployment. In such a world, we have been waiting a long time for the angel to announce: »Fear not... Today in the city of David the Saviour is born to you«. But how dare God then tell us: »You will find a child lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes«.
God provides a path all his own. The surprisingly new thing about the Gospel is precisely that God became small and vulnerable and, of all things, fruitful among us in this way. He prefers to come into the world as a child. The three basic attitudes before the child that we learn in Bethlehem and which becomes a blessing and salvation for us are demanded of us again in Cana and on Calvary, in Jerusalem and Jericho.
Firstly, a child slows us down. A child slows down the normal pace of our lives. This truth is painfully clear to us. Children cannot keep up with adults. They cannot walk as fast as we can. Mentally, they cannot match our speed. Children need more time to learn. They are slower to understand, need much more time to prepare, to readjust. Therefore, if we want to lovingly engage with a child, we have to adapt to their pace.
And it is in this that we are blessed. When we engage with a child, our lives are slowed down and decelerated until we can engage with new levels of experience, enjoyment and exploration. It is not children who race past miracles, but adults. Children don't need to be reminded to notice the beauty and magnificence of life; adults do. When their questions cascade down on us, we have proof that they can really see, admire and take in the world. Their inquisitiveness gives rise to wonder, and wonder is the beginning of all faith.
That is why a child has been given unto us. God wants to slow us down so that the most important encounters, the fullness and the truly significant things of life do not pass us by without a trace. In the child he slows us down so that we can perceive our life, notice our orientation, take a look at the movement or immobility of our life, and get involved in the burning questions. But what begins in Bethlehem is carried through in the life and work of Jesus. In Bethlehem we learn a basic attitude of faith. How else will we perceive the lilies of the field, the birds in the sky, the poor widow, the prodigal son, the woman bleeding to death on the inside, the insecure Zacchaeus, or the mourning Martha, if we run past all the places of encounter with God? To live fully we need the pace of a child. If we want to slow down, let us welcome the child. That is why he is given unto us.
Secondly, a child unleashes our generosity. Children are not our partners. They cannot contribute equally and effectively to the family, the state and the community. They need much more than they can give. They need our material resources, because they cannot sustain their own lives. They need more affirmation, because they are not yet strong enough in self-confidence and courage. They need to drink from the cup of our love, patience and strength for a long time. They need more time. Plain and simple, we cannot love children if we do not meet these demands. And it is these demands that forge the core of our generosity.
In this sense, children are the first teachers of our generosity. For most parents, a life of selfless service begins not before the marriage altar but before the baptismal font. The moment a child is born to them, they are immediately enrolled in the school of generosity. Without a versatile generosity, children cannot be loved or educated. They make us transcend the stinginess with which we treat time and love to offer and provide more, and more and more of it. Self-occupation diminishes and concern for the child grows.
That is why a child is given unto us. In the child, God begins again. He stretches our hearts to make room for a greater, a divine, generosity. This is how he works with us from the manger to the cross. We need generous hearts if we want to leave the nets on the shore and throw the last penny into the plate. Only generous hearts can turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile and bless the persecutors. No step of the way with Christ can be taken without a generous heart. That is why a child is given unto us, because in the child God wants to start all over again.
Finally a child softens our angers. This is not to say that they are never the cause of your anger. Indeed, your children can infuriate you with a stunning ease. Spilled milk, interior decoration inspired by crayon, missed curfews, and incomplete homework and housework can make your blood boil and your hiatal hernia dance for joy.
Yet even in the hour of our anger they can save us. In the encounter with their vulnerability we begin to draw from the wellsprings of our compassion. Vulnerability opens us up a new access to long forgotten tenderness. Their vulnerability makes them defenceless and easily hurt and this breaks through our otherwise armoured hearts. This vulnerability of children makes us open to a love that transcends our anger, our bossiness and even our drive to violence. Their defencelessness makes us stand protectively over them and calms our anger. The helplessness of children draws help and comfort from us. When we face children who are small in stature, strength and vitality, our hearts change to mercy and gentleness where once there was only impatience and anger.
God brought us a new life in the form of extreme vulnerability. He came to us as a small child, totally dependent on the care and protection of others. In the child, God starts from the beginning. When God comes into the world as a little child, God cannot walk or talk; first someone has to teach him. That is where the story of Jesus begins. He needs people so that he can grow up. God says: "I want to be weak so that you can love me. What better way is there to help you return my love than to become completely weak so that you can take care of me? “God becomes a stumbling God so that he can depend entirely on our love. The God who loves us is a God who becomes vulnerable, dependent on people in the manger, dependent on them on the cross; a God who basically asks, »Are you there for me?«
We spend so much time protecting ourselves from pain, betrayal and hurt that we put our hearts behind bulletproof glass. But here is the God who wraps his heart in swaddling clothes. In Bethlehem a child is given unto us, because vulnerability is the way to love and life.
This is always the way of Jesus, from the manger of his birth to the showing of his wounds after the resurrection. In his flesh, we constantly learn that in him, God provides a way of his own, the way where we live openly and without fear in our vulnerability. In Jesus we see a person who perceives the needs of the smallest children and who weeps for Lazarus. Here is a person who is not afraid to sweat blood in front of us, who does not hide his fear from us and openly admits to us that his heart is saddened unto death. Here is one who is receptive to the wounds of life for the sake of love.
A new mother once told me: »Everything I have done and achieved in my life has not prepared me for this encounter«. It is not too late. We can still grow a little smaller to meet him at eye level. The child is patient. We probably prepared for something else, imagined it quite differently: it doesn't matter.
So I conclude with a poem by my teacher John Shea. Here, too, a child can help us learn the only proper response to the Good News of the Incarnation.
Sharon's Christmas Prayer
She was five,
sure of the facts,
and recited them
with slow solemnity
convinced every word
was revelation.
She said
they were so poor
they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to eat
and they went a long way from home
without getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey, the man walked, and the baby
was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
with an ox and an ass (hee-hee)
but the Three Rich Men found them
because a star lited the roof
Shepherds came and you could
pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated
to silver dollars,
The baby was God.
And she jumped in the air
whirled round, dove into the sofa
and buried her head under the cushion
which is the only proper response
to the Good News of the Incarnation.
I wish you all a blessed and joyous Christmas.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 25th, 2020
The Surprising Fullness
No matter how hard we try, we cannot exhaust the possibilities of the Stories of God and the Stories of Faith. They will surprise us with their delightful insights that defy every attempt to limit them to inherited interpretations. And they will make us think when we least expect it. They will make us ponder when we least wish to do so.
Denise Levertov, in her book A Door in the Hive, offers us yet another look at the encounter between Gabriel and Mary. In a time when we are strictly limited in our freedom and ability to encounter one another as we would like, it is all the more important to discover the deepest potential that such encounters offer. That way, we will not take them for granted, when the days of unfettered encounters return.
Annunciation
‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
From the Agathistos Hymn, Greece
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.
But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.
She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.
____________________
Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
____________________
She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child–but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.
Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered:
to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power–
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love–
but who was God.
This was the moment no one speaks of,
when she could still refuse.
A breath unbreathed,
Spirit,
suspended,
waiting.
____________________
She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’
Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’
She did not submit with gritted teeth,
raging, coerced.
Bravest of all humans,
consent illumined her.
The room filled with its light,
the lily glowed in it,
and the iridescent wings.
Consent,
courage unparalleled,
opened her utterly.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 23rd, 2020
Perhaps
Yesterday, on the 4th Sunday of Advent, the focus was on the great scene of Gabriel's Annunciation to Mary. It accompanies us through these last High Advent days. For we already know: not only the spark of a single interpretation flares up when we contemplate a biblical story. Just as a hammer blow on a rock causes sparks, according to rabbinical teaching, a verse of Scripture allows many interpretations.
That is why today we give you a different view of Mary (and of us), who heard the promise of the angel - promise and imposition at the same time!
Perhaps
if I become very quiet
I will hear the language of the stars
in the blue of the night.
Perhaps
if I grow very still
I will hear the word of yearning
in the dawning of the morning.
Perhaps
if I am all ears
I will hear the melody of silence
in broad daylight.
Perhaps
if I let you in, angel,
and you touch me
with the wings of heaven
perhaps
you will awaken my yes,
perhaps then the miracle will grow.
Perhaps. Now?
Come!
»Nothing is impossible for God.«
Hildegard Nies (Laacher Messbuch 2009)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, December 21st, 2020
How a Yes to God can develop
4. Sunday of Advent B 2020 Luke 1, 26-38
When we hear this story, there is a tendency to jump to the result. Then we emphasise the »yes«. The impression can arise that Mary's assent was the automatic response to Gabriel's greeting. What else is she supposed to say to the angel? But in fact this »yes«. comes after a complex exchange between the two.
There are three moments in the conversation between Gabriel and Mary.
Gabriel greets Mary and questions are awakened in her that lead to inner struggle and debate.
Gabriel announces God's message for Mary to her and Mary asks questions that lead to the enquiry of the external circumstances and processes.
Gabriel explains to Mary in general how God wants to work with her and she considers everything carefully until it results in consent.
What emerges from this threefold exchange is not a foregone conclusion. While Matthew speaks about Mary in his Gospel, in Luke she is a woman who thinks for herself and speaks for herself. She appears as a great woman and not as a helpless little maiden.
Gabriel greets Mary and questions are awakened in her that lead to inner struggle and debate.
The first step of this conversation is Mary's reaction, not to the presence of the angel, but to his address (v. 29). Mary is not disturbed by the fact that an angel has appeared in her house, but by the words he speaks in greeting. What is given here as »troubled « dilutes the force of the Greek diatarassō. The word means a thorough, deep and life encompassing disquiet. This feeling is reflected in the intensity of Mary's inner debate. We do not know what the images and words in Gabriel's greeting triggered in Mary. Perhaps she is thinking about how young and inexperienced she is. Perhaps Gabriel's greeting awakens feelings of being unprepared. Perhaps she feels how poor and insignificant she is in the eyes of the world. What we know from Luke, however, is that she takes time to think thoroughly for herself. She examines all the different things that could be behind this strange encounter and where they could possibly lead.
Gabriel announces God's message for Mary to her and Mary asks questions that lead to the enquiry of the external circumstances and processes.
We have no idea how much time passes before Gabriel continues. Just because we can read a story quickly doesn't mean it goes that fast. But eventually the moment comes when the angel sees that Mary is ready to hear more. Then he begins to present his announcement. Again, Mary enters the conversation, but this time she moves on to an enquiry of the external circumstances and procedures. It is worth noting here the contrast with Zechariah's question from the previous story. Like Mary, he too was »troubled«, but whereas he asks »How will I know?«, her question is the much more practical »How will it come about?«. This response, with its implicit willingness to consider further, suggests that a new and differently focused phase of clarification has begun.
Dr Edith Eva Eger describes this phase through two questions that people asked in the concentration camps. Some asked: Why? This is what she calls the paralysing question, because it leads to passivity while we wait for an answer that we probably won't get. She chooses the question: What now? This question seeks what is really essential, namely the possibilities for shaping life that could lead to a future.
Gabriel explains to Mary in general how God wants to work with her and she considers everything carefully until it results in consent.
Even now, there is no immediate »yes«. Gabriel's statement in response to Mary's questions again raises some serious issues for Mary to confront - especially given her status as an engaged woman, the intended mode of conception and the punishment for violations of the betrothal set out in the law. How would her fiancé, her family and her wider community react? What possible fates awaited her? Could God really be at work in and through such an unlikely and precarious scenario? No wonder she has to take the time to look, think and weigh so that she can come to a considered decision. A »yes« to God is not born that quickly. In this case, her reflection leads her to answer the question in the affirmative - she overcomes the fear of the likely risks and volunteers to be a partner in God's proposed plan. But even if her reflection had led her to a different answer, it would still have been the same profound and informed act of self-determination.
Years ago I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read: God said it. I believe it. That settles it. Too often faith is presented in this manner. In such an understanding questions, considerations, doubts and struggle have no place.
But the path of faith is the path that Mary walks in this narrative. The path of faith is not just about the question »What do I have to affirm quickly and unconditionally?« We need to recognise when to pause and reflect before moving on to the next step. Instead of viewing questions as doubts, we should consider what kind of questions or perspectives are useful when we are trying to understand a situation and make a decision about an appropriate action. The absolute clarity with which we occasionally try to answer questions of faith tends to question whether faith is just something to gain more certainty. Perhaps experiences of faith are also given so that we can grow and live in all those life situations where there are no definite answers.
A »yes« to God is not born that swiftly. And when this »yes« passes over our lips too quickly and thoughtlessly, then it cannot develop it potential, then it will not be what it is meant to be for us. For here we are to carry a promise of God in us and focus our lives around this promise. We should say »yes« to that, which is in our hearts: the breath of God that animate the human family. When a »yes« to God is born in this way, then it is a call to our deepest vocation, namely, to believe that at the very core of the matter, we are made by and for love.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 20th, 2020
Everyone is born there
This year, many of us are missing a trip to one of our places of longing. There are places that do our souls good, where we can experience being at peace with ourselves and recharge our batteries. The majority of humanity hardly has a chance for such an undertaking. But many know the longing for holy places - at least once in a lifetime they would like to visit them and take on the great burdens of a pilgrimage.
This was on my mind yesterday morning when I prayed Psalm 87. At the beginning the it refers to the holy mountains; in the Bible they are again and again places of experiencing God, of encountering the Mystery, the very Other, the HOLY, and the experiences are varied.
Then the singer of the Psalm singles out one mountain: Zion. It is founded by the Lord like all others, but he loves it above all others. Among us humans, this could lead to a competition, a ranking, a separation between belonging and not belonging. But not with God! The glory of this city of God is that everyone belongs - and in a way that has to do with the deepest questions of being human, the whence and whither of it: of Zion it will be said: » Everyone is born in her. «
This little psalm sings of a great longing. Wherever we come from - one day we will step through Zion's gates and realise: This is where we come from. This is where we belong. This is where everything that makes us live springs forth.
Truly a reason to dance!
His foundation on the holy mountains -
The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
Splendid things are spoken of you, O city of God:
“Let me recall Rahab and Babel to my familiars. Look, — Philistia and Tyre together with Cush— and will say,
‘This one was born in Zion.’ ”
And of Zion it shall be said, “Everyone is born in her, and He, the Most High, makes it firm-founded.”
The Lord inscribes in the record of the peoples: “This one was born in Zion.”
As singers and dancers alike: “All my wellsprings are in you.”
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, December 18th, 2020
We Wear the Mask
In Germany a new and hard lockdown of the country begins today. It is much the same in many parts of the world. There is much to complain about and no shortage of people willing to do the complaining. No one was hoping for a Christmas like this, but this is the Christmas we will have.
Among the tighter restrictions given to the churches here, we now need to contend with two aspects that directly impact the way we celebrate the Christmas liturgies with each other. First, we are not allowed to sing our beloved Carols while we worship. Second, we must wear a mask throughout the time we are in the church.
Of the two restrictions, the singing is getting all the publicity and rivers of ink are flowing in commentary. But to me, the second one, the wearing of the mask is the more troubling. It is not a problem for me as a public health safety measure, not even in the celebration of the Eucharist. What troubles me, is that we are very selective in our opposition to mask-wearing. When they are made of cloth, people complain loudly and at a length, even claiming this constitutes a violation of their personal freedom. But when the masks are not sewn of cloth, but woven out of human reluctance to share life and feeling, story and wound, then we are remarkably silent about the effects of mask-wearing.
Can we honestly claim that this is the first Christmas in which we will wear a mask? Do we sit in our pews or at our Christmas tables with open hearts and transparent faces? Have none of us ever felt the need to mask our true feelings, what is truly happening within us, in order to keep the others happy, or at bay? Have none of us worn the outer mask of Christmas joy to cover deep and welling sadness in us? Have none of us faked enthusiasm at the gatherings of kin and clan, masking our deeper hope that it will all just go away? Does Christmas automatically make out conversations more forthright? These are the masks we wear at nearly every Christmas and beyond.
Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote a brilliant and gorgeous poem entitled »We wear the mask«. May his words give us a chance to think about the masks we wear, that no government edict can demand or enforce.
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
When the pandemic ends and the masks come off, will we actually show each other more of ourselves?
Erik Riechers SAC, December 16th, 2020
Giving witness to the Light
In our latitudes we are entering the darkest week of the year. At its beginning, however, or quite deliberately, there is a saint of light: Santa Lucia (Dec. 13) from Syracuse in Sicily, who died as a martyr at the beginning of the 4th century.
We know little about her, but as happens so often, the people continued to tell in legends what they loved and admired about her, for example that she brought food to fellow Christians in their hiding places under cover of darkness. She needed both hands to carry the food, so to find her way in the dark, she is said to have put a wreath of lights on her head.
For a long time she has enjoyed a special affection in Sweden. Thus it came to be, that Selma Lagerlöf wrote a legend in 1921 entitled, »The Legend of Santa Lucia‘s Day«. In it we come to know the cold and greedy Mrs Rangela, who had her farm at the mouth of a bay, which she secured with a drawbridge and mercilessly levied tolls on anyone who wanted to take this shortcut instead of a day's walk around the whole bay. It is worth reading how it came about that a young relative of hers married the rich widowed Lord Eskil at the nearby castle and took care of his eight half-orphans.
This young woman Lucia was the opposite of her aunt in everything. From childhood onwards she loved the stories of St. Lucia, whom she chose as her patron saint and carried in her heart as an example. Thus, with almost childlike devotion, she helped pilgrims across the bay in her boat and thus began to arouse the wrath of her merciless aunt, who now schemed against Lucia. But this young woman would not be dissuaded from her goodness. Indeed, it almost caused her physical pain when in autumn her cellars and barns filled up to an extraordinary measure, while she kept hearing how many people in the country were starving and had lost everything after war campaigns and looting. Finally, she used a long absence of her husband in late autumn to put her heart's desire into action with the help of all the servants. Wherever she still found survivors, she provided them with everything they needed to get through the winter. » As long as she still had gifts left, Mrs. Lucia sailed along the Vänerstrand, and her heart was as happy and light on this journey as never before. For just as there is nothing harder than to remain silent and inactive when one hears tales of someone else's grave misfortune, so it brings the greatest happiness and sweetest peace to anyone who tries to remedy it even in the very slightest degree.« Relief and joy spread through everyone as they sit together again in the castle at home on the eve of Saint Lucia's Day. But then everything tips: her husband returns early, full of anger about the waste, being well informed by the wicked Mrs Rangela.
It is enchanting to read how the frightened and desperate Lucia, thanks to the help of her patron saint who bursts radiantly from heaven, is able to comply with an impossible ultimatum from her husband and everything turns out well in the end. Indeed, Eskil promises to enter into the service of two noble ladies: »One of them is my wife, the other St. Lucia of Syracuse, to whom I will erect altars in all the churches and chapels I have on my estates, beseeching her she will keep that spark and guiding star of the soul which is called Mercy alive among us, who languish in the cold of the north.« *
At the end Selma Lagerlöf writes: » On the thirteenth of December, at an early hour of the morning, when cold and darkness held sway over Värmland, even in my childhood, Saint Lucia of Syracuse entered all the homes scattered between the mountains of Norway and Gullspangålf. She still wore, at least in the eyes of the children, a dress white with starlight... And I wished that she would never cease to make her appearances in the homes of Värmland.« *
Each one of us can become a witness to the light - like Lady Lucia in dark Sweden, like Santa Lucia once in Syracuse, or like long ago and still alive today the Baptist of whom the Gospel said yesterday:
» There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.« (Jn 1, 6-8)
The darkness is there - let us bear witness to the light!
* »The Legend of Santa Lucia’s Day« by Selma Lagerlöf, in: The Christmas Story Book
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, December 14th, 2020
God cannot be shaken off so lightly
3. Sunday of Advent B 2020 Is 61, 1-11
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.
If you listen to any one voice during this Advent season, then hopefully it is this one. Because Isaiah raises his voice so that the speech about God and his people might take on a new tone. And this tone deserves that we say: It has reached my ear.
With his typical verve, Isaiah announces how the Spirit of God works in his people and what this Spirit does in them. More than anything else, Isaiah emphasises that this God is not ashamed to be our God. Quite the contrary. He stakes a claim to our lives, and not an insignificant one. This God wants to be part of our lives, but not in any old way. Anointing is his style. Through it he testifies to his abiding and personal interest in us. This is how he makes his claim. For God can call, choose, give, enrich, and reward without touching us. But anointing does not work that way. Anointing is not possible without touch and contact.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.
Touch is inevitable when anointing takes place. Therefore, the one who wants to anoint cannot be afraid of touch. This is how the first subtle note in Isaiah comes out. Distance is not God's thing.
But anointing immediately awakens a second image in us, namely the image of oil. Anointing is not possible without oil, and only oil will do. For oil carries within it the deepest symbol of the way God touches us and what this touch does to us.
Firstly, the oil gets under the skin. It is absorbed by us, absorbed into us. Oil penetrates invisible levels of our body and becomes a part of us. Oil is not like water, which glides over the surface and then rolls off again.
Secondly, oil leaves a trace. We only need to remember the last oil stain on a shirt, blouse or tablecloth. Oil shines on the skin, not like water that dries and then disappears without a trace.
Thirdly, oil is difficult to remove. It sticks to skin and fabric. We cannot easily wipe it off. With luck, soap, solvent and vigorous scrubbing, it can be removed with difficulty. Water, on the other hand, dries by itself.
Therefore, this anointing of the Spirit brings a new tone to our relationship with God that is as smooth as oil.
First, like oil, God gets under our skin. The touch of our God is not a superficial experience. It penetrates deep into us. The touch of our God becomes a part of our lives. We may remove (and deny) every outward sign of the God relationship, strip away every form of prayer, worship and church, but God remains a part of our lives. The power of his Spirit continues to work invisibly in us.
And because God got under our skin salvation becomes our life message. We can heal broken hearts, break the chains with which people are bound and give sisters and brothers a year of grace instead of being a hellish experience for them. It may be under our skin, but it is all within us
Secondly, like oil, God leaves traces. And these traces show up when we neither expect nor suspect them. There are the tears that well up long after we have deemed ourselves immune and hardened. We know the remorse that arises even after we have given in to indifference. We feel longing even though we pass ourselves off as satiated. Restlessness plagues us although we would swear that we are fully satisfied.
A very exhausted, disappointed and frustrated mother told me about her daughter and the sheer endless strain she has had with her for almost 10 years. Drug addiction and rehabs alternated at regular intervals. And now she was done. She said, »That's it for me. I just don't care. It doesn't bother me anymore. All this doesn't affect me and just leaves me cold.«
I listened for a while before saying, »Somehow I imagined indifference to be less exhausting.« Then we both laughed before talking about the marks left by God's love in and through this mother.
It does happen that we feel hardened, hurt, irritated and annoyed towards God and his life in us. Yet we long for salvation, and not just for ourselves. We still want to put the fragments of our hearts back together. There is no such thing as permanent indifference. Every time we are outraged by brutality, exclusion, corruption or other desecrations of human dignity, we long for justice. Like the mother, we pretend that we have become so indifferent. But indifference looks different.
Thirdly, like oil, the experience of God is difficult to remove. God sticks to us, does not let us go and does not write us off. The touch of God is not superficial. He clings to us with amazing passion. Not even death can loosen his grip on our hearts.
The voice of the prophet rises and a new sound is heard, even in our time. Perhaps especially for our time. For we are used to quite different tones. We hear old tones from stories of a God who scorns or condemns us for every transgression of the law. Or we hear the echoes of teachings about a God who is only squeamish about contact with us, as if we were lepers (sinners). We have heard voices often enough, even in the church, that we are not good enough, that we are weak, inadequate, limited and incapable.
But the Spirit of the Lord has gotten under our skin. His traces can be found in us. There is more life, power, goodness, passion and love in us than others suspect. Most of the time, there is more God in us than we even suspect.
This God is in us. He cannot be taken out of us, beaten out of us or preached out of us.
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me.
These are quite different tones, but they make for a much more beautiful sound. This is what life in God sounds like.
If you listen to any one voice during this Advent season, then hopefully it is this one.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 13th, 2020
»They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. «
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God.”
Is 35, 1-4
These words were spoken to a people in exile - today they are spoken to us!
We know desert places and desert times. Sometimes we think we can no longer get through. Where is there a perspective? Will our strength suffice? It threatens to dry up and all stability is gone.
We somehow hold on with increasingly weak hands and feeble knees.
We need images in order to survive.
We need images of hope.
We need images of life.
Where do they come from? Who tells us about them?
Who paints them in our hearts?
Laughing, even rejoicing, flourishing - unimaginable! As unimaginable as for the Israelites in the Babylonian exile!
But - just for today – let us let go of our misgivings, our negative perspective, our self-made limitations. Let us allow ourselves be drawn into the images: a land with green trees and people who can live from their yield; the Carmel Mountains with their cedars and vineyards; the magnificent, fertile plain of Sharon, then as now the image of fertility in Israel. All this exists, even today, because people had visions and took action for them: they planted trees and vines, they created gardens and plantations.
They believed the images and possibilities more than the appearance of the arid, dry land.
And we? We should not be fainthearted and unimaginative in hoping that everything will be as it once was after the crisis. Let us allow Isaiah to tempt us to greater things. Let us dream how we could live better, draw from greater depths and shape things in a completely new way.
That one day it may also be said of us: »They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.« (Is 35, 10)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, December 11th, 2020
What does waiting do to me?
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Isaiah 2, 1-5
With this text (and quite deliberately in this Advent season of the pandemic) a question is put to us. What does waiting do to me? Because waiting can have very different effects in and on us humans.
How do I deal with waiting? Do I take the time of waiting to nourish the passion within me, to nurture, to challenge and encourage that burning drive within me that says
»Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths« ?
This is the reaction of the waiting people of Israel to the vision of Isaiah. For it is written:
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
The question remains: Is that our reaction? Do we feel like scaling mountains to encounter what we have seen? Do we feel like going to the house where we can live? Do we want to learn new ways? Do we want to wager new steps? Or does waiting seduce us into comfort, listlessness and disinterest?
Isaiah calls upon us to wait for something completely different, something greater. Otherwise we will only expect small solutions to small problems.
What do we expect at the end of all days? Or what do we expect after this pandemic?
- Something elevated? (The house at the top of the mountain)
- A deep-seated reliability? (The house firmly established)
- Breadth of vision? (The house towering over all the hills)
- Great movement? (All nations flock)
- A new setting forth? (Many nations make pilgrimage)
- A disarming peace? (Where swords are forged into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks)
- A new lifestyle? (Where the art of war is no longer taught)
None of this has to happen. We can also just wait for the pizza to arrive. We can wait for the end of the day. We can wait for retirement, for the end of the pandemic or for the next holiday.
Thus, the question: What does waiting do to me? Hopefully, it will awaken in all of us an expectation and a vision that is greater than the mere restoration of what we previously had.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 9th, 2020
How to be alone
In the long drawn-out days of the pandemic, much has been said and written about the impact that isolation and social distancing is having on people. Loneliness grows, there is a sense of being cut off from the relationships that are meaningful, or of being forgotten, cast aside or neglected. Some fall into depression, others withdraw in resignation and yet others enter into smouldering resentment.
The focus has been primarily on how to overcome the ill effects of isolation. Yet, there is one art, one craft of the human heart, which has been utterly ignored in the groundswell of advice. We could learn how to be alone, to be, what Robert Ellsberg calls »Masters of Isolation«.
The gifted poet and theologian Padraig O’Tuama has written a beautiful poem called »How to be alone«. On this Advent day I do more than invite you to read it. Let his words be balm for the lonely places of your heart, and soul and sinew. Let them swirl about you and through you like the current of the Jordan River, and let that current carry away everything that you are willing to release in order to live more lightly when you are alone.
It all begins with knowing
nothing lasts forever.
So you might as well start packing now.
But, in the meantime,
practice being alive.
There will be a party
where you’ll feel like
nobody’s paying you attention.
And there will be a party
where attention’s all you’ll get.
What you need to do
is know how to talk to
yourself
between these parties.
And,
again,
there will be a day,
— a decade —
where you won’t
fit in with your body
even though you’re in
the only body you’re in.
You need to control
your habit of forgetting
to breathe.
Remember when you were younger
and you practiced kissing on your arm?
You were on to something then.
Sometimes harm knows its own healing
comfort its own intelligence.
Kindness too.
It needs no reason.
There is a you
telling you a story of you.
Listen to her.
Where do you feel
anxiety in your body?
The chest? The fist? The dream before waking?
The head that feels like it’s at the top of the swing
or the clutch of gut like falling
& falling & falling and falling
It knows something: you’re dying.
Try to stay alive.
For now, touch yourself.
I’m serious.
Touch your
self.
Take your hand
and place your hand
some place
upon your body.
And listen
to the community of madness
that
you are.
You are
such an
interesting conversation.
You belong
here.
Padraig O’Tuama
Erik Riechers SAC, December 7th, 2020
The humble beginning
2. Sunday of Advent B 2020 Mk 1, 1-8
Today's Gospel confronts us with the question of our readiness. Offers of new life, no matter how attractive they may be, are quite useless if there is no willingness to accept them. What will it take until we are ready to take the necessary paths of change?
Well, very often this readiness is made unnecessarily difficult for us. It is presented in images that are very romantic, but at the same time very dangerous. The people who are ready are those with glowing eyes and shining faces. They look courageously into the future and say a clear »yes« to the challenge that lies ahead. A little too much corniness and clearly too little a sense of the reality of faith.
The people who flock to John in the desert are of a different ilk. This story focuses strongly on their longing for the forgiveness of sin. Here the longing is described as widespread:
»And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.«
Some biblical commentaries see the fear of the coming end of the world at work here. People flock to John in the hope that he can save them from doom. But such a description of their motives makes their longing for the forgiveness of sins appear as insincere, a last desperate attempt to save themselves.
Such a readiness is not as noble as the people with glowing eyes marching without a doubt into the future. Even if it is not so beautiful, it is real and authentic. There is a readiness that flows from frustration and dissatisfaction. Sin means that we slip below our deepest personal standard, so that a disturbance arises in the relationship between us and God, between each other and also in the relationship to ourselves. From this arises a different image of the longing for forgiveness.
But it usually happens this way. One day people wake up and discover that they are living an unlived life, that there is no »life« in their lives. They no longer find passion and joy or meaning in what they do or in what they have become. They drag themselves through their everyday life and fulfil their duty, but in deep places of their soul, they know that something is wrong. Underneath the surface that they show to the outside world, they know that something is no longer right. Even if they continue to strive for money and status, the reward will not give up what has been promised.
This is the state of sin, because here we know that we have slipped below our deepest personal standard. We were not created for this. The river of life and love has dried up and we want to get out. The deepest longing for liberation only takes place when we realise that we are in prison.
These are the people who visited John in the desert. These people, the discontented and desperate, venture out of the cities and villages into the desert. They come to John with the burning hope that something can still change. That makes them ready. Hölderlin already knew: »Where the danger is, also grows the saving power.«
These people do not know in detail what has to happen, but they know the first step when they see it. Desperate women and men risk their future because their past has become unbearable. Inside they feel dead. They feel that they are dying by their own hand.
The first step is to strip, to cleanse and let go. The current of the Jordan will carry away everything they are able to release. But they cannot carry on as before.
This is the first step, but not the last one. This is exactly what John makes clear when he says:
»After me comes he who is mightier than I,
the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
I have baptized you with water,
but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.«
One will come who is even stronger, who has even more power. From him will flow the Spirit for a new life in all of us, if we heed his wisdom. We must apply this wisdom to our daily lives and integrate it into every aspect of our living. Here are at the edge of great leap, and we arrive here ready, open, able and willing.
This is the first step, but not the last one. As Winston Churchill so fittingly stated it in his speech at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, in London on November 10th, 1942: »Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.«
We can say this of the whole of the Advent season and of the long road to conversion: These days are not the end. They are not even the beginning of the end. But they are, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Erik Riechers SAC, Dezember 6th, 2020
»God has visited his people«
In these weeks, life during the pandemic is getting tougher for many. The shaping of the Advent time with many familiar external means is largely omitted - what remains is often emptiness, restlessness, sometimes rebellion and much frustration.
For me, it is all the more important what an old Levite, who was condemned to silence for months, once said in view of the birth of his son: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel! For he has visited his people and brought them salvation". (Luke 1:68) While his aged wife Elizabeth carried the child, which was so unexpected, he was mute - and this time was fruitful for him. Many things matured in the silence; he went into the depths. And when the child, "John is his name", was born, he could speak out loud what he had found: God had visited his people and he had created salvation for them.
The old Levite Zacharias had experienced, that God works, that we can let things happen, because salvation is already created. God has already come and visited his people.
What we supposedly need for the proper Advent mood usually distracts us so much that we do not even notice this message. That is why I am thankful even for the silence of these weeks.
What Dietrich Bonhoeffer brought into prayer in dark times and existential need, can it not be in us as well?
In me there is darkness,
But with You there is light;
I am lonely, but You do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart,
but with You there is help;
I am restless,
but with You there is peace.
In me there is bitterness,
but with You there is patience;
I do not understand Your ways,
But You know the way for me.
God has created salvation for his people. He is here. Let us allow him to work in us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, December 4th, 2020
What needs to change?
During the Advent season we often hear a passage from the Gospel of Luke.
Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation. (Luke 3, 4-6)
What do we hear when we listen to this text? Mostly we hear a message that tells us: You have to change. We hear messages like »Pull yourself together«, »Improve yourself«. We are convinced that this is about us getting our lives in order.
The narrative itself says something else. For a start, we are not the ones who have to change. But we automatically assume this, because this is our inherited interpretation.
But this story tells us that something else must first change. The paths must be changed, because they should be straightened. The valleys have to be filled up and the mountains and hills have to be cleared away. Crooked roads have to be straightened, and rough paths smoothed out.
When the astonishment subsides, because we neither heard nor expected this, we notice a deep insight of our God concerning the transformation of His people. The conditions and circumstances around us human beings must be changed so that the Lord has a way to us. The situations in which we find ourselves must change so that the tenderness of our God can reach us. These things have to change so that the gentle voice of God can reach us, saying, "You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.”
Everything that stands between us and God must change so that we can hear and accept what God actually wants from us: »Come dance with me!« If we also want to change, if we want to be transformed, how can we do that when the tenderness and loving words that could transform us cannot reach us? If we are too blocked, too cut off, or perhaps smothered under duress, how should the word that comforts and frees us be able to touch us?
Of course, we should take repentance seriously during these Advent days, but it is not so straightforward a proposition as we often make it out to be. Very often we have reduced repentance to an act of the will, an act of self-discipline. But repentance is first of all an act of response to an encounter with a loving and merciful God. To take repentance seriously means taking seriously what such a process requires. Often we want people to change and improve, but we do not realise what is stopping them. The same is true of ourselves, when we are annoyed that we seemingly cannot manage a change for the better. For ourselves and for others, very often a way has to be prepared before the Lord can come to us. Once we meet Jesus in a living encounter we can be moved to an intimate encounter with our Abba. After that, all things are possible.
Erik Riechers SAC, December 2nd, 2020
If the prophets broke in
There are few people better suited to guide us into and through Advent than the prophets. Today Nelly Sachs leads us to these wonderful companions on our journey without hiding the fact, that they are also the most demanding companions of this journey.
If the prophets broke in
through doors of night,
letting the star-trails drawn in the palms of their hands
gleam golden bright –
for those long sunk in sleep –
If the prophets broke in
through doors of night
gashing wounds with their words
in the fields of habit
bringing the faraway inside
to the day labourer
whose evening expectations died long ago –
If the prophets broke in
through doors of night
seeking an ear like a homestead –
you ear of humanity
overgrown with cotton,
would you hear?
If the prophets
burst in on the stormy wings of eternity
if they broke into the canals of your ear with the words:
Which of you will wage war against a secret,
who will invent stardeath?
If the prophets rose up
in the night of humanity
like lovers seeking the heart of the beloved,
night of humanity.
would you have a heart to give?
Nelly Sachs (translation by Sommer, Catterel and Catherine)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, Erik Riechers SAC, November 30th, 2020
Words that do not pass away
1. Sunday of Advent B 2020 Mk 13, 24-37
The first text of this Advent season can be very unsettling. The whole world is changing. Everything that is considered reliable suddenly starts to totter. The sun does not shine, the moon no longer illuminates our nights. Stars, the immortal inhabitants of the sky, are driven away.
We are so busy with this part of the story that we then ignore two wonderfully comforting passages.
From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.
and
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Allow me to turn our attention to the first sentence. »From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.« Here Jesus teaches us how to recognise God in our lives, even in times of turbulence. For us human beings, the invisible God can be experienced in the same way as the fig tree experiences the invisible summer: through transformation. John Shea writes: »No one has seen summer, yet its presence is proclaimed by the budding tree. No one has seen God, yet his presence is proclaimed by the transformed person.« (Stories of God p. 165). We will experience God and be transformed by his presence, just as a tree is transformed by the summer.
Transformation, however, is about movement. We can always recognise change by this criterion, namely that something is in motion. Mostly it is gradual and often barely noticeable. But that is not the point of the change that God wants to bring about in us. It is not about speed, but about continuity. It is not about being ready, but about unfolding. It is not about immediate success, but about receptivity. The question of transformation is the question of Advent. And the question is not: Are you there yet? No, the question is: Are you already on your way?
Transformation is always about movement, a movement from disaster to salvation. Because people often ask me for some helpful clues about this summer-transformation of our God, I give to you what I have sketched out for my students. The transformation movements in which we recognise God go
from non-salvation to salvation;
from non-wholeness to wholeness;
from apathy to love and empathy;
from fear to freedom;
from loneliness to community;
from the diabolical ( that which mixes things up) to peace;
from the ordinary to the extraordinary;
from boredom to celebration;
from barrenness to blossom;
from having no wedding garment to wearing a wedding garment (the biblical image for the readiness to do what this hour requires of us).
If we look again and again in this Advent season at where and when this happens in our lives, we will clearly feel where God is at work in us, like summer in a fig tree.
Then comes the second comforting sentence:
Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.
What are these words that will not pass away? These are the words of love, hope and encouragement that bring about the summer-transformation of our God. They are not the analytical words that explain love, but narrative words. The narratives of God speak immortal words about the places, times and people who embodied and revealed love for us. These stories of God are transforming. They enable us to experience the presence of God and in this presence they transform us like a tree is transformed by the presence of summer.
Today's text describes a period of uncertainty. Everything seems to fall apart. There seems to be no more reliable ground. What can a person do against so much hatred and stupidity in the world? Should we be vigilant? Yes. Should we be prepared? Of course! Should we be cautious? Without question! But we also should keep to the eternal word, which is always love, the source of our courage and the source of our hope. This word can be the thing we hope for when we are in turmoil.
During this Advent season many of us are living in times of trial. There are fears about money, fears about stress, there are fears about addictions and diseases. Some worry about their children, others about their parents. And it is precisely at this time of year that the old stories of our lives rise up more frequently. The sun and the moon do not have to fade in order that we feel that our wold is shaken to its foundations. Maybe we live with grief, or we worry about a job or a personal injury, whether public or private. In all these cases, be prepared, be vigilant, be wise, but also hold on to the word that is always love. It alone can transform us.
Erik Riechers SAC, November 29th, 2020
A new view
It is now almost 20 years ago that I first encountered the clarinettist Giora Feidman. It was on a late summer Sunday afternoon in front of Engers Castle.
Like many others I was there very early. I found a good spot; many people went for a walk, some bought themselves something to drink - it was relaxing and nice to have time. Not far ahead of me a family with two grown-up daughters settled down. The two of them were constantly in animated conversation with their mother. The already older father seemed rather remote. He did not take part in the women's conversations or they did not involve him. He repeatedly got up and came back with a glass of beer. At some point I saw that the daughters cast rather embarrassed glances toward their father, but they did not speak to each other. This repeated itself several times.
Almost imperceptibly, clarinet music suddenly resounded delicately from the back, as is the custom with Giora Feidman at the beginning of a concert. The master slowly moved forward through the middle, gradually everyone became silent and the concert began. And soon he had arrived at the music I had come for: Klezmer music. With his instrument, the artist told stories - sometimes funny and cheerful, sometimes serious and melancholic - the whole range of life spread out before us, and it was so lively, so moving, that sometimes I would have loved to jump up and move to it.
Then my eyes fell on the daughters in front of me. They were a bit restless and kept looking to the left, toward their father. When he turned his head a little to the side, I saw it too: a stream of tears flowed through the deep furrows of his cheeks. He did not try to wipe them away or hide them. He just let them flow.
The young women kept looking at him and at each other, but now the look was different. They saw him with different eyes. No longer an embarrassed distancing - they were touched. They gave their mother a sign and she nodded. A devotion spread before me, a reverence for what Giora Feidman had made resound in this man.
I will never forget the tears in the deep furrows of those cheeks. But I will also never forget the change that had taken place in the women.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, November 27th, 2020
Love is here!
Not only have we felt restricted for months, we have also felt impoverished. We talk about loneliness and cold. But this is never the whole reality - not even now. Permit yourself to enter into some thoughts that show us another reality, a reality to which we »only« need to open ourselves:
»As more and more love is released into the world, a wonderful Healing is taking place. It is like balm poured into wounds, healing and making whole. Love starts within the individual. It starts in you, and it grows like a seed, bursting forth and revealing great beauty and wholeness. It is what is taking place now. Many souls feel that something is happening to them, but they are bewildered and do not realize what it is. They search without, hoping to find a clue which will show them what is taking place. Other souls feel a stirring but are afraid of what they feel, for it is new, it is strange and unknown, and they try to shut it down. Nothing will be able to stop this release of love. It is like the genie in the bottle; having been released, it cannot be put back again. It cannot be hidden or ignored. Gradually it will begin to reveal itself in everyone. It has come to stay.« *
Our God is love and love is in us. Let us surrender to it and let it flow through us: warming, attentive and creative, alive and growing.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, November 25th, 2020
* Eileen Caddy
A People Made for the Promised Land
»O, fly and never tire,
Fly and never tire,
Fly and never tire,
There’s a great camp-meeting in the Promised Land.«
This is part of the inscription which Barack Obama placed at the beginning of the first volume of his memoirs, fittingly entitled »A Promised Land«.
When I sat down and started reading the book I was struck by many things. The beauty of his use of language, the simple graciousness and warm humanity of the man all are a welcome treat. So is his astonishing honesty about his achievements and his failings. Here is a man with whom I would love drink a cup of coffee.
Yet, the deepest impression of the book thus far is the reason that I would also love to sit down and pray with Barack Obama. Here is a man cut from the cloth of genuine biblical hope.
What deeply inspires me is that he lived as the Psalmist has prayed: »But I will keep hope alive.« Psalm 71:14 . For four years he has had to watch as everything he worked for was attacked, rescinded or cancelled by his successor. Every single thing he had worked and struggled for was suddenly no longer important: his marked tone of compassion was replaced by self-aggrandizement; his measured and thoughtful response to crisis gave way impulsive narcissism; his consistent call for unity was abandoned for social division, racism and white supremacy; his innate kindness and basic human decency in the great social discourse was supplanted by Twitter polemic and alternative facts; the common good was tossed aside for personal enrichment, nepotism, and basest corruption. The country he led and so loved was plunged into darkest crisis, constitutionally, morally and physically.
I have known moments of despair and doubt in my life having endured far less devastating setbacks than these. Yet, here is a man who invokes the greatest image the biblical story has to tell, namely, that we are on the way to the Promised Land. What is desired, but not yet achieved, the place we yearn for, but have yet to reach, is not lost. We are on the way, even when we are wander through the desert years.
We have suffered disappointments and setbacks in this time of pandemic. We have experienced losses and sometimes we get the feeling, all these restrictions, lockdowns and measures may be in vain. But we are the children of the Promise and must keep hope alive even during the long stretches of the desert journey.
The Gospel Spiritual »The Gospel Train« (especially the stunning version sung by Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle *) always helps me to recalibrate my soul unto hope.
The Gospel train is coming
I hear it just at hand
I hear the car wheels a- moving
And a-rumbling through the land
Refrain: Get on board, little children
Get on board, little children
Get on board, little children
There's room for many-a-more
I hear the bell and whistle
She's coming round a curve
She's loosened all her steam and brakes
Straining every nerve
Refrain
The fare is cheap and all can go
The rich and poor are there
No second class on board this train
No difference in the fare.
Refrain
She's nearin' now the station
Oh, sinner, don't be vain
But come and get your ticket
And be ready for this train.
Refrain
So get on board. And keep hope alive until we enter that good and spacious land of the God who is our Promise Maker and Promise Keeper.
Erik Riechers SAC, November 23rd, 2020
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txWQZQbr_ag
Because it is just and right
Christ the King A 2020 Mt 25,31-46
The world in which kings move is usually very sharply divided between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, above and below. These criteria play a big and important role in the world of the powerful and the rich. But now Jesus introduces us to a king after his own heart. Immediately something strange happens when he comes.
Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
This king will undertake a separation. But not by the typical royal standard. He is a king, says Jesus, but he is a shepherd who separates sheep from goats.
The standard by which this shepherd-king separates them will be explained later in the story. He separates them according to the way they have treated him in the past. Not origin, possessions or majestic arbitrariness, plays the decisive role here, but something over which we ourselves exert great influence, namely our way of living before God and with each other.
If that is the yardstick, then there is a difficulty, because both groups admit that they never saw the king and therefore did not know that it was he whom they treated in this way.
Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?
The answer of the Shepherd-King is telling:
Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers or sisters, you did it to me.’
He who comes »in his glory and all his angels with him« and sits »on the throne of his glory« identifies fully with the least of among men and women. This glory is not what we think it is. For this Shepherd-King identifies himself with the opposite of all that we think is royal and majestic: Pain, suffering, being wounded, poor, lowly, disrespected: this is where he is present.
The righteous do not recognise him, but they do what is necessary, what is right. They do it because it is »just and right«. That is the key to this story, because the other group will also say: When have we ever seen you in these situations? »Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?«
However, they deal with the unrecognised shepherd king in different ways. The righteous say: »We have not seen you. We have seen this person in prison, and have simply done what was necessary. We saw this hungry person, and we just did what was right. We have seen this sick person ... and have done what love, goodness and humanity demanded of us.«
The second group says: »If we had known it was you, we would have been there immediately. If we had known it was the king, we would have done it all for him.« In other words, this second group acts according to a typical royal standard.
In a typical royal manner, they pass their judgement on the world. Not the shepherd-king of this parable, but the cursed ones divide the world into camps: the world in which they live separates rich and poor, powerful and powerless, above and below: the royal standard is their watchword. Their problem is that they are dealing with a king who does not adhere to it.
In the world of the second group, the rule is: we do such things for kings, for the rich, the powerful and the important, but not otherwise. They divide the world into those for whom it is worthwhile to work hard and those where it is not. Icy calculation is the issue. Their action is determined by cold calculation: who is important and who is not. They are not interested in the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick and the captives, but only in hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and captive kings.
The righteous are not calculating. Wherever people are suffering, they want to help, alleviate, and serve. They do not ask who deserves it and who does not. The true separation that is found in this text is in the way of thinking of the second group. They have divided the world into the significant and the insignificant. This is the world in which they live.
Here we encounter an old, deep truth of the biblical stories: It is not God who makes the great division. We create our own separations and then live in the world we have created.
Erik Riechers SAC, November 22nd, 2020
Of Warmth and being sheltered
Outside it is getting darker and colder; the pandemic is intensifying that November feeling for many people and indeed more people are shivering and feeling alone and lost.
Let us tell stories of warmth and shelter against this:
I see a newborn child in front of me, wrapped in a hand-knitted blanket made of wool. The wise midwife has sensitized the mother: This child comes from a protective warmth of a good 36° C into this much cooler world. The young mother now takes care day and night that her child is surrounded by warmth. The woollen cloth is always with her when she carries him around the house. She is driven by conscientious care and I think of the words of the prophet Isaiah: »Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?« (Is 49:15)
Motherly care is a divine care, the warming cover has something heavenly about it.
And I am wondering where I could give warmth but do not keep it in mind. How much cold there is in the world, because we don't even notice that we too could spread out »woollen blankets« and create a warm atmosphere. But we don't take them to hand, and no warm word comes over our lips.
Let us look again at the picture of the wrapped newborn. The warm blanket is not just laid over the baby, but he is enveloped, wrapped in it. The midwife also had a wise suggestion about this. This wrapping not only helps to keep the warmth in, but also to keep the baby completely by itself. It does not get »out of control« so easily when it becomes restless. It is also then safe and secure in the warming wrap. And when he is "in need", when he gets hungry, the mother is not far away.
We have long lived in a society of insecurity. Where do children find a shelter? They have no warm nest, no rituals that provide shelter - instead they are stuffed full with cold consumption. When, as young people, they then let the problems of our world and their future draw near, they protect themselves through indifference or develop almost panicky fears, because they have not experienced that they are allowed to take shelter, that there is warmth and security - in and despite it all.
Thus, the view of the warmly wrapped child invites me to remember my own sheltering - come what may. At the end, the prayer of the 2nd Psalm, after speaking honestly about the realities of the world, says: »Blessed are all who take refuge in him.«
May we, especially in these dark days, pause again and again and look for the one who gives us warmth and with whom we can find refuge - come what comes! For it is still true: »Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.« (Is 49, 15-16)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, November 20th, 2020
Living in Exile
I was recently approached by a young student who asked me if she could interview me for a school religion project. Although I am usually very reluctant to do such interviews, this one turned out to be a pleasant surprise. As soon as she began to ask her questions I was taken by her interest in the biblical stories. She did not simply ask me about my life, but very specifically about the role, importance and effect of the biblical stories in my personal life.
The question that most struck me was this one: »What is the hardest personal experience of your life that the biblical stories helped you to cope with?« If I was a little caught off guard by her question, she was most certainly stunned by my answer. »The biblical stories have taught me most about how to live in exile. Living in exile has been the hardest experience of life.«
Israel lives in exile for large parts of its story. Jacob lived 21 years in exile before he could go home. The Tora is rich in its storytelling tradition of teaching us how to treat those among us who are exiled, the foreigners and the strangers. Prophets wrote from exile. Psalmist sang from exile. And none of it is easy or comfortable.
The biblical stories have taught me that the experience of exile is an experience of accommodation. You learn to fit in, to speak a new language, follow new customs, and deal with utterly different perspectives and ways of thinking. The biblical stories to learn to make a contribution, to heed and respect the people and culture that has taken you in, to help build up the land and the life of its citizens. In this, Daniel and Mordechai became my friends and my companions.
At the same time, exile is a process of fidelity. The biblical stories have taught me to stay true to my heritage in the midst of a dominant culture. It has taught me the importance of standing by my deepest first loves and precious ways of life that have fostered, nourished and carried me. While living in exile, it is a constant struggle not to abandon, forget or neglect the precious heritage of our origins. That is particularly difficult in a place where no one else shares or understands that heritage. Thus; I learned to sing with the Psalmist: »If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.« (Ps. 137, 5-6)
In all the years I have lived in exile, I have learned most keenly a lesson deeply rooted in the biblical story: exile is a place of brokenness and incompleteness. Like all exiles of the Bible before me, I will never truly be fully accepted as part of the people and culture I find myself in. Exiles may be welcome guests, accepted and well treated, but at the deepest level they always remain outsiders, foreigners, »not from here«. My accent, the smirks at my repeated errors in the speaking of German, my cultural preferences and my often differing perspective often become reminders of my exile. I have lived and worked in this land for 15 years, but as soon as I differ from the dominant opinion it is immediately attributed to my being a foreigner.
The young student was deeply affected by my answer. Then she said: »You know, you don’t have to even leave your family or your homeland to feel like an exile. You just don’t have to fit in, and already you’re in exile!«
She is absolutely right. And to all those people who live in exile within their own families and cultures and homelands, I can highly recommend the three great lessons of the biblical stories:
Grow into the world of your exile and make a contribution. At the same time, remain faithful to your soul, to the most holy moments and convictions of your life. And learn to live within a broken and incomplete experience without letting it convince you that you are a broken and incomplete person.
The young student thanked me and ended the interview with a lovely compliment: »I don’t care what people think about the way you speak German. But I want to tell you, that you knew how to speak to my heart.« And that makes me feel at home while living in exile.
Erik Riechers SAC, November 18th, 2020
»A Picture is worth a Thousand Words«
We humans love pictures - ancient cave drawings already bear witness to this. In our time we seem to have become addicted to them. For a long time, only trained photographers were able to take and develop pictures. Most of us still remember sending holiday films to the lab and waiting anxiously for the finished photos. Today, almost everyone has their pictures in their pockets thanks to our smartphones. We often capture moments faster than we can take them into our hearts and share them with each other: views of peaks and sea surf, sunsets or exotic markets, fixed rope routes, beach pictures, especially many fall pictures of home in these quiet weeks - what have we not already collected in this way.
When we later take the time to immerse ourselves once again in our photographs - perhaps in an album - we often have the same experience that I describe from my own experience. When I look at photos from a very intensive trip to Israel years ago, for example, the picture shows me a certain situation at the time, but my inner eye sees more. I suddenly see the face of the Bedouin boy who was standing close by when I photographed the herd of goats. Or when I look at the group photo, behind the smiling faces I see one or the other sad story that I got to know during the common pilgrimage. I am glad about the memory pictures, they help me, but they do not show the whole reality.
Yes, pictures can even distort, colour and falsify reality.
Our whole world of social media is full of images that show how people want to be seen. Millions of young people are posting themselves on Facebook and Instagram and just as many are eagerly clicking through this flood of images, waiting for approval, being rated and judging others.
How do we deal with pictures? What can they do and what not? Do they really say more than 1000 words?
For a long time now we have been capturing striking moments of our lives with pictures. Have you ever looked for a photo for the obituary of a loved one? We would like to have a beautiful photo, but it should be honest and authentic, show these people how they were, express something typical about them. They should be seen as we knew and loved them. How much effort it takes to find such a picture, and in the end it is only an approximation.
Newborns are photographed a lot. Already on the second day professionals come to the clinic to take perfect pictures. At home, almost every hour, the parents experience moments that are so unique and new that they capture them and send them to their families and friends. This is very beautiful and delightful, and yet I am reminded of what a young mother said during this time: »"Now we have already taken so many pictures, but it is always only partial. No picture shows our child as it is. The picture is always just a miniature perspective - our child is much more!«
This thoughtful pause of the young woman leads me to the word of the Scriptures that we should not make an image of God, which we then worship as a cult image, and then attach it to God to make him tangible. (Dt. 5:8)
Should we not take this into consideration for images of human beings? For we hold pictures in our hands and have pictures in our heads and then pin people down to them. We saw a raised eyebrow and hold fast the image of an arrogant person. We perceived a tired face and categorise the person as old or dull or lacking in energy. We are impressed by a radiant face and believe that the whole life of this person is easy.
Yes, pictures are good, important and enriching. But let us not predetermine reality based on a picture that always shows only a moment, tells of an episode. Let us remain open and wide: behind every picture there is a much bigger story!
A human life is more than 1000 pictures.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, November 16th, 2020
Refusing to put a brave face on it
33th Sunday A 2020 Mt 25, 14–30
Today’s Gospel awakens automatic interpretations in us. We are used to interpreting this story as a warning against wasting our talents. In this interpretation we see the third servant as the scapegoat, as the one who acts wrongly, does not assess the situation correctly and therefore wastes the trust of his master and disappoints his expectations.
But as natural as this interpretation has become for us, it is powerfully flawed. This interpretation is based exclusively on our current understanding of the economy and the world. It ignores the world in which Jesus originally told this story. Equally important is that it ignores the life of the storyteller himself, namely the situation in which Jesus finds himself while he is telling the story.
We have read this story with the assumptions of modern economic theory. In our world, wealth is something that can, indeed should, be increased through work and investment. Even more, we admire such wealth and see it as legitimate and right. These are the assumptions that I have spent years bringing to the text. This was not surprising, because they are also the unquestioned assumptions of the world in which I have spent my whole life. Therein lies the problem. Not that I had my assumptions, but that I did not question them.
For Jesus and his listeners never lived in the world of my unquestioned assumptions. They lived in a society that was based on agriculture. In their world, wealth was not an unlimited possibility that could be increased and multiplied by hard work and wise investment. In their world, wealth was a limited commodity. There was only a certain amount of wealth distributed throughout the world. So if one person suddenly had more of it, it meant that another person automatically had less of it.
In the world of Jesus, the »gains« of the first two servants are due to the impoverishment of another person. We see this world view in the parable itself. It is repeated and escalated in the Master's answer in Vv28 and 29.
»So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.«
If I had just quoted this from the economic platform of a political party, would we accept it so casually?
The third servant says, »Here, you have what is yours.« He gives the Master what belongs to him, not what he has taken from others, so that the man who already has abundance is not given more.
We should not ignore the Master's suggestion either, for he is steeped in corruption and misconduct. »Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest.« The first two servants promptly played according to the rules set by their master and paid him back the money with interest. But usury was expressly forbidden to the people of Israel.
If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.
Exodus 22: 25
Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you.
You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit.
Levitikus 25: 36-37
You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest.
Deuteronomium 23:19.
All this gives us a very different perspective on the third servant. Instead of seeing him as a man lacking in initiative, one who wastes talents, we now see a man who is deeply afraid of his master's power politics. Despite this fear, he refuses to play the game. He will not become an accomplice to the machinations of his master. He is not willing to play along, because playing along means exploiting others to make a profit for oneself. Despite peer pressure (the other two servants are playing along) and despite the threat of punishment for not meeting his master's expectations, he does not give in.
Instead, he exposes the Master and his way of life as false and names the corruption of the powerful: »Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed,« Only thieves, corrupt people and exploiters reap what others have sown and gather the fruits of the labour of others. In reality, this servant speaks truth to power. He also suffers the consequences, as so often happens with whistleblowers. He reminds us that such an attitude can be costly.
The whole story reflects the attitude and situation of the narrator, Jesus. He does not play along either. He refuses to participate in a religious system that is corrupt and calls corruption by its name. And he is punished for it. If he had been willing to make common cause with the religious, political and social powers of his time, he would have had a much easier life and would certainly have been praised by these powers as a »good and faithful servant«.
The third servant is presented to us as an example of the attitude of Jesus. He can give us something to think about in connection with crises and our way of dealing with them.
He speaks to us of the need to bear witness to the underlying injustices and inequities in a system or situation, even if everyone else is willing to play along in the hope of gaining personal advantage. And he shows us how hard it is when this makes life difficult for us.
However, and perhaps more importantly, this story should make us more alert to the worldviews, assumptions and prejudices we carry within us. We bring them with us (often unconsciously) to this story and to all other life stories. My world and my experiences are not determinative for the whole world and every experience. A different perspective gives a different interpretation. And different understandings will challenge us to pay attention to our own assumptions and perspectives when we try to read a particular conflict situation.
We are facing the current crisis with many such assumptions. If economic stimulus packages are passed one by one; if small sports clubs are closed down in a lockdown while multi-millionaires are allowed to continue to earn football players; if some businesses are allowed to stay open while cultural events are cancelled altogether: then we see the assumption of a society: the main thing is that the economy is booming. Could or would our understanding of this crisis be different if we did not just look through our usual special lenses?
Are there other perspectives and interpretations of life and the crisis that might be worth trying and absorbing instead?
It is much easier to read the parable as a lesson about the use of our talents than a call to step out of systems that are inhuman and exploitative. But this parable begins with the words: »The Kingdom of Heaven is like...« We should ask ourselves, which interpretation better reflects the heartfelt concerns of Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven?
Erik Riechers SAC, November 15th, 2020
Thoughts
My head
is never empty.
Always
new thoughts come up.
They create
feelings,
unrest.
I feel
delivered up to them.
Often they drive me
into heaviness,
into darknesses.
Powerless I am drawn
into a whirlpool.
How do I
get out again?
Then I remember
an exercise that I had almost forgotten:
» Be a doorkeeper of your heart and do not let any thought in without questioning. Question each thought individually and say to it: 'Are you one of us or one of our enemies?' And if it belongs to the household, it will fill you with peace. But if he is of the enemy, he will confuse you by anger or excite you by lust. «
Thank you, Evagrius, desert father,
I will start practicing
again.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, November 13th, 2020
May his Memory be a Blessing
It was with great sadness that I received an email from London on Monday evening. It informed me of the death of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. He died on Saturday at the age of 72.
We became acquainted through the planning of a convention in which Narrative Theology was to serve as the platform by which Christian and Jewish believers entered into dialogue with one another. Our contact consisted of several phones calls and a number of email exchanges. I never had the privilege of meeting him face to face.
In our telephone conversations I was impressed by the sheer warmth and generosity of the man. He, in turn, was deeply appreciative of how we took the stories of God seriously. He particularly loved the fact of our deep appreciation of the Old Testament and how seriously we took them.
My fascination with this man led me to read more of his works. And there my fascination ripened into deeper respect and, eventually, reverence. The deep Jewish love for the Stories of God shone through him. He had a mastery of the technical side of biblical exegesis, but never assumed the cold, analytical tone of the exegete. His voice carried the warmth of the biblical storytellers.
Hear it for yourself. Here an excerpt from his article »A Nation of Storytellers«.
»The great questions – »Who are we?«, »Why are we here?«, »What is our task?«, – are best answered by telling a story. As Barbara Hardy put it: “We dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate, hope, despair, believe, doubt, plan, revise, criticise, construct, gossip, learn, hate and love by narrative. « This is fundamental to understanding why Torah is the kind of book it is: not a theological treatise or a metaphysical system but a series of interlinked stories extended over time, from Abraham and Sarah’s journey from Mesopotamia to Moses’ and the Israelites’ wanderings in the desert. Judaism is less about truth as system than about truth as story. And we are part of that story. That is what it is to be a Jew…By making the Israelites a nation of storytellers, Moses helped turn them into a people bound by collective responsibility – to one another, to the past and future, and to God. By framing a narrative that successive generations would make their own and teach to their children, Moses turned Jews into a nation of leaders.«
I mourn his death. The world is a colder place without him. And for me personally, it has become a lonelier place, for we live in a world in which the Stories of God are not often taken seriously. The loss of a storyteller of God is a grievous loss indeed.
Zichrono livracha. (May his memory be a blessing).
Erik Riechers SAC, November 11th, 2020
From lamentation to dance
Many years ago I experienced a woman, long widowed, who withdrew completely after the accidental death of her youngest son. From then on, her walk to the cemetery was part of her daily routine, she only opened up to her closest family, her formerly beloved piano playing and singing had fallen silent. She did not moan, but she often lamented and cried. And so it remained for a very long time. She avoided going to church on Sundays, because she was uncomfortable with all the people - especially on holidays. Instead, she preferred the manageable weekday services. Even on All Saints' Day or All Souls' Day she went alone to the grave in the morning, she never took part in the official blessing of the graves. In these years of her mourning I was impressed by how firmly and faithfully she remained in her relationship with God, despite it all, never opting out. She felt seen by him and also expressed her sorrow and sadness before him. She knew that she had nothing to hide from him. She did not work through her grief, as we often speak of »grief work« today. No, she lived through the grief. It belonged to her. And she took her time.
A few years later, her eldest married and this celebration filled her with joy. Indeed she enjoyed it, just as she enjoyed her first holiday trip in a long time. Then her grandchildren were born. How do they speak of their grandmother today as adults?
They tell stories of a cheerful woman who always entertained them with her stories and poems and with her singing! They remember that there was no domestic celebration that she had not embellished with her piano playing. A Christmas Eve without their grandmother's »Christmas angel« at the piano was unimaginable long into her old age. She could take the worries of her growing grandchildren seriously and then gently guide them into lightness of being. And she was able to rejoice from the bottom of her heart, enjoying a meal together just as much as an excursion or her classical music in the afternoon.
Her life became a testimony for the verse of the psalm:
»You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!«
(Ps 30, 12-13)
The older she got, the more grateful she became. She never denied the heaviness in her life, but also not the beauty and happiness. It all belonged to her and she had gone through everything with her God.
She remains a great example for her grandchildren and they keep her last words to them in their hearts: »I would still like to stay with you.«
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, November 9th, 2020
Don’t forget the Oil
32nd Sunday A 2020 Mt 25, 1–13
In 1985 Neil Postman wrote a fascinating book entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death. In it he wrote:
»When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.« (p. 190)
»The kingdom of heaven will be like this.« When a parable begins in this fashion, we should not lose sight of what Jesus is focusing our hearts on. The kingdom of heaven always consists of two parts: the inner consciousness linked to an external action. This kingdom of heaven, the inner consciousness linked to an external action, is incarnated in Jesus. He offers it to us, his apprentices.
The turning point in the parable comes at this point:
But at midnight there was a cry,
»The bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him.«
At this, all those bridesmaids woke up and trimmed their lamps,
and the foolish ones said to the sensible ones,
»Give us some of your oil: our lamps are going out.«
But they replied,
»There may not be enough for us and for you;
you had better go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves.«
All ten women have been waiting for this moment. Now it is time for the lamps to give light. But the lamps can only shine if they have oil. The foolish have no oil and ask to borrow some. The wise refuse for seemingly foolish reasons. They seem to care for themselves rather than share with those in need. Instead, they suggest to the foolish, »go ...and buy«. In this brief and enigmatic exchange, the foolish show their stupidity and the wise show their wisdom.
The truth of the oil in this story is: everyone must have their own oil. The lamp is a metaphor for the inner life of human beings. Every person has a lamp of inner life. The oil is the symbol of that, which must fill the inner life of a person if it is to have a radiant, luminous effect on the outside world at some point.
Each person must supply this oil from his or her own life. The inner life of a person is like a lamp that has to be filled. But with what? These are the oil questions of the inner life: With which resources do I fill my soul? What do I read? What do I occupy myself with? With which topics do I wrestle? What do I absorb within myself? What am I open and receptive to? You cannot develop spiritually by accepting someone else's inner life and actions as your own. Every person needs oil for himself or herself. The path of each person is unique, each lamp produces its own wattage.
The foolish do not know this path of individual maturation to become a new person in God. They know only the way of going and buying, of seeking what they need outside themselves. »Going and buying« is an image for an inner life that is directed and focused outwards. And this strategy of »going and buying« is deeply rooted in people who live from the outside to the inside. They believe that if the outer world is in order, then the inner world will be satisfied.
In the first story of the feeding of the multitudes in the Gospel of Mark (6, 30-44), the disciples tell Jesus to send the crowds away so that they can »go and buy themselves something to eat!«. (v. 36) When Jesus tells them to provide food, the disciples say: »Shall we go and buy bread for two hundred denarii and give it to them to eat?« (v. 37) Jesus points out to them their own inner resources: »How many loaves of bread do you have? Go and see!« (v.38). But they insist that the only place where they can find food is outside themselves.
While Jesus gives the Samaritan woman to drink, the Gospel of John tells us that the disciples had »gone into the city to buy something to eat« (John 4:8). The foolish have no means of their own and are therefore addicted to going somewhere else for their livelihood. They cannot imagine any other way.
The parable shows us that there are some things that simply cannot be done or achieved at the last minute - for example, you cannot condense three months of study to the evening before an exam and expect to get a good grade. Some things require advance planning, preparation or practice if we want to use or apply them successfully in the hour when we need them urgently. If we did not take care of a deep and supporting inner life before the crisis, it will not be available to us in a time of crisis like this. This is what lamps without oil look like.
Secondly, the parable underlines that not everything can simply be borrowed from someone else when we need it. Things that can determine and guide our response to others in a positive way in this long and tiring time - generosity, kindness, grace, solidarity and helpfulness, a sense of the common good, etc. - must be things that we possess for ourselves, things that come from our own embodied, existential experiences with God and the world. We must continuously cultivate attitudes and habits such as hospitality and generosity that enable and support constructive and creative reactions when we find ourselves in situations of conflict and crisis.
What happens otherwise is that we never find the oil in our lives that can touch the deepest innermost part of ourselves and others. Given the power of our culture, we can go on like this for years until something in our life breaks: then the death of a loved one occurs; a relationship breaks and perhaps our heart as well; a diagnosis is pronounced with the word »incurable«. At some point, a crisis comes along that is strong enough to suddenly empty all the stimulation and entertainment in the world. Then we are forced to look into our own depths, and that can be a frightening abyss if we have avoided following it for years. It is always a shock when lamps have no oil, because then we do not have what we need to break the darkness with light.
The poet Rumi once wrote: »I have lived too long where I can be reached!« If we do that, we end up as the people who still have the lamps with them, but no oil: not bad, just busy; not immoral, just distracted; not soulless, just preoccupied; not profoundly contemptuous, just without practice.
Dear sisters and brothers, when the groom arrives, or the crisis, it is not the best time to start practising.
Erik Riechers SAC, November 8th, 2020
What we do not need at the moment
Many years ago, when I was still a student of theology, I had the opportunity and the privilege of attending a lecture series on Liberation Theology. The guest speaker was none other than Gustavo Gutiérrez, a man often described as the father of liberation theology.
The entire series of lectures was very daunting, because this very soft spoken man never once let up in his honest, brutally frank assessment of the problems that theology faces when it seeks the liberation of the poor. At one point he remarked that he often encountered a great enthusiasm for the theology of liberation until the moment came, when one had to face the existential issues from which people needed to be liberated.
But he did not spare us. He described scenes of stomach churning violence against the poor when they dared to seek a liberation from oppression and a betterment of their situation. He told us tales of poverty that shook us to the marrow of our bones. But he also told the tales of the oppressors, of the greed that drives them to sacrifice human beings for a little more profit, of the suppression of the most basic rights of human beings to keep the poor in line through fear and intimidation, and of the human rights violations as common in some places as traffic violations in our countries.
One of the participants in the lecture series was particularly and deeply affected by the stories and the storyteller. On the last day there was a question and answer hour in which anyone who so wished could ask Gustavo Gutiérrez a question. This young man, inflamed and enthused by Gustavo Gutiérrez’s words, rose, went to the microphone, but he did not ask a question. Instead he made a statement. It went something like this:
»Every word you spoke was brilliant and seared my soul. Now my heart is burning with the desire to help. I want to come to Peru, I want to be part of a theology that liberates. I am heartily sick of living here in Canada, of the whole decadence of the West. I have had it with all the consumerism and the luxury and society that cares about nothing else. I cannot stand to live here any longer, in a world where egotism is king.« His statement was considerably longer than the words I remember, and as it continued, it back more and more a tirade against the land in which he lived and his fellow citizens. The tone got ever sharper and fury, frustration, resentment and anger became the central themes of this words. When he was finally done, he simply said that he would come to Peru and live with the poor.
The room was stiflingly silent. Many found the moment awkward, others felt personally attacked by his comments and still others felt helpless in the face of so much anger. All of us, faculty as well as students, were at a loss for words.
But not Gustavo Gutiérrez. In the same soft spoken voice he gave his answer, which I give to the best of my recollection. »This is about the Kingdom of God. If you wish to come to Peru, because you love the poor and because you love the Kingdom of God, then you are heartily welcome. But if you would like to come with a bellyful of rage, frustration, anger and hatred against your own country and its people, then stay at home. We already have more than enough rage, frustration, anger and hatred of our own.«
We would do well to heed these words in this time of Pandemic. Rage, frustration, anger and hatred will not lead us to the Kingdom of God, and thus, they cannot lead us to the solutions, healing and life we crave.
Erik Riechers SAC, November 6th , 2020
Light in dark times: Lantern windows
During these weeks a small movement has been created and is spreading especially among families and in kindergartens: the action »Lantern Window«: »Hereby you hang one or more lanterns in a window that is best facing the street and make them shine with light bulbs or LED tea lights. Then evening strollers, young and old, can marvel at the fantastic lanterns. Since the St. Martin's procession is unfortunately cancelled in some towns this year, this is a nice alternative, especially for children, to go for a walk with their handmade lanterns and admire the illuminated lanterns in the windows. In the spirit of St. Martin, we want to give hope with the help of the lanterns, in these difficult times.«
When I read this in our local paper, I immediately felt like making a lantern again after many years and putting it in the window as a sign – others will follow. The reactions of my daughters in Stuttgart and Canada were similar and they remembered many lanterns they had made as children.
In fact, in this year during these weeks that by nature grow increasingly dark, for many the days have grown darker still; existentially threatening, emotionally difficult, socially poor in some circumstances - all a potential breeding ground for frustration and emptiness, for sadness and even depression.
To rise up against this, igniting lights and making them visible was already our thought on Monday: »Enkindling a light is not particularly difficult, but keeping a light alive is a skillful and challenging task, even an art form. We see this as the imperative of this hour. We must protect the flame of hope from every headwind of passivity, indifference, lack of perspective or even despair that blows towards us.«
I am also occupied with the topic of making lanterns. Almost every kindergarten and primary school child loves to choose a lantern motif and then get involved. How proudly the finished lantern is later shown and (usually) with what joy it is carried through the dark streets! The effect of the light is embellished and enhanced by a variety of colours and shapes. All this is also possible this year - even without the official St. Martin’s procession! And maybe it is even more necessary than ever!
That is why I love the action »Lantern Windows«. Thus, how about creating an adult version of this action? We invite you to do so: Wherever you see a beautiful lantern these days, take a photo and send it to us. We will post it on Twitter, accompanied by a »light-filled« quote.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, November 4th, 2020
Breath for the long march
»The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.«
We placed this song from Tolkien's book The Hobbit over the Well Spring Days of last year. There we repeatedly spoke of the breath needed for the long march. A new lockdown begins today in Germany. In many variations and forms similar things are happening elsewhere in the world. We ourselves have noticed that we need a much longer breath than we thought we would in the spring. We feel how this lockdown is weighing on us, something we did not feel at the beginning of the crisis. Our inner reactions to both political decisions and irrational behaviour within society have a different quality than at the beginning of the pandemic.
Although the crisis has been going on for a very long time, we must now be very careful not to fall into a trap. It is very easy to get the feeling that we are starting all over again. »Oh no, not again!« And there is a danger in that, because although this second lockdown reminds us of last March, the subject has changed. Seven months ago the main topic was how to get through this crisis. But now there is an additional theme, namely how can we keep hope alive until we get through this crisis?
When we sat together and thought about what we would like to write to you today, there were two impulses in us. First, we would like to repeat and renew our initial encouragement to you today. In our very first column of the series »May you be sheltered« we wrote on March 21rst, 2020:
»In some people there is the dominant impulse of »every man or woman for him or herself« and »save yourself if you can«. As people of faith and the People of God we must set a sign against this mentality. »May you be sheltered!« should be our call in this time. Let us protect and keep one another. That is what this column wishes to serve.«
We can repeat this today at the beginning of a second lockdown. We are tired, but not discouraged.
The second impulse came from a photo that Erik brought back from Brakel. There is a lantern house next to a statue of the Mother of God and Child. In this photo we also see an image of the way forward in the coming weeks.
It was built to protect the burning light. Many external elements, like wind and rain, try to extinguish the light. Enkindling a light is not particularly difficult, but keeping a light alive is a skillful and challenging task, even an art form. We see this as the imperative of this hour. We must protect the flame of hope from every headwind of passivity, indifference, lack of perspective or even despair that blows towards us.
What Rosemarie particularly noticed and liked while looking at the picture was the height of the lantern house. If we are to protect the light inside us, it will not be by hiding it. »Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.« (Mt 5, 15) This lantern house stands high and increases the light, making it visible. We see this, too, as an opportunity and a sacred task for this time. What burns within us in the lusty desire for love, life and faith, we must hold high. It is not a question of putting it away or hiding it. We lift our light even higher. It should also have something defiant, even challenging about it. We not only defy darkness, but also wind and rain.
The third thing we want to take away from the photo and share with you is the fact that the lantern house must not be airtight, otherwise the protection of the house will suffocate the very flame that it is to protect. What we build together as companions of faith is a house of light that breathes. We must nurture the light of belonging despite all distance. The culture of conversation must not be interrupted, because we wear masks but not muzzles. And even if this crisis is very demanding, we must not forget that there are still many important issues that must not be stifled by an over-fixation on Corona.
The pilgrims on the Camino called out to each other »Ultreja«. It means as much as »onward, forward!« In this manner, the pilgrims cheered themselves on with a word that gave them courage.
We consciously and encouragingly call out to you: »May you be sheltered«.
Vallendar, November 2nd, 2020
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
Erik Riechers SAC
Socially distancing ourselves from holiness
All Saints 2020 Mt 5, 1–12a
When I read Rosemarie's reflection last Friday, one paragraph awakened a strong memory in me. »We should not place saints on a pedestal and move them to an unreachable, at most admirable, distance. Their lives were human like our own and they were children of their time, just as we are the children of our time. They can become our companions when we look at the sources from which they lived, how they were called and how they lived their lives with their God and ours.«
I thought back to an All Saints Day 25 years ago. Then the celebrant started the celebration with the sentence: »Welcome to the Day of Distancing«. Long before Corona forced to practice social distancing, we have practiced it with the saints. When we »place saints on a pedestal and move them to an unreachable, at most admirable, distance«, we distance ourselves from them.
The real question of the day is: what do the Beatitudes have to do with the communion of saints? They describe the culture that sanctifies a community. That is, blessed are those who do not use violence in and for the community. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice for themselves and others. Blessed are those who act in mercy and live in peace and are even willing to suffer for the just cause
But the Beatitudes also have another important function: they show our naivety about our own attitude if we want to challenge the world to more justice and peace.
What is this naivety? It is that we think we can act unjustly, violently and mercilessly for the sake of the holy cause. This naivety can be summed up in four errors which too often permeate and desecrate our community.
- »The urgency of my cause is so great that in this case it is all right to exclude the normal laws that govern public discourse. Therefore I can be disrespectful, arrogant and ugly to those who oppose me.« (Spokesman for George Bush)
- »I judge success and failure on the basis of measurable political performance. I am less interested in a Kingdom of God in the long run than in short-term political and social gain.« (US theologian from the peace movement)
- »I may exaggerate and distort the facts a little in order to make the concerns of justice clearer, but the situation is so appalling that I do not need to be very conscientious about the exact truth.«
- »I am a victim and therefore outside the rules!«
Here we encounter the painful truth of this feast day.
Unfortunately, we are again and again ready to use the language of love and justice to justify hatred and injustice. We claim that we are being forthright, even though we are actually only tactless. We claim that we speak »clear« words, but I wonder when the word »clarity« became synonymous with »hurtful«.
This attitude (the willingness to suspend the beatitudes for a holy cause) is the reason why our relationships, families, our society and our communities are not more salutary.
No matter how much we commit ourselves to a good cause, no matter how sacred it is and may be to us, the moment we ignore the attitude of the Beatitudes, every good thing becomes an ideology.
When we use violence, be it physical, moral or psychological, when self-righteousness rather than justice is our hunger and thirst, when winning is more important than mercy, when we are no longer prepared to endure tensions so that all lives can be saved, but only want a solution in our favour so that we are well provided for, then neither the community nor its cause is sacred any longer.
Unfortunately, our actions, for their part, often imitate the very violence, injustice, hardship and selfishness that they seek to challenge.
There is far too much talk of moral indignation: But it very often leads to a replica of the behaviour that caused the indignation. Indeed, moral indignation is ambiguous: the more indignant it is, the less likely it is to contribute to a real moral improvement.
Righteous indignation is also such a dictum. (I need to vent my anger or my frustration). Righteous indignation is often the first sign of the metastatic cancer of violence. It tends to give the indignant ones permission to do or to approve of things that are structurally indistinguishable from those that caused the indignation.
Unfortunately, this is more often than not the case in our struggle for the salutary and just community of Jesus, even when it is conducted under a Christian banner.
On this day we celebrate all those who have lived holy and salvific lives. It is these people who are our role models, because they point out to us that we have to be different from the selfishness, aggression and injustice that we are trying to change.
And they rebuke us. Every time we deviate from the Beatitudes' way of life, and want to justify it with religious motives, then they say to us: Call it by name, or call it what you want, but do not call it holy. The saints are very sensitive about this. Because them, this is character assassination.
Erik Riechers SAC, November 1st , 2020
Holy Companions
Someone complained these days that he is increasingly caught up in the maelstrom of the numbers: compulsively he has to inform himself daily about the new status of Covid-infected people and more and more he notices how this makes him feel worse and worse and he is gradually feels like a der caught in the headlights. This means that he is slowly succumbing to paralysis.
This is understandable and often a consequence of the nature of the news and the way we listen to it. But to react and live like this is beneath our dignity. If we immerse ourselves in the stories and songs of the Bible, then it resounds to us from every place that we are created in the image and likeness of God, with the mandate and the abilities to fashion our lives.
In Psalm 8 David sings: »What are mortals that you are mindful of them, and human children that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned then with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet.« So we can and should shape what is given to us. For many months the Sars-Covid-19 virus has been part of our lives and the way we deal with it increasingly restricts our freedom.
Whereby shall we orientate ourselves? Where can we find role models? What carries us and lets us walk upright even now?
I grew up with people who lived with the saints. If they were at a loss at certain junctures of their lives, they would turn to a particular saint in their prayers. They were not people who just laid their hands in their laps; they did what they could, but I remember their deep confidence that the saint would help and support their need.
We should place saints on a pedestal and move them to an unreachable, at most admirable, distance. Their lives were human like our own and they were children of their time, just as we are the children of our time. They can become our companions when we look at the sources from which they lived, how they were called and how they lived their lives with their God and ours.
Perhaps they can help us come to clarity about what really matters, to patience in order to endure lean times, to inner freedom and a new state of my life and vocation.
Perhaps this is precisely the time in which we are called upon to creatively encounter people who have lost themselves and see no value in their lives, now that so much is falling away.
In this way we could also become companions of authentic life for others.
For many of us Willi Bruners is such a companion of our time, who can lead us into the depths with his inimitable language. Thus, in these days before All Saints, I like to read his »Revelation« of ourselves:
Revelation
when I ceased
admiring, envying
the others
the angel opened
my eyes
and showed me my mystery:
the king’s child
I hardly recognized it
again
I had fought too long
against myelf
wilhelm bruners
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, October 30th, 2020
Small Beginnings and Mighty Shelters
»What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.«
Lk 13, 18-19
Whenever we hear the parables of the Kingdom, it is easy to skirt the surface and ignore the apparently insignificant details. Thus, in this instance, we dive straight into the heart of the parable and say that the small beginnings of the Kingdom (be they as tiny as mustard seeds) will eventually develop their fullest potential until they are grow into realities as large as trees.
The seemingly insignificant detail we brush aside is the remark about the birds. They will come and nest in that tree, find home, rest, and refuge within its branches. A whole new dimension opens itself up those who seek the Kingdom. All parables of the Kingdom invite to an experience of God. The Kingdom is the experience of God’s loving action unfolding in the world we live in. Parables tell us how we will encounter it, where to look for it, and the characteristics for which we should keep an eye out in order not to miss it.
That is why details count. The in-breaking of God’s love in our world, the Kingdom, will indeed start small. Like the tree growing from a mustard seed, it most certainly will grow larger, take up more space and become ever more apparent and harder to overlook. But for us, like for the birds, this moving, flowing, unfolding divine love will also become a place of mighty shelter. That is one of the characteristics by which we can detect the growth of the Kingdom. Wherever mighty shelter develops out of small, simple beginnings, there the Kingdom of God is on the move.
In the beginning, before planting, growing and unfolding, the mustard seed is insignificant to a bird. It would be only a fraction of what it needs to eat to stay alive, an almost insignificant morsel barely able to still contribute to the stilling of its hunger. That seed will later become a mighty shelter for the bird.
A soft word, a brief encounter, the tiniest gesture of kindness or the simplest acknowledgement have become mighty shelter for people throughout salvation history. Lasting friendships have ensued because of them. Life changing relationships have grown out of them. Great loves have been born of them, which have gone on to endure for decades. When small beginnings evolve into mighty shelter for the heart, then we know that God is on the move.
I have known more than one mustard seed moment in my life that has given me mighty shelter. One of them of them is in my room. It is my very first copy of John Shea’s Stories of God. It was already a used book when I bought it off a table at a conference in Toronto. I bought it for no other reason than to help me kill the time on my long bus trip to the hotel on the other side of the city. It was a distraction, pure and simple. It had no meaning, appeal or deep purpose for me. It certainly was not meant to make an significant contribution to my life. I still remember thinking, I can always toss it into the next garbage can when I am done.
Nearly 30 years later, I am still not done with that book and what it did to me and for me. It fired my imagination, enkindled my soul, opened to me the horizons I have sought out ever since, and changed my image of God, changed the way I do theology and ministry. It changed the way I think, feel and act. Above all, it gave me a mighty shelter for the deepest longings of my soul and it helped me find my welcome in the world.
The conference I was attending cost me 500 Canadian dollars. The book cost me 50 cents. There are still mustard seeds that becomes sheltering trees. There are still small beginnings that become mighty shelter. Because God is still on the move in the world. We should try harder not to overlook God, just because the in- breaking of divine love comes in the smallest of packages.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 28th, 2020
To bless life
It is now some 40 years since I heard a critical young colleague say that it would be irresponsible to bring children into this world.
What would young people today say to this? Especially in this year 2020, which has seen so much confusion and in which we have lost so many certainties that for decades seemed self-evident?
Anyone who, especially in this year, experiences families into which a child is to be born, can experience what so often happens when people lovingly allow themselves to enter into life.
Where life is stirring, the time of expectation has replaced the longing for new life. It shows itself in many different ways. Sometimes restlessness and tension grow, but joy also grows deeper and deeper. Patience is needed, but also the good handling of emerging worries. Those who accompany expectant mothers can be deeply touched by their transformation from concern about oneself to the responsibility for the unborn child, for the life that already contains everything, but is not yet visible and which needs to be guarded and protected. Sometimes this lets them feel insecure and anxious. How blessed and important are good companions by your side!
Many preparations are made. Relationships change and often become stronger. In-laws and families feel a new connection and closeness to each other. This not only creates a nest for the expected child, but also a net that carries everything that is needed.
What we experience in times of pregnancy occurs everywhere that new life is allowed to grow - at first hidden and inconspicuous, but nourished and carried, expected and longed for, until it is finally »born« and brought into the world.
So we should bless life right now, wherever we encounter it, perhaps in this or similar ways, promising each other that God is always present as well:
May God keep you on the way through your life.
May God warm you when fear makes you freeze.
May God strengthen you when uncertainty gnaws at you.
May God encourage you when longing moves you.
May God hold you when sleep envelops you.
May God flows through you when love gives you hope.
May God envelops you when life grows within you.
. . .
Let us be of help in choosing life, serving life, rejoicing over life and in receiving it kindly.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, October 26th, 2020
The Temptation of a Crisis
30th Sunday A 2020 Exodus 22, 20-26
There is a sad truth about the times of crisis. There is no crisis so bad that there are no people will to exploit it for personal gain.
The plight of refugees is a profitable opportunity for human smugglers. High unemployment in poor countries allows some companies to pay the workers a fraction of the price they would pay the workers in their own countries. This then leads to unemployment for workers back at home, because their jobs are eliminated and outsourced to foreign lands. When tropical storms threatened the East Coast of the USA, some businesses saw this as an opportunity to quickly raise their prices.
The Prophet Hosea raises his voice against oppression and injustice and in doing so found colourful and lively language. One of his most important lines was:
»For they sow the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind.«
Hosea 8,7
And this word helps us to understand the God who pours out his heart in the book Exodus. God makes it abundantly clear that his people should not exploit the strangers, widows and the orphans.
Here the warning is not only that we should not abuse the people themselves, but also that we should not see their present emergency situation as an opportunity to exploit them. After all, strangers, orphans and widows find themselves in situations where they are easy prey. And such situations lure unscrupulous people to use the advantage of the hour to manipulate them. »Now we finally got them where we want them.« This is where a mutation of the heart happens, because normally the healthy person sees in emergency situations the chance to help others, not to enrich himself or herself.
Those who sow this wind will reap the whirlwind. For God says: I hear this. And I react to this.
»Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.
If you do and they cry out to me,
I will certainly hear their cry.«
Furthermore, in strong, even drastic language, God says that people of this kind will learn in their own flesh and blood what it means to exploit the poor and their helplessness and impotence. Those who act and live unjustly will not benefit from this. Those who drive others away do not reap fertile land, but desert wastelands.
God is very concrete here. No interest should be charged when poor people need help or support.
»If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor,
you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.«
If a coat is placed as a deposit, we should return the coat after sunset. But why not? Taking a deposit is simply a normal business practice. But in an emergency situation it becomes an exploitation of someone else's difficult plight.
»If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge,
you shall return it to him before the sun goes down,
or that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body;
in what else shall he sleep?«
These words are particularly serious. They contain everything that God abhors about human greed, cold-heartedness and exploitation. For the image says:
Woe unto those who take from others what gives them warmth: for then they are responsible for more cold creeping into the world and penetrating into God’s sons and daughters.
Woe unto those, who take from others what gives them shelter and protection: for then they are responsible for exposing people to a life without refuge.
Woe who take from others what gives them a home, in which they can wrap themselves up to find peace and rest: then they are responsible for people having to move into the night of life, homeless and at the mercy of others.
And here, too, God says: I hear this. That is what I react to.
»And if he cries to me,
I will hear,
for I am compassionate.«
The path of exploitation is deceptive. It promises unscrupulous people that exploitation will make them rich, happy and content. In reality, this path makes a person cold, unjust, merciless and narcissistic.
»For they sow the wind,
and they shall reap the whirlwind.«
This is not a threat.
This is a promise.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 25th, 2020
Seeing with the eyes of God – Seeing with the eyes of the heart
Psalm 32 in the new Luther translation reads
»I will instruct you and show you the way you should go;
I will guide you with my eyes.«
Ever since I read this 8th verse, the word » I will guide you with my eyes « has been on my mind. God sees me, his eyes guide me. And when I let myself enter into this guiding and leading, I grow into the vision of God. This will change my own vision, this will change my heart.
To this end there is a wonderful story by Oscar Wilde: »The Happy Prince«.
It tells of a swallow that cannot take its leave of a lovely reed in autumn and thus misses the departure of its companions to Egypt. Before it finally wants to leave, he pauses at the top of the statue of a prince covered all over with gold, with a ruby in the sword hilt and eyes of blue sapphires.
As he wonders about the odd drop that falls on him, he looks up and sees that the prince's eyes are filled with tears – »and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity. 'Who are you?' he said. 'I am the Happy Prince.' 'Why are you weeping then?' asked the Swallow; 'you have quite drenched me.'
'When I was alive and had a human heart,' answered the statue, 'I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.'«
And then the prince tells of a seamstress whom he sees through a window, she works, thin and worn, on a festive robe for one of the ladies of the court; her son lies ill in bed and asks for oranges, but his mother can only bring him water from the nearby river.
»Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.« The swallow resists. He must finally leave to follow his friends, but finally the sadness of the prince touches him so deeply that he agrees to stay one more night and become the prince's messenger. He picks the ruby from the pommel and flies over the roofs of the city.
»At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman's thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings. 'How cool I feel,' said the boy, 'I must be getting better;' and he sank into a delicious slumber.
Then the Swallow flew back to the Happy Prince, and told him what he had done. 'It is curious,' he remarked, 'but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold.' «
The way in which the prince's open eyes change his heart, what this finally does with the swallow's eyes and heart, is well worth reading about in Oscar Wilde.
It leads me back to Psalm 32:
»I will instruct you and show you the way you should go;
I will guide you with my eyes.«
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, October 23rd, 2020
The salty, wet stories of the heart
During these past few weeks I have received many emails from people telling me stories of their life during this time of crisis and stress. What has struck me lately, is how many times people have mentioned their tears. That would be, in and of itself, a good thing. Yet, nearly always these references to tears have been negative, pejorative and self-critical. They are implying, that there is something wrong with them when they feel themselves full of unwept tears. Often the implication is that they are not tough, resilient or courageous enough. If we stay with that interpretation, then sooner or later we will try to try the tears out of our stories.
Years ago I held a retreat weekend for a group of families in Milwaukee. My partner, a woman religious with great artistic talent, had a wonderful idea. Every time I would interpreted a biblical story, she would lead the group and have each of them draw a picture of the story they had just heard.
On the Saturday afternoon I told the group the story of Isaiah 25:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.
And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
Is 25, 6-8
This time my colleague split the group up, the children went to one room and the adults to the other. Both groups then proceeded to draw the story I had just told them. When both groups returned, the pictures were posted on opposite walls and the families told to walk through the room and take a look at what the people in the other group had drawn or painted. Then she guided a respectful conversation between the generations and opened up a warm and very heartfelt exchange of what they had learned from one another.
As this exchange ended, my colleague asked me to comment on the pictures. I pointed out what had not only struck me immediately, but a point on which no one else had bothered to comment. In every painting made by the children, there were tears on the faces of people at this great banquet of God. No one adult in the room had painted a single tear. After I pointed this out, I was interrupted by a man who insisted the children had got it wrong. So I repeated the words of the story. »He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces…«. There was a great silence. Then the man said, »I just always assumed that the tears would have to be wiped away before we are allowed to enter heaven. I thought I would have to clean up my act before I get in.«
I simply said to him, »The biblical story tells us that heaven is not the place where tears are forbidden, but the place where God wipes them away.«
Indeed, tears are important enough to God, that they have a place in the banquet halls of heaven. God has deepest reverence for the tears of his people, because the tears that we weep are stories of the heart that are still seeking words. The tears we do not weep are the stories of the heart that are left untold. But God always takes stories seriously. That is why God cares about them, keeps track of them and respects them. Do we really believe that our story-laden tears will have no place in the house of the God of whom the Psalmist writes: »You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?« (Psalm 56:8)
In the book of Revelation there is a similar scene:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place[a] of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
Rev 21, 1-4
Even in the new heaven and the new earth which God makes, we will be permitted to bring our tears with us. But it would be wise to sit up and take notice of a marvellously comforting part of the story. The wiping away of tears in heaven is reserved to God. He does it himself. He does not send angels to do this for his people. It is his last, loving service to us before the crying ends once and for all.
The biblical story tells us that heaven is not the place where tears are forbidden, but the place where God wipes them away.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 21st, 2020
Do not reduce your life!
You see the tasks that lie ahead, the challenges of your profession. They are in front of you in the morning and keep you busy in the evening.
You put a lot of thought into what you can afford, what is possible or not. You seldom speak of »consuming«, but it does take up a large space in your thoughts and actions.
You have a lot of restlessness inside you, it drives you out into the world; usually you have a journey in mind when you just come back from another one.
Heavy things fill your life and burden you mightily. Again and again your eyes become dull with grief, perhaps you even withdraw.
You fulfil a lot of duties and you have the feeling that everything rests on your shoulders and if you do not fulfil the tasks, everything will collapse.
Illness is spreading, either in you or in someone close to you. All your senses and many hours of the day are filled with medicine and care, with worry, even fear.
. . .
All this and much more is a reality and a part of our lives.
But none of these realities is ever everything. But why do we often talk about our lives as if everything is dark or duty or burden? Why do we so often reduce the narratives of our lives to one area?
Life is not easy, but it is not narrow either. It has width and fullness and it is up to us alone to open our senses and our heart to it. Let us take off our blinkers and see the blooming garden in times of heavy workloads, experience a walk through sunny vineyards, hear the words of a companion in times of grief, and laugh with children even in difficult times, experience loving staff in times of illness or even perceive the needy neighbour in times when we are easily preoccupied with outward appearances.
In order to live the fullness and tell about it, we should not limit our days and weeks, our life, to one part or one episode. Let us not reduce our life!
Every day we are challenged to make a decision for life, indeed, to choose life, to act on it and to tell about it - in its full breadth.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, October 19th, 2020
Placed before the wrong choice
29th Sunday A 2020 Mt 22, 15-22
This story is only superficially about taxes and God. At its deepest level it is a story about conflict. It is about the traps people set for each other, but also about how we can avoid them.
The Pharisees are insincere. »Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.« Outwardly, they present themselves as people who are seeking a conversation. But they abuse the outward form of conversation to disguise their true motivation: they want to trick Jesus into saying something incriminating that they can use against him.
They have planned an attack to bring Jesus down. And to this end they are sending two groups: their own disciples and the followers of Herod. And therefore their question: »Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?«
That is why they brought the Herodians with them. They want to keep Herod in power and Herod only stays in power at the behest of the Romans. The Romans only keep him in power to collect taxes. When Jesus speaks against taxes, it is incitement against Rome. The Herodians will witness this sedition and will accuse Jesus to protect their friend Herod.
On the other hand, if Jesus should bow to the Roman tax, he will discredit himself as a prophet and lose his followers. The people who follow Jesus hate the Roman tax for more than just economic reasons. There is also a theological reason why the tax of the occupying power is hated, and that is why the disciples of the Pharisees were sent along with the Herodians.
The theological reason: it is the deepest conviction of God's people that the land actually belongs to God. But if the land belongs to God, by what right do the Romans levy taxes on everything, from the fruits of the earth and the animals of the field to the fish in the sea?
The economic reason is self-explanatory: this taxation was devastating, not an appropriate percentage, but an unbearable burden. And it was deeply linked to bribery and corruption.
Thus, if Jesus approves these tax laws, it would contradict much of His preaching and teaching.
This is the trap that the Pharisees set. But first, Jesus will buttered up. Excessively the Pharisees flatter him as part of their strategy. They want to make him speak »plainly« and reveal himself. They comment on his truthfulness and his refusal to say only what people want to hear, especially those in positions of power. But precisely because he is so sincere, he will not spare the powerful.
They should be proved right: » Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?« He does not spare them and immediately addresses them as hypocrites. They are not interested in God or taxes. Their only interest is to undermine the influence of Jesus. So it is all about traps and, just like taxes, they still exist today.
The first trap is to lure Jesus and us into an ego debate. If the Pharisees (including those of our time) manage to do this, then we have a duel of the intellect and no longer the search for true life. Then the only question will not be on theological, economic and social issues: What is true, authentic and beneficial to life? In the ego debate, the only question is: Who has won?
This is what happens in the time of the pandemic. We hold discussions about loosening restrictions and lockdowns, about the obligation to wear masks, social distancing and restrictions. Often, very often, I have the impression that it is not about the cause, namely the protection of life. Often, I have the impression that people simply want to assert themselves, because they even want to make a pandemic a matter of winners and losers.
Reducing these issues to the raw material of a battle of egos strike me as not particularly helpful in regards to the big issues that challenge us. We see this every Sunday evening on the talk shows. The big themes are announced, but what do you read in the newspaper the next day? Who has won! Do we really have to reduce the biggest questions of the country and our lives to a winner-loser debate? If we do, we will continue to talk about who scores points and who wins, but not about life, social cohesion and concern for each other.
The second trap which Jesus avoids is being caught between two false alternatives. The Pharisees want a »yes« or »no«. In some cases a straightforward »yes« or »no« is an appropriate answer. »Is the traffic light red?«, »Is it raining outside?«: Such questions and many others can be answered with a straightforward »yes« or »no«.
But other areas do not lend themselves to an »either-or« answer. »Yes or no«- thinking is very often applied in the wrong place. Most questions of life and faith should be approached with caution and with a balanced evaluation. In order to avoid the trap of the wrong alternatives, we must realise that »yes or no«- is not enough here
The answer of Jesus is clear. We must endure the tensions of life. We should not resolve these tensions by choosing between false alternatives:
- either the Emperor or God.
- either mutual protection or personal freedom
- either economic recovery or social friendship.
The biblical narrative says it again and again: there is room and life enough for all in the world that God has created. But to live in it, we must learn to live with tension. Together with the people with whom we live and work, we must bear the tensions and not allow ourselves to be driven to make a decision between the wrong alternatives. And therein lies the temptation. We have grown weary of crisis. Especially when we are tired and overwhelmed, a quick, so-called clean, »once-and-for-all«, »black and white« solution becomes tempting.
And that is precisely the trap. We should not let this trap be set, not even by this crisis. We should not let the issue of justice for endangered lives be turned into a winner-loser debate. But if we are tempted to do so, I will give one last thought. Who guarantees that we will automatically end up on the side of the winners? At the latest when we end up on the side of the losers in the winner-loser debate, we will long for a world in which there is life and space enough for everyone.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 18th, 2020
A New Existential Language
In the second chapter of his encyclical «Fratelli tutti«, Pope Francis gives a very detailed interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan. He does it because he wants to call us to become the people who know what the Samaritan knew. Only a truly believing person can bring the experience of faith in his or her life to the lives of others. Only then can the message of faith resound in meaningful fashion. Only the one who connects the faith side with the life side is able to make faith effective. Only in this way can faith develop its power.
Imagine for a moment that we are lying on the ground and hear these words from the book of Deuteronomy ringing across the street:
For this commandment that I command you today
is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
It is not in heaven, that you should say,
‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us,
that we may hear it and do it?’
Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say,
‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us,
that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you.
It is in your mouth and in your heart,
so that you can do it..
Dt 30,11-14
How would that be received? How would we react to it? Probably we would perceive it as pure mockery. This is exactly what Jesus recognizes in the teacher of the law, this willingness to stay on the faith side of the street and to talk about and discuss things that can only be perceived on the life side of the street as unworldly, unrealistic and aloof. Therefore Jesus shows us the direction. People of faith have to cross over into life, not the other way around.
This is the direction of faith, and it is a one-way street. Our task cannot be to invite people who lie broken on the ground of life to cross over the street while we scream: Come over here. Even worse is the variant where, on the side of faith, we think that our only task is to belittle or even condemn the people across the street and then write them off.
This is something that happens time and again among religious people. But there are also always experiences of church which clearly show the way of Jesus. There are a lot of people who exemplarily transform their faith into flesh and blood, deeply believing people who are constantly driven into life by their faith.
However, when we move to the life side of the road, we need a language that is understood there. The Samaritan knows his way around. Oil, wine and money: this is a language that the beaten up, needy man understands. Oil, wine and money translate for him what we as believers understand by relief, strengthening and solidarity for the poor.
Shelter, care, and helpfulness are the language of the Samaritan. This language speaks to the robbed person in his situation in a meaningful way, because it makes it clear to him what we as believers understand by refuge, charity and selfless service. Loving action, accompaniment, sharing the journey: this is a language this man can understand and it translates what we Christians really believe into the language of everyday life.
To promote fraternity and social friendship, we must courageously follow the way of the Samaritan. We have to go new ways, try new forms, and look for a new language so that we are understood on the other side of the street. We cannot act according to the old familiar fashion and merely pity, insult, or write off the people who cannot yet believe.
And here lies the warning of Jesus: It is not only: be merciful! The warning is: Cross the road that separates faith from life. Otherwise life and faith will pass each other by.
This is what our meetings, assemblies and discussions should be about. Here is the heart of our spiritual life: we are people who are always trying to find new ways to cross this road. It is well worth fighting for.
I am not naive about the rule of Jesus: »Then go and do likewise«.
This requires one more step, which will inevitably combine courage and creativity. The parable may end here, but it is not over yet. Luke the narrator does this on purpose.
For in this parable the teacher of the law should act as the representative of us all. We, too, can enumerate the double commandment of love of God and love of neighbour. It was taught to us as children and is part of the general information of our culture. But we find it difficult to put it into practice.
But our substitute in the story, the teacher of the law, is nowhere to be seen. He has left the place. Our excuse is gone and our cover is blown. We are the addressees of the last word: Go and do likewise.
That is well worth fighting for.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 16th, 2020
Where Faith meets Life
In Fratelli tutti art. 68 Pope Francis reflects on the parable of the Good Samaritan and makes an interesting comment.
»The parable clearly does not indulge in abstract moralizing, nor is its message merely social and ethical. It speaks to us of an essential and often forgotten aspect of our common humanity: we were created for a fulfilment that can only be found in love. We cannot be indifferent to suffering; we cannot allow anyone to go through life as an outcast. Instead, we should feel indignant, challenged to emerge from our comfortable isolation and to be changed by our contact with human suffering. That is the meaning of dignity.«
Pope Francis thus recognises the real crisis of fraternity and social friendship. It is not mercy that is in crisis, but action.
The trigger of this story is the exchange with the teacher of the law. He has something on his mind and asks Jesus his question. »Master, what must I do to win eternal life?« Thereafter, Jesus tests his basic knowledge of faith and asks him about the law. The teacher of the law knows the answers very well and burst forth like a shot out of a gun:
»You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, with ally our strength and all your thoughts, and: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.«
But only now does it become difficult, because Jesus is not satisfied with the man's theological knowledge. He recommends the second step to him.
»Do this, and you will live.«
Do this! Act! That is the point. In other words, without action, there is no life.
But those who do not want to act do what the teacher of the law does. He takes refuge in theological abstraction and prefers to speculate about the definition of the neighbour: And who is my neighbour? Whatever answer he finds here, he does not have to act for the time being. He procures a time delay for himself.
And that gives Jesus reason to offer this story. This is why Jesus tells the parable, to look at this flight into abstraction and away from responsibility.
Let us look at the parable more closely. In the story there is this road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Each side of the road stands for something. One side of the street represents life and the other side represents faith.
On the faith side of the road, first a priest and then a Levite pass by. These two people reflect the mentality of many religious people. They have a lot of knowledge about theology and spirituality, they know the formulations of the faith and have a good command of the language, rituals and attitudes of the religious. Here we see the side of the road where the teacher of the law is. What they do not have is the ability to integrate their knowledge with life. The contact with life is quite minimal. Lacking a connection with practical life, they remain in abstract thoughts about faith, just like the law teacher. Their discussions in general about the truths of faith pretend to be faith development.
On the other side of the road life is running out. Here there is greed, violence, bloodshed, wrong decisions, injuries, hardship and injustice. And people lying half dead on the ground.
These worlds of faith and life are clearly separated. The man lies on the ground and his life bleeds out. On the other side of the road are people who know and talk about faith, love, justice, care, salvation and healing.
Pope Francis writes: »We cannot be indifferent to suffering; we cannot allow anyone to go through life as an outcast.« But, unfortunately, it is an option »to be indifferent to suffering«. And it is entirely possible that we allow someone »to go through life as an outcast.« Just keep faith and life apart. Then it is no problem at all.
In the parable, the Samaritan is the only one who understands what this situation, this hour, demands of him and of us. We must transfer what we have learned on the faith side of the road to the life side. Only in this way can life and faith meet. »Do this, and you will live.« Before faith and life kiss, fraternity and social friendship will have little chance.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 14th, 2020
Changing the side of the Road
In his Encyclical »Fratelli Tutti«, Pope Francis dedicates his second chapter to a reflection on the Good Samaritan. He believes that this story of Jesus can show us the way to authentic love of brother and sister and to social friendship. In this week I will return to the parable three times to help us go a little deeper into parable. Like all parables, it is a story of invitation and decision. This time of the pandemic is like the parable also a story of invitation and decision. And if we choose not to accept the invitation to fraternity and social friendship, we will not be protected, but at most we will be spared for a while.
In art. 63 Pope Francis writes:
Jesus tells the story of a man assaulted by thieves and lying injured on the wayside. Several persons passed him by, but failed to stop. These were people holding important social positions, yet lacking in real concern for the common good. They would not waste a couple of minutes caring for the injured man, or even in calling for help. Only one person stopped, approached the man and cared for him personally, even spending his own money to provide for his needs. He also gave him something that in our frenetic world we cling to tightly: he gave him his time. Certainly, he had his own plans for that day, his own needs, commitments and desires. Yet he was able to put all that aside when confronted with someone in need. Without even knowing the injured man, he saw him as deserving of his time and attention.
The road to Jericho is littered with some interesting travellers. On the one side of the road brigands wait to prey on the naive and unsuspecting sojourner; they have chosen their place on the road calculatingly. On that same side of the road a mugging victim lays beaten half to death; he chose his side of the road incautiously.
On the other side of the road a priest and a Son of Levi came a walking. They saw the man, but they »passed by on the other side«. They chose their side of the road very carefully.
Finally there is the Samaritan. He, too, saw the man lying on the roadside. Yet, he is different from all the rest. He chooses to change over to the other side of the road.
Here is as potent and accurate a definition as any for compassion: to change over to the other side of the road. These is a frequent mistake which occurs on the road of human life. We confuse seeing what is happening on the road's other side, with crossing over to that side.
We too see the interminable suffering of those left on the side of the road. We have seen the women whose spirits are as badly bruised as their faces; the student grappling with a learning disability whose self-confidence has been savagely beaten with taunts of »stupid« and »moron« that hurt more deeply than anything sticks and stones could ever inflict; the pregnant teenager whose heart shrivels as her belly swells. We see the horrors Pope Francis describes in the our news everyday: the throw-away world, the lack of human rights, the conflicts and wars that lead to hunger, homelessness and waves of refugees driven by despair etc. We see them, but we do not let our gaze linger. Too often the motto of life is: Cast your gaze to the ground and your cares to the wind, and keep on going! We pass by on the other side.
What we see does not touch us enough to lure us across the road that separates us from the other. We see all these things: they incite us to anger, fill us with indignation, drive us to demand tougher prisons, stiffer penalties, and swifter justice. Yet, they seldom lure us to compassion. Our eyes flit restlessly across landscapes and television screens. If they should linger but a moment too long, they might do more than just see: they might end up taking a good hard look.
Not so with God. Bette Midler sings in her pop song that »God is watching us from a distance«. As a chantress she invokes desire, yet as a theologian she leaves much to be desired. God is not watching us from a distance. He has done for us in the flesh and blood reality of Jesus Christ, what the Samaritan has done in the parable. He has crossed over to the other side of the road. The God of Infinite Love and Mercy comes to us.
The Gospel tells us that the Samaritan »saw him and was moved with compassion«: God saw the inner and outer brokenness of the human family and was moved with compassion for his people. Just as the Samaritan crossed the road to heal the bleeding man, God has crossed the road to heal us, touching our deep wounds with the flesh of Christ. In the words of John Bell and Graham Maule:
To the lost Christ shows his face;
to the unloved he gives his embrace;
to those who cry in shame and disgrace,
Christ makes with his friends, a touching place.
Why did God cross the road? Because once he saw the state we were in, he wanted to get to the other side.
The path to genuine love of brothers and sisters and to social friendship will always start this way. First you have to see what is happening on the side of the road that is not your own. Then you have to linger long enough to let your heart be touched by what you have seen. Then you must be moved to cross over to the other side of the road to touch the reality that would never touch you if you simply passed by. It is the very nature of mercy, in God and in us. Mercy is the willingness to enter into the chaos of the other.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 12th, 2020
Of Invitation and Decision
28th Sunday A 2020 Mt 22, 1-14
The first impression of this parable is always associated with invitation and rejection. Guests are invited and have to decide what is worth going out and participating in. And this question is also put to us. To what are we invited? What is there in our lives where we would say: This would be worth leaving my usual life and participating in? What happens if we refuse the invitation?
Jesus makes it clear that this dynamic of invitation and decision is about the Kingdom of God. He compares this kingdom to the filling of a wedding hall.
The Wedding Hall is the place where people give themselves over to love and union in order to create a community of life and love. Even more important for the host is his deep conviction that such a human enterprise, such a community of life and love, and the people who dare to live it, deserve to be celebrated. The King desires nothing more than to fill this room with people who want to celebrate just that
The king does simply settle for his longing, but serves it. Thus, messengers of this invitation are sent out.
The first sending of the messengers is as follows: »He sent his servants to call the invited guests to the wedding«. The invitation here goes to people who were invited beforehand. They are reminded that they are on the guest list, that they are expected and should come. This is not a surprise. They have had time and space to prepare, get ready and adjust their schedules
The arrival of the messengers holds no surprises for them. They have known for some time what they are called to participate in. The messengers simply remind them that the time has come for them to take their place and let love, union, and community of life into their lives. The hour of decision has come.
Their response is somewhat casual. »But they did not want to come.« In other words, they simply do not feel like it. They do not want to free up the time or space required for the concerns of the invitation, which are also the concerns of the host.
Now the king possesses a certain cunning. He knows that a lack of interest can be changed. And that is exactly what he is trying to do.
Therefore the second sending of the messengers is undertaken: »Tell the invited: My banquet is ready, the oxen and fattened cattle are slaughtered, everything is ready. Come to the wedding!«
The second invitation comes with a description of everything that is already in progress and has been arranged. When people come together in love and unity, it is worth taking on a lot of bother in order to celebrate. The king shows that he has done his part. His second reminder of invitation is somewhat more urgent: »Do you understand now? Come, take a seat in this room, and celebrate what is happening here!«
Their answer is clearly different this time. »But they didn't care, one went to his field, another to his shop, still others attacked his servants, mistreated them and killed them.«
This time the answer is not listlessness but fatal disinterest. For here violence is used against the messengers. They have come to issue an invitation: come, take part in a place where love, union and a community of life are celebrated. For this invitation they must die.
Immediately an old story unfolds. The violence of those invited creates a greater violence in the king. »Then the king became angry; he sent his army, killed the murderers and reduced their city to rubble.« A man who wanted to celebrate a union of love and life lets a whole city feel his wrath, not only the murderers of his messengers. But as soon as the violence ends, the king's old longing returns. He wants to hold a wedding. This violence has done nothing for his heart's desire, has not brought him one step closer to his goal. It has destroyed much life and served no life. That is the true nature of violence.
The king does not give up. Now a third sending of the messengers takes place. Off to the streets. However, the criterion of the invitation has changed. This time it is: invite people who are on the road, who are on the move. Not good or bad should be the standard, but readiness and mobility. Up to now only the established and sedentary were invited. But now it should not be people with fields and shops, but people on the road, people who are flexible, who are open toward the spontaneous and unexpected.
At last the king gets what he wants: a hall full of people who share his heart's desire and his joy. Only the servants come back from the first sending. From the second sending nobody returns. But from the third one, all come back.
And the hall is full. The place of love, union and fellowship is finally full, and it is full of people who are on the move and mobile.
The king comes and one of them stands out. He is not wearing a wedding garment. Only this one guest. Yes, the invitation came unexpectedly and suddenly. Yes, the invitation came as a surprise. But this is true for all the guests in this room and yet they all wear wedding robes. Because a king gave each guest such a robe on entry so that no one would cancel their participation simply because they had nothing suitable to wear for such a celebration. One of them did not wear this robe. Only one is not dressed for what must happen here.
This is the place where love, union and community of life should be celebrated. The man may come into the room, but he does not bring the right attitude and willingness. He gets another chance to explain himself, but has nothing to say. And for those who are not ready to celebrate life, love and community, darkness and loneliness await them, they are bound.
Brothers and sisters,
Where is our wedding hall? Where is the place where we invite others to share our heart's desire, because it is for us an experience of the Kingdom of God? And how do we fill the hall?
Do we go out into the streets and look for people who are on the move, new people who share our heart’s desire even if they are not part of the old guard of the sedentary?
We should remember: the messengers of the invitation come upon two reactions.
1. No desire – here only the messengers came back. (We know this experience and we can let such people live).
2. Fatal disinterest - here nobody came back. Because the servants of the invitation are killed. For these guests, field and shop are more important than celebrating a wedding. Regrettably, even today, real estate and property are given more attention than the human spaces in which love, life and community are celebrated.
If we let the people of fatal disinterest determine everything, then no one will come back to fill the spaces of life. Then, only the street remains for the people who would fill the space for the celebration of life and love.
Of course, the street can be a place of movement and mobility. But there is one condition for this.
The street must not be the place where we are forced to live. People who freely head out onto the streets are on the move. People who are merely put out onto the street are homeless.
The story of the Kingdom of God is a story of invitation and decision. In a world where many boast about the number of invitations they receive, perhaps today we can think more about which invitations we will accept. Because without a decision, an invitation is worthless.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 11th, 2020
Not without Rosa!
Learning fraternity from children - is this possible? Definitely!
For some weeks now, I have been regularly picking up my grandchildren at two different places: the 4-year-old from her kindergarten, then we have half an hour until the 6-year-old comes out of school.
I love this half hour with the little one. We look for a parking spot, take our time for the short way, meet, if we are lucky, a little dog and she chats lively and tells me about her experiences of the day.
Again and again I try to entice her to use the time to explore a new path or simply to go for an ice cream in the nearby pedestrian zone. But none of this appeals to her. Not because she does not like to go for a walk or because she does not want an ice cream. On the contrary, she loves ice cream very much. But she does not want any of this without her sister. "Only if Rosa comes too!" is always her answer.
And so we stroll towards the schoolyard and wait by the fence. All of Edda’s senses are exclusively focused on finally having her sister back with her and on sharing life - the remaining hours of the day - with her. That is why, in these minutes before the school bell rings, her best place is by the schoolyard fence with an expectant gaze toward the front door: When will Rosa finally come? When the children rush towards us, she calls out at some point: » I can see her already!« As soon as Rosa is finally with us, Edda is neither exuberant nor pushy. She just walks next to her sister, tells her about the little dog or where the car is, and on this way back, I always have the impression that for her, her world is now complete again. She and her sister belong together. Yes, many hours of the day they have been going their own ways for weeks and Edda feels very much at home in the kindergarten. That is everyday life. But beyond that she wants to share beautiful things with Rosa. She cannot imagine enjoying them without her sister.
She doesn't want to have ice cream all to herself. Full stop!
The world around us often shows us the opposite: the main thing is that I get something! Full stop!
On which side is more joy?
The minutes before the end of the school day show me how a four-year-old child lives the fullness of the biblical message. It has absolutely nothing to do with morality (we have often made that out of Scripture), but it is simply beautiful and good and gives Edda joy.
Living as brothers and sisters means looking after each other, waiting for each other, enjoying each other, not wanting to be alone. To live this way makes you happy.
I gladly go through this »school« of my little granddaughter every Wednesday and I relish it!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, October 9th, 2020
The blunt, direct and incisive question
In his recently published encyclical, »Fratelli tutti: On the Fraternity and Social Friendship«, Pope Francis writes about a question that has received a new and contemporary significance through the pandemic:
What should the world look like? He expresses a very deep conviction that deeply saddens and impresses me: we will not return to normality after the pandemic. We shall emerge from this time of crisis either as better or worse people.
To substantiate his vision of social friendship and fraternity, in chapter 2 he uses a beautiful, deep and moving interpretation of a world-famous parable: the parable of the Good Samaritan. With the verve of a narrative theologian, he moves through this narrative of God, pointing out the many roles in it: the robbers, the passers-by (a priest and a Levite), the wounded man (the one left behind), and the Samaritan. Then he asks a question: »Which of these persons do you identify with? This question, blunt as it is, is direct and incisive.« (Fratelli tutti Art. 64)
In a crisis like this pandemic, we all have a role to play. We are either the Good Samaritan, the robbers, the people who pass by, or even the victim. But Pope Francis is very right when he says that this question is blunt, direct and incisive.
»Which of these persons do you identify with?« The question is blunt, because it challenges us to be authentic people. In biblical stories as well as in the everyday life of our personal stories, we dress up in our favourite roles. This is how we want to be. This is how we see ourselves and this is how we want to be seen by others. This is our abstract and conceptual commitment to a story. But no flesh and blood has yet been brought into play here. There is no skin the game. When it comes to a concrete, existential commitment to a story, we often live out something quite different from what we would like to claim about ourselves. All crises, not just the pandemic, are apocalyptic in the truest sense of the word: they unveil what is really within us. And this question is blunt, because here we are not looking for the masks that disguise us, but for the identity that shapes us. The question is blunt because it confronts us: Who am I really?
»Which of these persons do you identify with?« The question is direct. The question is not whether we understand the story, but whether we know it. The question wants to know where and how we appear in this story. It is always easier when a story indirectly points us to topics we might want to look at. But the question as to whom we identify ourselves with is not such a question. It cuts through the superficial and gets to the core. Sometimes people complain about biblical interpretations (mostly sermons) because they have nothing to do with their lives. »Where am I in this story?« is a valid question. But there are also disadvantages to asking the question so directly. Because when I notice where and how I appear in the story, it could very well be that I do not enjoy what I see about myself. It could require conversion and change. Indirect questions may be much more pleasant, but they are much less useful for the authentic shaping of a life.
»Which of these persons do you identify with?« The question is incisive. Because the people we identify with in a story will have a decisive influence on the people we become. The stories we tell shape the way we live. If a person constantly speaks about himself or herself as stupid and worthless, then we already know with whom he or she identifies. Then we will not have the expectation that a person who tells stories like this will live self-confidently, purposefully and creatively. A person who constantly talks about his or her helplessness will certainly live a passive rather than an active life. That is why this question is incisive. If I identify myself with the robbers then the exploitative elements of my personal story will be strengthened and confirmed. If I identify with the passers-by (a priest and a Levite), then words like »Every person for himself or herself« and »Save yourself first« will play a decisive role in my life and action. When I identify with the wounded man (the one left behind), I become more aware of what help and care I need, even though I have always believed that I don't need all this because I can take care of everything myself. However, when I identify with the Samaritan, a lot of investment of time and space and resources will be required of me at the same time. This would also be decisive for the person I am and will be from God.
»Which of these persons do you identify with? This question, blunt as it is, is direct and incisive.« Fratelli tutti Art. 64) This question is always posed in parables, but also in every crisis we live through. But in a crisis the question is always blunt, direct and incisive, because we cannot avoid it and we cannot delude ourselves as to the answer. As soon as the crisis came, it became an unveiling (apocalyptic): passers-by hoarded toilet paper while their neighbours were not even allowed to go out shopping for themselves. The robbers raised prices to take advantage of the moment, while others could not even earn a wage. Some just complained about the restrictions on their normal routine, while others wondered how they could help.
Now Pope Francis leads us once again to this story of God and shows us the possibilities it offers for a world of fraternity and social friendship. This also gives us a chance to think again about how we want to appear in this story.
»Which of these persons do you identify with?«
Erik Riechers SAC, October 7th, 2020
Mercy: Knowing the true starting point makes all the difference
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4, 7-11
A woman heard two sermons shortly after one another. Both had mercy as their theme. But the woman was worried, because during the first sermon she felt an uneasy feeling rising in her as the preacher repeatedly emphasised the unworthiness, sin and ingratitude of humanity and then looked at the mercy of God. In the second sermon, however, she felt very comforted and strengthened. Now the good woman was unsettled and asked me what could be the reason for this, because both sermons were about the same thing.
Not really. In the first sermon, sin is seen as an occasion for mercy. Sin is the trigger, and then God develops mercy as the strategy with which He responds to sin. In this sermon sin takes the initiative. It sets everything in motion, even God. Because we are such great sinners, mercy comes. Because we live so ungrateful, mercy comes. Because we act so unworthily, mercy comes. It is very clearly emphasised that sin sets God in motion, and that mercy is God's answer to the initiative of sin.
In contrast, John writes an essential word: In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
John emphasises that mercy (love) was God's initiative and that it comes first. Love (mercy) comes before sin. It can deal with sin. But mercy is older than any sin.
Because we need mercy even when we have not sinned at all. Mercy is love that takes the initiative. If the other person does not have the strength, the courage or the possibility to act lovingly, mercy, on its own initiative, creates space of life for people. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
We need this loving initiative of mercy when we are ill, anxious, intimidated, lonely, depressed, exhausted, discouraged, disappointed or simply listless. These are the moments when God speaks the first word, makes the first gesture, takes the initiative. But these are not sins to which he is responding. It is nothing less than the life of his beloved people.
That is why it always matters where and with what you start, because you can end up in a very different place. I always prefer guide people to the place I have found most healing in my own life: the place where God makes the first move and loves us first.
Erik Riechers SAC, October 5th, 2020
From possession to participation, from competition to cooperation
27th Sunday A 2020
These days, Pope Francis preaches often and forcefully about the world we want to shape after the pandemic. A few days ago he said:
»In the normality of the Kingdom of God, there is bread for all and more to spare, social organisation is based on contributing, sharing and distributing, not on possessing, excluding and accumulating.«
Pope Francis thus draws two worlds for us: one world is characterised by possessing, excluding and accumulating and another world would be characterised by contributing, sharing and distributing.
After Covid 19, if we want to move from one world to another, we will face a great challenge. The virus has changed the outer world around us. But the condition of the heart inevitably determines our lives; the heart is ultimately the place, where everything is decided. We would have to change the inner world of our hearts.
Today's Gospel shows us the twofold change of heart that is needed here: the transition from possessiveness to participation and the transition from competition to cooperation.
Let us begin with the transition from possessiveness to participation. We should stop thinking of life as a possession. We may participate in life, but we do not own it.
At the beginning of the parable, Matthew pays much attention to the landowner who planted the vineyard. We are told a lot about him.
»There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,
put a fence around it,
dug a wine press in it,
and built a watchtower.
Then he leased it to tenants
and went to another country.«
What is Matthew trying to tell us? Psalm 24 puts it like this: »The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.« The landowner is like the Creator: he makes all the effort, creates and shapes the world in which others are allowed to live and work, provides the means to enjoy the fruitfulness of this world (wine press) and its security, so that there is room enough in which to live (tower and fence).
The earth does not belong to us human beings! Life does not belong to us human beings. It is not our possession, our property, but something we have leased. We are all tenants. Everyone is a tenant on the earth. The whole of creation is at our disposal. It is even entrusted to us by God, but it does not belong to humanity. It is not our property, but the property of another. We must move from possessiveness to participation.
What happens if we do not get this first of the two movements of the heart right?
There is a deep urge within us to take possession of the world and life. So the true landowner sends us messengers to remind us that we are only tenants. And we do not like that. So we kill the messengers when the message is hard for us to digest.
Let us take a closer look at the parable. When the tenants are finally allowed to speak, it becomes very clear where the problem lies. The landowner sees an opportunity here: »They will have respect for my son!« The tenants also see an opportunity here, but a completely different one. They think to themselves: Fabulous! We have the heir! If we kill him, everything will be ours. Then we own it all.
And that is the point for Matthew. The evangelist sees here, as elsewhere in his Gospel, the connection between the urge to possess and the willingness to kill. Possessiveness and the desire to take something fuels the willingness to kill. When we want something too much, when possession becomes more important to us than participation in life, then the willingness to kill arises.
This is the name in Hebrew for Cain, the first murderer of the Bible. Cain is the same word in Hebrew for possession. Cain wants to possess and he commits murder in order to possess. He murders Abel. Possession, even if it is only the possession of God's approval, becomes more important to him than sharing a life with his brother.
If we forget that we are all participants in this world, then we want to own the earth, life, simply everything. The world that is based on possessing, excluding and accumulating is at the same time the world that is ready to kill for it. Because this world reduces everything to a competition and all people to competitors. This world is then about winning with all the means at our disposal, if necessary with brute force and deadly injustice.
The tenants have not taken the chance to make the transition from competition to cooperation. But therein lies the chance of a world in which everyone can live.
Dr. Edith Eva Eger wrote her unique memoir and published it under the title »The Choice«. She describes how, as a young Jewish woman in Auschwitz, she was forced to dance for Dr. Mengele on the day he sent her parents to the gas chamber.
»He must be impressed by my performance, because he tosses me a loaf of bread—a gesture, as it turns out, that will later save my life. As evening turns to night, I share the bread with Magda and our bunkmates. I am grateful to have bread. I am grateful to be alive.
In my first weeks at Auschwitz I learn the rules of survival. If you can steal a piece of bread from the guards, you are a hero, but if you steal from an inmate, you are disgraced, you die; competition and domination get you nowhere, cooperation is the name of the game; to survive is to transcend your own needs and commit yourself to someone or something outside yourself.«
Later, Dr. Eger must go on a death march from Mauthausen to Gunskirchen. She knows that falling down means death. Those who cannot go any further are shot on the spot. But Edith is at the end of her strength and begins to stumble.
»Every part of me is in pain; every part of me is numb. I can’t walk another step. I ache so badly I can’t feel myself move. I am just a circuitry of pain, a signal that feeds back on itself. I don’t know that I have stumbled until I feel the arms of Magda and the other girls lifting me. They have laced their fingers together to form a human chair.
‘You shared your bread,’ one of them says.«
Only in this way will we be able to transform our accustomed world of possessing, excluding and accumulating into a in a world of contributing, sharing and distributing. Here our hearts must make the double transition from possessiveness to participation and from competition to cooperation.
Fingers that greedily hold on can also be hooked together so that we can carry each other in the happy world where we can say to each other: »You shared your bread.«
Erik Riechers SAC, October 4th, 2020
For what shall we pray?
Once again this week, may Ana and her prayer be honoured. Her words are too rich for us to pass over them too quickly.
After her request for blessing over the largeness that she feels within herself, she continues to pray:
»Bless my reed pens and my inks.
Bless the words I write.«
She requests a blessing over her tools, over reed pens and inks. This is a very down-to-earth, grounded request. For without these things, she cannot express and show what is within her. Without these means she could not fashion anything of what is important and sacred to her. Without these tangible things her wishes would remain unlived daydreams.
She requests a blessing for her words. These words come from the divine spark in her. They grow in her »heaven«, out of here yearning. They are what flow from her innermost sanctuary. They are what is set in motion. Ana’s creativity is what allows the first mothers of the faith to come alive. Here creativity should flow on as a blessing.
These two requests for blessing show what all genuine stories need: Grounding and solid foundation, an eye for »heaven«, the ability to take longing seriously and, finally, the water-like getting-into-the-flow that arises from it.
A great trust in her outer and inner gifts speaks forth from these two little pleas: she has tools and words, she sees that clearly. But she asks for blessings in their use. May these gifts not be given in vain, may they not be used unworthily, and may they enjoy God's favour.
Then she speaks out what she herself longs for in her heart for her creative work:
»May they be beautiful in your sight.
May they be visible to eyes not yet born.«
Whatever she will write down, whatever words will pour out of her: may they be beautiful in God's eyes. Beauty is an attribute of God and everything she will write should bear witness to this. For wherever beauty meets and touches us human beings, it leads us to wonder, to pause and finally to the Creator.
Her words should not be short-lived, headlines for a few days or weeks and then out of sight, out of mind! No, she wants them to be noticed by future generations. She is so aware of the preciousness of what she will produce that she does not want any of it to be lost.
»When I am dust,
sing these words over my bones:
she was a voice.«
In the end, she asks not that God say about her life that she wrote beautiful things and told good tales, but that she was a voice. This woman, with her entire existence and her talent, gave expression, form and sound to what was in her. In the end, may God say this about this life.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, October 2nd, 2020
The Fear of what is in me
In her column »Blessing for what is in me«, Rosemarie reflected on what it means to ask God to bless what is in us. Like her, I take my cue from the prayer Sue Monk Kidd weaves into her novel »The Book of Longings«. There, the heroine of the story, Ana, writes the prayer of her heart into a simple prayer bowl:
»Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart.
Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it.
Bless my reed pens and my inks.
Bless the words I write.
May they be beautiful in your sight.
May they be visible to eyes not yet born.
When I am dust, sing these words over my bones:
she was a voice.«
The line that strikes me is »Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it.« A line of stunning honesty, for we fear the largeness within us.
We love this largeness when we think of its potential. We dream of what would happen if the largeness that stirs and rumbles within us would be let loose, of what we could do, achieve, and create.
But we fear this largeness when we think of the cost. And the cost is threefold: live freely, take on responsibility and act creatively.
If we trust the largeness in us, we have to live freely. There is no point in speaking of the largeness in us, if all we ever do is execute the orders of others. Then all that remains is obedience, and for that you do not need largeness,
The largeness in us calls us to take on responsibility, to be people who take the initiative in life, set a direction, risk the articulation of a vision, or undertake a course of action. If we only follow the directions and visions of others, then all that remains is obedience and for that you do not need largeness.
Above all, the largeness in us makes us fearful because it calls us to act creatively. Creativity is the most exhilarating of human activities, but at the same time it is the most exhausting. In creativity we do not carry out patterns others have set, but design our own pattern. There is no safety net in creativity. If all we do is copy what others have set before us, carry out their plans and designs, then all that remains is obedience and for that you do not need largeness.
A tiny suffocating world can still be a very safe world. It does not give us much room for freedom, growth and adventure, but it also makes very few demands on us.
To ask God to bless the largeness in us is a bold and risky venture. For once God sees and recognises, loves and names the largeness in us with his warm words, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to ignore or suppress that largeness, no matter how much our fears would like to do so.
The last line of the prayer is inalterably linked to letting the largeness within us live free, responsibly and creatively. Ana tells God what the goal of her desire is, how she wishes to be remembered before God and her fellow human beings: »When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.« Yet, none of us can ever become a voice before we embrace the largeness within ourselves. Rosemarie is right: We need to ask God to bless this largeness. And that blessing of the Most High should lead us to embrace it ourselves, no matter how we fear it.
Erik Riechers SAC, September 30th, 2020
Blessing for what is in me
In a world far away from us
and yet so near,
a long time ago
and yet like today,
a young woman passionately seeks
to be truly born
and to be allowed to live what is within her:
»My life was begging to be born!« *
Everything speaks against it: the conventions, the understanding of her role, her father's position and her mother's lack of love and understanding.
And yet the young woman does not give up, learns to read and write, fights for papyrus and inks, quills and colours - and knows who she can trust on her path: her unconventional aunt.
Blessed are those who have such accompaniment on the path to authentic life!
Full of confidence she shows her aunt her treasures: self-written stories of the barely-mentioned women of her Jewish Holy Scriptures.
And full of astonishment, the aunt reveals to her: You are blessed by God! There is something of the divine in you!
How we longed to truly hear this!
Thus, at the first light of the day she is able to write down her own prayer in a bowl from which it rises like a dance.
»Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart.
Bless the largeness inside me,
no matter how I fear it.
Bless my reed pens and my inks.
Bless the words I write.
May they be beautiful in your sight.
May they be visible to eyes not yet born.
When I am dust, sing these words over my bones:
she was a voice.« *
*from Sue Monk Kidd, »The Book of Longings«
Can we hear our voice in this?
Do we want our voice to be heard?
Does it speak what is inside us?
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, September 28th, 2020
What use is a voice you never get to use?
26th Sunday A 2020
To open, honest and forthright in an exchange is never easy, often daunting and always requires courage. That courage is never needed more than when we need to give an answer truthfully that will undermine the solid world of concepts we build around and within ourselves. What if I recognize the truth of another person’s argument, but am afraid of what it will mean if I admit it? Or perhaps we are so committed to our way of thinking and viewing the world, that we will do anything, including denying what we know to be true, in order to preserve and protect it.
The chief priests and elders are caught up in this dilemma. They are not engaging in a dialogue of openness that seeks the truth of the matter, but instead are the victims of the calculating heart. Jesus asks a fairly straightforward question. »Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?« And immediately they go into the mode of calculation. They carefully calculate what it will mean if they say it is from heaven, what it will cost them, the possible responses they might expect from Jesus. Here they are particularly concerned with the reaction of Jesus and how they might lose face if he challenges their actions. »If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’«
Then they calculate the responses, repercussions and costs of saying that John’s baptism is of human origin. This time, however, they are particularly concerned about the reaction of the people, who hold John in great esteem. »But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.«
So they resort to a common tactic. They hedge their bets. They refuse to answer, show their true colours or reveal what they really believe to be true.
This is the framework of the story which Jesus then tells of the two sons being asked by their father to go and work in the vineyard. The first son is breathtakingly honest, puts on no show and truthfully answers the request of his father. He is not calculating. He is not basing his answer on calculating what his father will say and think, what his brother will say and think, or what the other workers will say and think. Yet, when he changes his mind, is also honest enough to do what he now knows to be honest and right. That is no easy task. To change your mind is to risk the gossip of every crowd. »Why does he suddenly come back? What changed his mind? What is he up to?« But here, as previously, the first son is free to act, because he does not have to first weigh up and calculate every response of the crowd, nor the repercussions and costs of changing his mind. Thus, he can change a no into a yes.
Then the second son is asked. His response is the one expected of dutiful children in every generation. And he say what he knows his father wants to hear. It is what good sons and daughters do. Yet, because it is an answer that has nothing to do with the true state of his heart, he does not turn his yes into action. The appearance of being dutiful is more important than doing his duty.
Jesus uses the parable to tear open the smooth story of the chief priests and elders. They are akin to the second son of the parable. They will give the answer that is considered appropriate, but they are not likely to act upon it, because it has nothing to do with the true state of their hearts. But the trap Jesus sets is a cunning one. After all, he asks them to pass the verdict: »Which of the two did the will of his father?« The trap snaps shut on them when they answer »The first.« They have just been unmasked. They have inadvertently proven that they, in fact, know what it means to do the will of God openly, honestly and forthrightly. But they have chosen the path of the second son.
What Jesus says next is neither insulting or cruel. »Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.«
The tax collectors and prostitutes do not have to calculate what the possible repercussions and reactions of the others will be when they give answer. They have nothing to lose. They do not have to protect their status or reputations. For people who have no reputation to lose from the start, there is no fear of losing face. They can honestly say what they think about the work, words and ways of John the Baptist. We think that having power, prestige and status can only be an advantage, but not on every case. The more we have of these things, the more we are tempted guard and preserve them. The longer we have them, the more we fear losing them. And then it becomes easier and easier to be like the second son: we say what »one« is supposed to say, meet expectations, uphold a masquerade. But none of it has anything to do with our real life anymore, with what we really think or feel.
In the film »Scent of a Woman«, there is a remarkable speech given by Colonel Slade. A blind veteran, he has come to the Baird School to defend his young assistant, student of the school named Charlie Sims. The headmaster, Mr. Trask, wants Charlie to name those who damaged his car, but he refuses to betray the other students. Their rich and powerful fathers intimidate the headmaster, so it is easier for him to evict the poor student Charlie than pursue the children of the rich and powerful. I let the dialogue speak for itself.
»I don't know who went to this place, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, William Tell -- whoever. Their spirit is dead -- if they ever had one -- it's gone. You're building a rat ship here. A vessel for sea going snitches. And if you think you're preparing these minnows for manhood you better think again. Because I say you are killing the very spirit this institution proclaims it instills! What a sham. What kind of a show are you guys putting' on here today. I mean, the only class in this act is sitting next to me. And I'm here to tell ya this boy's soul is intact. It's non-negotiable. You know how I know? Someone here -- and I'm not gonna say who -- offered to buy it. Only Charlie here wasn't selling'…..
Who the hell you think you're talking' to? I've been around, you know? There was a time I could see. And I have seen boys like these, younger than these, their arms torn out, their legs ripped off. But there isn't nothing' like the sight of an amputated spirit; there is no prosthetic for that. You think you're merely sending' this splendid foot-soldier back home to Oregon with his tail between his legs, but I say you are executing' his SOUL!! And why?! Because he's not a Baird man! Baird men, ya hurt this boy, you're going to be Baird Bums, the lot of ya. …
As I came in here, I heard those words, "cradle of leadership." Well, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall. And it has fallen here; it has fallen. Makers of men; creators of leaders; be careful what kind of leaders you're producing' here. I don't know if Charlie's silence here today is right or wrong. I'm not a judge or jury. But I can tell you this: he won't sell anybody out to buy his future!! And that, my friends, is called integrity! That's called courage! Now that's the stuff leaders should be made of. Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard. Now here's Charlie. He's come to the crossroads. He has chosen a path. It's the right path. It's a path made of principle -- that leads to character. Let him continue on his journey.«
In a room full of people who lived like the second son of the parable, Colonel Slade admits that he lived like the second one as well. Yet he comes to the defence of a friend who lived like the first son. He names with painful, raw clarity the cost of living a life in which our voices never match what is within us. But I disagree with Colonel Slade in one regard. He says: »I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it.« But he knew the right path here and he took it. I think he became the first son in that moment, and turned a no into a yes.
Erik Riechers SAC, September 27th, 2020
Living on
We are experiencing - not only this year - so much anxious concern and so much preoccupation with topics and things that may well be significant, but which are ultimately not essential and do not nurture our genuine lives. And even more importantly: they do not nourish and enrich the lives of the people who come after us - how could they gain depth and value from our consumption? What remains of us? Are we perhaps living like fools after all - often with a contorted face?
How different does the story of a young woman appear? She lives far away from her family of origin, very simply, surrounded by nature. It happens more and more often that she roams the woods with her husband and suddenly sentences of her grandmother come to her mind. The young woman often experienced and heard since her childhood how much this grandmother loved the forest. The most impressive and memorable of these were wonderful quotations that fell from her grandmother’s lips. They came from her fiancé, who had not returned from World War II. He was a forestry ranger and how he loved to talk about the fact that he who truly knows how to love nature would never perish mentally. There were also funny incidents. The granddaughter still smiles about the fact that the young man once asked her grandmother if she knew what kind of tree this or that tree was and she just answered: : » a rare one.«
What particularly moves the young woman today, and me as well when she recounted it to me:
This young forestry ranger of yesteryear and that which moved and filled his heart live on in her. He is close to her, although he has not been alive for more than 75 years. » Sometimes I feel as if I had known him. And when I roam the woods, soaking up the scent and feeling deep joy, I feel so much of him that lives in me, too.« Her grandmother's stories have kept him alive. She herself is amazed that the bond that forever connects her with her grandmother now seems to grow longer.
»If my Oma had not told me about all this - over and over again - this world would not exist in me at all. And somehow Ferdi lives on in me!«
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, September 25th, 2020
9 Gifts of a Clear Beloved Face
Recently I witnessed an angry and very nasty encounter between a woman and her colleague. In her unbridled rage she screamed at this man and raged at him. But although her rage was voluminous and her words poisonous, her face remains in my memory. It was distorted into a mask of hatred. And it made an otherwise seemly face ugly, even hideous.
Ever since that encounter, I have been thinking about our faces, their beauty and their purpose. And it brought me back to a very old and decidedly beautiful Gaelic blessing. I heard it years ago at a baptism in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada where I was the parish priest. It was spoken by an elderly Irish woman who had flown in from Ireland to be present at the baptism of her first grandchild. Before I spoke the final blessing, she took her grandson from the arms of his mother, and spoke warm, tender, words of Gaelic blessing over him. After the ceremony, I asked her to translate the blessing. »Father«, she said, »the blessing is a promise of the Holy Three (the Trinity). It is about the promise they place in every face«.
Here is the blessing she spoke.
»We place nine pure, choice gifts
In your clear beloved face:
The gift of form,
The gift of voice,
The gift of fortune,
The gift of goodness,
The gift of eminence,
The gift of charity,
The gift of integrity,
The gift of true nobility,
The gift of apt speech.«
Then she smiled at me. »I truly believe the Three, Father. It is what they place in every face. The hard part will be to see it when Liam (her grandson) is a pouting child, a rebellious teenager or an angry young man.« Then she sighed and added: »Surely Father, we do some terrible things to our faces, don’t we?«
Indeed we do.
Erik Riechers SAC, September 23rd, 2020
»You fool!«
We do not like to be addressed in this manner. It could be intended to be lovingly teasing in the sense of a joker or a kidder, but there is usually another element to it. We also call fools simple-minded people who act unwisely, are rather clumsy and stupid.
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has God speak in one of his parables to a farmer and has him say to him: »You fool!« The context quickly shows us that he does not mean a kind of jester. Rather, this is the way God says: You think and plan like a fool. You imagine that you are particularly clever. But in reality you are clueless.
What is this parable about? A rich farmer expects an exceptionally large harvest, which his previous barns will not be able to contain. So he plans to tear them down and build much bigger ones. Then he will have enough for the next few years.
That sounds very reasonable; in this and similar ways we often secure our lives for the future.
However, God calls him a fool! »This very night your soul will be required of you.« (Lk 12, 20) Why does he call him this? What constitutes the foolishness and simple- mindedness of this farmer?
It is his understanding of life. He understands it narrowly, so narrowly that he believes he has it under control. But this biological life is finite - it will be over this very night! No one knows when and everyone should know that it is finite.
God's idea, his gift of life for us humans is different. It is deeper, wider, and fuller: life in abundance. And it is indestructible. This is the life Jesus is concerned with and he never tires of standing up for it in speech and action: »I came that they might have life, and have it in fullness. « (Jn 10, 10). This life pours itself out. Whoever lives, loves, shares in this way is not anxiously concerned about himself. He works at increasing life, because he knows himself to be a loved and gifted person. Such a life outlasts death, indeed it rises from it and is a treasure that remains eternal.
The sly farmer seems to have no idea about this. That is why he plans like a fool. "Every person is his own neighbour" is neither wise nor true in the sense of the Creator, but is instead short-sighted and has only the ephemeral in mind, as if that is all we have and all that constitutes life.
Crises show us again and again: growth in the quantitative sense does signify or bring about more life. Crises cannot be overcome with »always more« and by hoarding for oneself.
A rethinking is called for, so that we multiply real life and no longer live like fools.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, September 21rst, 2020
Avoidance and Confrontation
25th Sunday A 2020
In his poem »Counsel«, Wilhelm Bruners reminds us of a deep and essential life teaching of the biblical narrative:
»Pay attention to the sequence of things if you want to maintain the power to change the circumstances.
Pray against the five star nothingness that sounds out of every channel.«
Now in this story there are two sequences that we should keep in mind. The first is found when the owner of the estate wants to hire workers for his vineyard. Here is the sequence of recruiting the workers of the first hour, the third hour, the sixth hour, the ninth hour and the eleventh hour.
Then comes the second sequence, that of the payment of the wages. And here comes the decisive sentence of the narrative: »Now when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward: Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones and ending with the first ones! “Here he stands the sequence on its head. In this sequence, those who come last are taken care of first. "So the last shall be first and the first last.«
When he then pays the agreed wage of the first hour also to those who came in the last hour, the workers of the first hour expect a higher wage for themselves, but receive the agreed sum of one denarius.
When we then read and feel (because we are immediately deeply involved and have strong inner reactions to the action of the property owner ourselves) the confrontation that ensues, a question arises. Why does the landowner do this to himself? To his question: »Am I not allowed to do what I want with what belongs to me« we can only say that it is self-evident that he is allowed to do so. But if he wanted to give as much to the last as to the first, he could have saved himself so much trouble by keeping the sequence of hiring during the payment of wages. Then the workers of the first hour would have happily accepted their wages, would have been satisfied and grateful, without ever knowing what he had given the workers of the other hours.
»Pay attention to the sequence of things if you want to maintain the power to change the circumstances.« A deeper level of this sentence lays in the actions of the landowner. The sequence he chooses brings a confrontation that he could have spared himself. But if we want to maintain the power to change the circumstances, we must not avoid such confrontations. »Out of sight, out of mind« is a saying that Jesus questions here. Because there are things that we should mind, even if we wish them to remain out of sight.
For the sequence of payment raises important questions about love and justice, as well as envy and greed. These questions are not private matters, but indispensable parts of what it means to be a community as well as it means to belong. These questions are too essential, large and significant to be entrusted to just a few. They concern us all, not just the willing and open-minded. And we should not be spared these questions.
If we have what we need, why do we begrudge it to others?
We have a roof over our heads, food on the table and care when we are sick or injured. We have these things safely in our hands, like the coin in the hands of the workers of the first hour. Don't the people in the refugee camp of Moria need these things to live? Many people were irritated or even angry when their holidays were restricted. But here we are talking about people who only want to have a basic security for their lives, for men, women and children who have not been allowed to travel for years. Why don't we grant them what is a matter of course for us? As Martin Luther King Jr. once warned, »Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding of people of ill will.« Thus, these are questions we must not avoid.
Why can't we rejoice that others are allowed to live who had fewer opportunities than we did? The workers of the first hour received a good daily wage. What the others get costs them nothing and takes nothing away from them. They only compare the working hours, but not the possibilities of their coworkers. Not all people have our possibilities, our chances in life. Does that mean that they are not allowed to live with human dignity? Ralph Waldo Emerson was quick to spot this mentality and call it out for what it is. »Shallow people believe in happiness. Strong people believe in cause and effect.« These are questions we must not avoid.
Why are we so busy comparing instead of creating a life with what is already in our hands? We have so many things that we can create, can do, can afford. Instead of looking at what others have or get, we could create a life with that which he have received. Or have we become people of the envious heart? These are questions we must not avoid
If the landowner had given a denarius as alms to the unemployed of the eleventh hour in the market place, would we still protest? Most of the time we would admire personal kindness and generosity. Why wouldn't we do it if it is linked to a job that gives dignity? A young man from Syria recently told me that his neighbours only became envious when he got a job. Since then he has been »one of those people who take our jobs away«. When the parish community that accompanied him took care of him, it was not a problem. What does that say about us? Where does this attitude come from? These are questions we must not avoid.
W. Bruners recommended at the beginning of my homily: »Pray against the five star nothingness that sounds out of every channel.« What the landowner does is to force us all to confront this five star nothingness. And this confrontation must exist. With the sure eye of a prophet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt confronts the deep problems of a shallow culture: »Supermarket tabloids and celebrity gossip shows are not just innocently shallow entertainment, but a fundamental part of a much larger movement that involves apathy, greed and hierarchy.« This time of the pandemic has revealed much about us as a society and as individuals: Fears, envy, the selfishness of hoarding, the selfishness that forgets others with striking ease. We should not avoid the confrontation with these questions by immersing ourselves in the five star nothingness of consumption, entertainment and distractions of all kinds.
We are like the people of the first hour. We are used to always be among the first. We live in great security and know from the beginning of our day what we will have at the end of the day. But our God is not only the God of the first hour, but the God of all hours. Those who disregard the sequence of payment (taking care of the last ones first) and evade the confrontation, also avoid meeting the God who wants this sequence. But we cannot avoid the question without avoiding the questioner.
Prayer (Alex Wimberly)
God of justice,
God of grace:
in trying to make sense
of this world
and our place in it,
we train ourselves to expect
reward for our work,
and our worth to correspond
to our effort.
As you give us today what we need,
may we consider not
where we stand in relation to others,
but how we might stay
in communion with those who,
like us, are dependent
on divine generosity.
Amen.
Erik Riechers SAC, September 20th, 2020
We walk by faith
When the sun sets this evening, the Jewish New Year will begin, Rosh Hashanah. In preparation of the holiest days of the Jewish year, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks held a series of brief talks on what it means to celebrate these days during the Corona Pandemic. And one line in particular struck me as hitting the mark.
»But the single most significant impact of the pandemic and its consequences, has been insecurity. People have felt that they don't really know what is going to happen: to their health, to their work, to their business, to society, to everyone and everything around them. They don't know how long a lockdown will last or when new quarantine restrictions will be put in place or when masks will be required and when not required, and what is going to happen with testing regimes. People can't plan for the future. They can't know what tomorrow is going to bring. And that is undermining their sense of security.« *
What impressed me most, however, is Jonathan Sacks instinctive answer to this feeling of insecurity that plagues us. He recalls the great stories of journey for the People of Israel and how each of them taught the People of God how to cope with insecurity: You need to have faith, the kind of faith that lets you set out into the undiscovered country of the future. Or as Jonathan Sacks puts it: »That willingness to journey to an unknown future is of the very essence.« *
The focus of a large majority of those who wearied and worn by the Pandemic has been to find ways to alleviate the insecurity. The cry is overwhelmingly: Give us back all the old certainties, then we will feel secure once again. Restore all the old certitudes (whether they are authentic or not) and then all will be right with the world and with us. We want the problem to go away. It is also what we often ask of religion: speak the word that makes the insecurity go away.
Yet, this has never been the path of authentic faith. We Christians inherited a great portion of the way we walk by faith from our Jewish sisters and brothers. Jesus may have enriched and perfected it in many ways, but he himself taught that faith is the willingness to set out into uncertainty like Abraham, like Moses , like Ruth. Paul, a man who never denied the rich roots of his Jewish faith in his Christian conviction puts it this way: »We walk by faith and not by sight.« (2 Cor 5,7). We have our own stories to tell about that willingness to set out into the undiscovered country, in the calling of the disciples, the sending of his people to all the nations, to every land, to the ends of the earth.
Thus, our answer is not to make the feelings insecurity go away, but to learn how to deal with the questions that insecurity poses. We have to go to new places. We have to give new paths a try. We have to risk new directions. We have to explore new possibilities. It is not the task of faith to still the storms we encounter in life. The job of faith is to learn to navigate the storms of life. You need to have faith, the kind of faith that lets you set out into the undiscovered country of the future.
God loves us dearly, and nothing endears us to him more than when we trust him to lead us through the uncertainty of life. Jeremiah recounts this when he writes: »Thus says the Lord: I remember the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, how you were willing to follow me across an unknown, unsown land.« (Jer 2,2). That willingness to follow God across an unknown and unsown land will be critical and decisive for how we emerge from the days of the Coronavirus Pandemic and from every other crisis that we face in our lifetimes.
To all our Jewish sisters and brothers and to every person who wants the fresh beginnings the great journeys of faith with God bring, I wish a shana tova (good new year) to you all.
* Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks “FAITH & INSECURITY”:
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur During the Coronavirus Pandemic;
Elul 5780 Lecture Series. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
Erik Riechers SAC, 18. September 2020
Willing to Change?
We would like to answer this question in the affirmative: yes, we are ready for change. We know our longing for it and sometimes sigh for it. Often we also keep it hidden deep within us. We may vaguely feel how good it would be to try to change the way we look at things, the direction we take or the way we live.
But – cross my heart: Doesn't it usually remain a mind game, a reverie, and mere speculation? Travelling on our well-greased familiar tracks - are we ready for change? Are we ready to let ourselves be changed?
Then we should honestly lay out our lives »on the table« ; our egocentric anxiety and worry about being short-changed or of missing out on something, our comfort, our lack of trust, our belief that we are always in control.
In March and April of this year our lives changed abruptly and many things were cut back very significantly. But this challenge from the outside also turned out to be an opportunity. It was a relief to us that it was possible to get out of the constant hectic pace of life - yes, it was possible! We were able to enjoy the beauty of spring at home and many a person asked himself why he had always believed that he could only experience beauty in foreign lands. Neighbourly help developed; young people did the shopping for old people and both were happy about it. The sky was blue without condensation trails and for many weeks out air was cleaner.
We got an inkling of the possibility of changing our lifestyle, of looking at what is essential in a new way and living a different quality of life.
This crisis had what it takes to change us.
But change does not take place from the outside to the inside. We have to let it happen inside, and then live and shape it from the inside to the outside.
Interiorly we would have to let go of our culture of egoism, of domination and determination and above all of consumption. Instead, however, since early summer, voices have been increasingly raised that everything should finally return to »normal« Could it be that our willingness to change is not as strong as we would like to think? Are we in our – from a global perspective - small, spoiled world not able or willing to see the new challenge as an invitation to leave the well-worn tracks and let ourselves be lured onto unknown paths? Perhaps our longing for full, deep life is too small and our words about the desire for change are empty babble.
In the Bible, prophets appear in times of crisis to motivate people to change, to remind them of their responsibility for each other and before God. But if their hearts are occupied and not open, change is not possible. Towards the end of the small book of the prophets Zefanja it is written:
» Therefore wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.« (Zefanja 3, 8-9)
Our LORD wants life for all. Let us awaken our longing for it and not suffocate it! Let us engage in the transformation of consumers into designers of authentic life.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, September 16th, 2020
What really counts
These days of the pandemic have raised a question that constantly accompanies us: What really counts for us? This question is evident in all areas: when, if and how we send children back to school, whether sporting events with spectators should be allowed again, or the areas of our society in which we want to invest something, as well as the areas we call »system irrelevant«. No matter which questions we answer these days, the question remains: Do we even know what really counts anymore?
Reinhold Stecher, the deceased former bishop of Innsbruck tells a fine story in this regard.
»Many years ago, I sat with other religious education teachers from Germany and Austria in a primary school class where we attended one hour of religious instruction on the occasion of a specialist congress. The religion teacher - a layman – worked with children who were obviously enthusiastic about religion, not entirely according to the standards of modern biblical science, didactics and methodology, but with a lot of heart and a response from the boys and girls that was hard to ignore. I was a little amused by the matter, because in the high-level discussions in which the congress was held, things were a little different.
Suddenly a German colleague, a layman, university professor and well-known author, leans over to me and whispers: 'Well, you know, scientifically speaking, I don't quite agree with this man here, but I would love to entrust him with my own children...’.« *
My respect for the religion teacher of this story is great, but my respect for the professor is no less. He was able to see what really counts, namely a lot of heart that calls forth a response from the hearts of the people entrusted to us. John Henry Newman called this »The heart speaks to the heart«. In spite of all of the professor’s competence, scientific theories and personal opinions, he was able to recognise what was so important, so essential, that he would be willing to put what was precious to him into these hands with confidence.
I pray often and hard that we will possess this divine wisdom of the heart in the weeks and months ahead. I pray often and hard that our economic theories, social convictions and personal habits do not blind us to what really counts in the wounded, bruised and battered world beyond our theories, convictions and theories.
Blessed are those who can recognise what really counts.
* Unseren Kindern zuliebe, S. 9-10
Erik Riechers SAC, 14. September 2020
The Calculating Heart
24th Sunday A 2020
When Jesus tells parables about the Kingdom, his aim is usually to unveil a mindset that is hidden but operative within us that goes well beyond the details of story he tells. Jesus is trying to get to the underlying dynamics or attitudes to which we need to attend.
It is easy to point out the obvious pitfalls for the human spirit in this parable: status, power, and control play a mighty role in our daily life. What is less apparent is the quiet, unassuming role played by an unnamed power that slithers into the human heart and drives the story from beginning to end, namely, the power of calculation.
When the human heart falls prey to the world of calculation, then it enters into a world that generates a potent illusion. Calculation lets us feel that we are in pursuit of justice, right order and fairness. In reality, calculation creates a world that radically limits our options.
At the start of the parable, the Lord has a choice to make. If the Lord of the parable has a calculating heart, then he has no other option but to throw his servant into prison. There is no question, no doubt, that he well within his rights to demand what is owed him. The sum is duly owed to him and he would justified in rigorously demanding ‘Pay what you owe!’ Yet, by acting beyond calculation, he opens new possibilities of life for himself and for the servant suffocating under the debt load. The servant can live a life dedicated solely to perpetual debt repayment and the king can live a life beyond the never-ending pursuit of truant debtors.
But the servant who has just won an unexpected freedom by being unfettered from a world of brutal and relentless calculation, then proceeds to immediately re-establish that world when it is to his advantage. ‘Pay what you owe!’ (the motto of all calculating hearts) never comes alone. It is accompanied by violence and aggression (“seizing him by the throat”). For the world of calculation always breeds these retributory aspects. And suddenly the stripping away of a person’s freedom and the imprisonment of a human being who is the very same boat as I was just in becomes a viable option. Calculation always creates a world that radically limits our options.
At the end of the story, everyone is back into the world of calculation, including the lord. And who benefits from this? Who can live because of this? No one. The first servant is now back in the punitive world of debt repayment that he cannot master. The second servant is locked away in a place where he can do nothing to repay the debt he owes. The lord does not get his money back and now has two servants sitting in prison, losing their service, talent and presence. This is the inhibitory power of calculation. The calculating heart creates a world that radically limits our options.
Peter’s heart strayed into the world of calculation and Jesus knew it the minute he asked his question. »How many times must I forgive my brother?« That is a classic question of calculation. It is trying to figure out what it owes the others and when that obligation ends. It wants to calculate when it has done the job and can move on. It is works on the oft spoken and yet so dangerous word »enough«. How blithely we think that categories we apply to the world of business, commerce, contracts and marketplaces can be simply applied to every other place the human heart goes. I can ask when I think I have worked enough to earn my wage. My employer can state what wage he thinks to be enough for the work I have rendered. But how do we apply this word »enough« to the ultimate works of love and relationship or to matters of the heart? How can I ask when I have been son enough to my mother? How can I ask when I have been brother enough to my sister? How do I pose the question as to when I have been friend enough to the people who journey with me? As soon as I pose the question, I am replacing a heart of flesh with a heart of stony calculation. And as soon as I pose the question, the people around me would know: he wants to know when he is finished with us. Whom among us would feel loved knowing that the other only wants to know when he can be finished with us. The heart of calculation limits our options very severely.
In all his parables about the Kingdom of God Jesus ruptures the smooth stories of life, mostly by rending the unquestioned perceptions and mindsets that lurk within those stories we love to tell ourselves about ourselves. In this parable, Jesus tears the smooth story of the calculating heart and reminds us that the Kingdom of God is about the ‘chaos of uncalculating love’.(George MacLeod).
Yet I am not inclined to deceive you into believing that this is an easy path. Quite the contrary, it requires an extraordinarily expansive and liberated heart. And when we encounter such hearts, we will be astonished, shocked and, in all likelihood, discomforted. I dare to introduce you to such hearts and let you judge for yourself what it does with yours. This closing prayer of my homily was prayed by women in a concentration camp in Ravensbrück.
Peace to all men and women of evil will!
Let there be an end to all vengeance, to all demands for punishment and retribution…
Crimes have surpassed all measure, they can no longer be grasped by human understanding.
There are too many martyrs. …
And so, weigh not their sufferings on the scales of your justice, Lord,
and lay not these sufferings to the torturer’s charge to exact
a terrible reckoning from them.
Pay them back in a different way!
Put down in favor of the executioners, the informers, the traitors and all those of evil will,
the courage, the spiritual strength of the others,
their humility, their lofty dignity,
their constant inner striving and invincible hope,
the smile that stanched the tears, their love,
their ravaged, broken hearts that remained steadfast and confident in the face of death itself,
yes, even at the moments of the utmost weakness…
Let all this, O Lord, be laid before You for the forgiveness of sins,
as a ransom for the triumph of righteousness,
let the good and not the evil be taken into account!
And may we remain in our enemies’ memory not as their victims,
not as a nightmare, not as haunting specters,
but as helpers in their striving to destroy the fury of their criminal passions.
There is nothing more that we want of them.
And when it is all over, grant us to live among human beings among human beings,
and may peace come again to our poor earth
– peace for people of goodwill and for all the others.
Amen.
This encounter with the hearts of these extraordinary women of prayer, is an encounter with hearts that did not let calculation determine how they prayed, how they lived, what they hoped for and, for many, how they died.
It leaves my heart inspired and unsettled, roused and rattled. I cannot already pray with the psalmist of Psalm 57: »My heart is ready, O God; my heart is ready«. But I want it to be able to do so. And that is a good start for us all.
Erik Riechers SAC, September 13th, 2020
Gentle Strength
When obstacles stood in the way and threatened to counteract all the good I had in mind, I tried to deal with it by force.
When good words did not work, I tried hardness.
When my heart hurt too much, I protected myself with a hard shell.
When it looked as if I had failed, I beat myself on inside.
Then I found this story by Paolo Coelho:
»The monastery on the banks of the Rio Piedra is situated in a lush landscape, a true oasis in the middle of the barren fields of this part of northern Spain. Here the small river becomes a water-rich current and splits into countless waterfalls.
The wanderer roams through this place, listening to the sound of the water. Then he suddenly discovers a grotto behind one of the waterfalls. He sees the polished stone, the beautiful shapes that nature has patiently created.
‘It was not the hammer that gave these stones their perfect shape, but the water with its gentleness, its dance and its song.
Gentleness fashions while hardness only destroys.’«
And I wept over this »gentle strength«.*
* Paolo Coelho, Unterwegs
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, September 11th, 2020
An unfiltered Story
Yesterday, on the feast of the Birth of Mary, the Genealogy of from the Gospel of Matthew was read. This unfiltered story of Jesus' birth contains elements that we cannot easily imagine when we sing our Christmas carols. The family tree and family origin of Jesus was far from perfect and pure. And we should never lose sight of this if we want to believe in Jesus, but reject the church because of its imperfection, scandals, and painful history. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but there are many things in his origin, as this Gospel makes clear, which are far from pure, immaculate and spotless.
While this story tells us of the origins of Jesus, it points to at least as many sinners, liars and schemers in the genetic and historical lineage of Jesus as it points to saints, honest people and men and women of faith.
We also learn that the family tree that gave us Jesus is not only made up of the great and talented, but equally of the poor and insignificant. In the list of the names of all the ancestors of Jesus we recognize people who were famous and others who have no claim to having accomplished anything at all special, extraordinary or significant. This story tells us, that the human blood that flowed through the veins of Jesus was produced in equal parts by great and small, gifted and untalented.
What can we learn from this? For one thing, it becomes clear that God can write straight on crooked lines. Secondly, we should not set up an over-idealized picture of the history of salvation. God does not need such images to work salvation. And finally, even if our own lives are marked by weakness and simplicity, they, too, are important for the continuing history of salvation.
The God who wrote the beginning on crooked lines also writes the continuation on crooked lines, and some of these lines are our lives and our personal stories. A God who did not shy away from the schemers and the noble, the impure and the pure, the men the world listened to and the women the world looked down on - this God continues to work with the same troupe today. If the last part of the family tree is already a challenge to acknowledge that completely unknown people were part of the story of Jesus, it might be an even greater challenge to acknowledge that the unknown characters of our time are an essential part of the continuation.
God’s story of salvation was not written only for the perfect. It is also written in the lives of the impure, the sinners, the calculating schemers, the arrogant, the dishonest, and of those without any recognizable worldly talents. No one is so bad, so insignificant, so without talent and so outside the circle of faith that he or she is automatically outside of this story. For God does not write off anyone. He simply continues to write on.
Erik Riechers SAC, September 9th, 2020
He does not slumber
Psalm 121, with which we prefaced all that we have published here since March, urgently and repeatedly places before our eyes, indeed it inscribes in our hearts, that we have a guardian.
Here the person on a quest speaks, the pilgrim, the person who is on the road. He must rely on his feet during the day and at night on strangers who offer him shelter or on the protection of a refuge somewhere in nature. On narrow ridges, on steep slopes, he knows the fear of wavering and stumbling. The midday heat in Israel is unbearable. Sometimes he is so tired that he would prefer not to get up after a midday rest. There may be hours when he does not believe he will arrive safely, because evil and all that is hostile to life oppose him.
This song is written out of the experience of such moments, but also for the times of such experiences.
When I am on a pilgrimage, says the one who prayers here, I know the challenge and keep watch for help. I look up to the mountains, the ancient places of the encounter with God, and I can say: »My help comes from the Lord who created heaven and earth.« This LORD is not only my help, he is the keeper of Israel. Therefore I assure you, who are on the path with worries and fears: » He will not let your foot stumble. . . he neither sleeps nor slumbers «. Have no fear! Dare to walk, trust your feet, our guardian goes with you. HE will not be distracted and he will not fall asleep - he always guards you! And if you are afraid of the dark night and its dangers: HE guards you! If evil in whatever form threatens you: HE protects you! When fear for your life takes your breath away: HE guards your life! Until eternity, wherever you come from and wherever you go, HE is always at your side!
All our lives are a pilgrimage and pilgrimage is not easy. Sometimes we stagger like a reed and do not know where to place our foot for the next step. Sometimes the arguments during the day are so fierce that we feel exposed and would like to hide somewhere. Sometimes the night is so dark and so long that we lose the hope of a morning light.
Then let us hold to the prayer of the Psalm for the pilgrimage. Let us look out for the places of experiences of God and remember: Our God is the Lord, who created heaven and earth, in whom everything is lifted up and supported and who is therefore our help - always, every day, every hour, no matter how difficult it is.
And we will perceive the saving shadow beside us and the companions who are at our side. We will take courage again for the next stretch of the road and continue on our way - that is life.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, September 7th, 2020
The Passion to Win over the Other
23rd Sunday A 2020
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.
Albino Luciani (the later Pope John Paul I) published a beautiful book with the title: »Illustrissimi«. He wrote these fictitious letters to various personalities for his Diocesan newspaper when he was still Patriarch of Venice. And the last letter of the volume he addressed to Jesus. My favorite part is towards the end of the letter.
»When you taught then: 'Blessed are the poor, blessed are the persecuted', I was not there. If I had been there, I would have whispered in Your ear: "For heaven's sake, speak of something else, Lord, if You want someone to follow You! Do you not see how everyone strives for wealth and comfort? Cato promised his soldiers figs from Africa, Caesar the riches of Gaul, and – for good or bad - they succeeded. Now you come and promise poverty, persecution. Who do you think will follow you there?«
I would likely have whispered the same advice into Jesus' ear if I had been there when he preached the gospel we hear today. Hardly any other text arouses so many protests as this one. I understand that well.
For here Jesus reveals to us his relentless passion for reconciliation. And those who do not share his relentless passion for reconciliation can only protest his proposals.
This intense passion of Jesus for reconciliation gives us a way of acting within the community of believers. We should employ it when our relationships with one another collapse. If we follow these steps, there is a good chance that the broken will be put back together and we will win each other over.
But it is not easy. And automatic success is not promised here either. If reconciliation does not take place after the first step, then the commitment and action will increase.
But if reconciliation is not so important to us, then we can save ourselves the trouble. Then we should not lie to ourselves, but also say clearly that regaining our relationships is not important enough for us to make such an effort.
Jesus says we should seek the conversation in private, one on one, as a first step. Sit down, speak things over and put everything on the table. This is of course a question of courage: Confronting another person about his or her behavior is never easy. Therefore, the first step is often simply skipped. Of course, everyone nods their approval at this first piece advice, but very few follow it.
When I hear in conversation what is on a person's mind after a serious conflict with another, I always ask: Did you actually tell the other any of this? And then I hear mostly: "There is no point. That wouldn't make any difference anyway.” We are quickly writing off what we have not even tried.
So we would rather call upon the next higher authority in the hope that the other is reprimanded or forced to comply. We often seek punishment, because reconciliation requires mental and emotional abilities that we do not possess.
But this step also demands something from the people being addressed for their wrong doing. They too need certain skills. The gospel says that apprentices of Jesus must be able to listen. Listening requires concentration, and in many conversations, we turn our attention on and off at will. When we listen to personal criticism, it is especially difficult to stay focused and attentive. We are often too busy formulating a devastating response. Our defense mechanisms run full steam ahead.
However, it is clear to Jesus that the one who is offended or hurt takes the initiative and seeks out the one who has offended or hurt him or her. Here, too, we follow an unconventional path. According to our ideas it should be the other way round. To our way of thinking, whoever r started the mess should also take the first step to clean it up.
The result of this first step is successful when the relationship is restored. To "win over" the brother or sister is the goal for Jesus. But to win each other over does not mean that we have to prove who was right from the beginning.
And again we encounter the problem: Often our dogmatism is more important to us than our being together. We would rather walk away as winners than walk away together.
To win back the brother or sister means that an understanding is reached that brings about reconciliation. If it can be achieved on this level, then there is no need to go further.
However, if this first step is unsuccessful, witnesses are called in to mediate the dispute. Their role is to sort out what really happened and suggest what could happen to bring people back together. They should accompany the processes which two people cannot manage alone. And that happens. Why shouldn't it? Do we really have to master everything that life throws at us? Should we never be overwhelmed by a situation? Is it reprehensible to admit that we cannot cope alone and could use help?
If this second step does not bear fruit, the larger community is called in to bring the two people together. At this level, of course, action will be more formal and authoritative. What we must not hide is that this step will also make it much more complex and complicated for everyone involved. For the community, this can create pressure for one side or the other to take sides, rather than finding a way for the two people to win each other back. At the same time, the temptation is great for the disputants in the community to seek allies rather than companions.
Should the third step not work, the offender should be seen as someone who has maneuvered himself or herself outside the community. Such people should be considered las heathens and publicans, people who are in particular need of the community's relentless concern for life and reconciliation. This is not a picture of rejection, but a picture of responsibility. Only Pharisees write off Gentiles and publicans. For Jesus they are people who need special devotion, care and attention. They need a missionary commitment from us to bring them back into the community. Here it depends on how I see the difficult people in my life.
These steps of Jesus reflect his passion for reconciliation. It is his hope and his intention to infect his people with this passion. This divine passion to win back the lost is always looking for the next step, for the next possibility where the hardened heart could open. But in the end only one thing counts: whether we share this passion with God.
This text arouses protest in us when we simply read it as a course of action that we have to take to win other people over. Yet, the text not only speaks of what we should do, but also of what could be done for us. We usually assume that we are the offended, the afflicted, and the victims of other sinners. And what if it is the other way around? What if we are the perpetrators?
Do we really want to claim that it is not worthwhile to win us back, that we are not worth seeking and finding, being accepted and taken in again?
Erik Riechers SAC, September 6th, 2020
Like an Angel
The transition from late summer to early autumn is noticeable.
The brightness in the morning makes us wait for it a little longer,
the twilight in the evening comes earlier and earlier.
Regret awakens in my heart, because the bright evenings did my soul good.
But with it also comes a gentle joy at the prospect of more time for retreat and silence.
There I meet an almost 40 year old song from ABBA:
»Like an angel passing through my room«
and I marvel:
At that time I had not noticed it at all.
Long awaited darkness falls
Casting shadows on the walls
In the twilight hour I am alone
Sitting near the fireplace
Dying embers warm my face
In this peaceful solitude
All the outside world subdued
Everything comes back to me again
In the gloom...
Like an angel passing through my room.
Half awake and half in dreams
Seeing long forgotten scenes
So the present runs into the past
Now and then become entwined
Playing games within my mind
Like the embers as they die
Love was one prolonged goodbye
And it all comes back to me tonight
In the gloom
Like an angel passing through my room
I close my eyes
And my twilight images go by
All too soon
Like an angel passing through my room
Writer(s): Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, September 4th, 2020
»In this life all symphonies remain unfinished.«
These have been trying days for us all. Yet, despite the uncertainty, the restrictions and the inconvenience of it all, for the most part I have personally found it fairly easy to take the days with a touch of humour and a healthy portion of faith. The crisis has not disheartened me.
Yet, in the last weeks, I have found a touch of discouragement creeping into me. It is not the crisis, but the critics who have worried my soul and troubled my tranquility. There are the theologians who are boldly declaring the pandemic to be the death of the Church. There are the critics who claim that we are not being innovative and creative enough in the face of the crisis, and who seem to believe that they have some birthright to do so with the most vitriolic and nastiest of invective they can muster, assassinating character and truth in the same tirade. Others complain vociferously and at great length that what has been attempted thus far is insufficient: it is not fast enough, good enough or soon enough.
This phenomena is not just a sign of battle fatigue or even of plain human grumpiness. It is a symptom of an affliction of the soul that looks at the Church, the world and life in general in an unhealthy fashion. People who suffer from this affliction expect perfection when none will ever be found. They expect fulfillment before the race is run.
So I turn to a quote from Karl Rahner, who was ever keen to keep our view of life healthy and just.
»All renewal, all progress of the Church will be consumed, as it were, again and again in the experience of the hardships of history, in the disappointment about ourselves, who are the Church after all, and so we must experience her in the same way… We always play the unfinished symphony of the glory of God, and it is always only a dress rehearsal. But therefore all effort, all the always unfinished and unfinishable reformation is not in vain, not senseless. It is simply the task of the servants who sow in tears so that God may reap, the task that only Christian hope can accomplish against all hope, because it alone, believing, knows that even the defeat we accept will continue God's victory on the wood of the cross.«
Karl Rahner touches on this simple yet so important truth. All of life is an unfinished symphony. This is a work in progress and all our business is unfinished business. The question is, whether we can appreciate and live with the beauty, charm and opportunities of unfinished symphonies.
Years ago I heard a song that always comes back to haunt me when the discouragement of insufficiency strikes. It is entitled: »That’s all I have to say.« *
I've had time to write a book
About the way you act and look,
But I haven't got a paragraph.
Words are always getting in my way.
Anyway, I love you.
That's all I have to tell you.
That's all I've got to say.
And now, I'd like to make a speech
About the love that touches each,
But stumbling, I would make you laugh.
I feel as though my tongue were made of clay.
Anyway, I love you.
That's all I have to tell you.
I'm not a man of poetry
Music isn't one with me
It runs from me
It runs from me
And I tried to write a symphony,
But I lost the melody.
Alas I only finished half.
And finish I suppose I never may…
Anyway, I love you.
That's all I have to tell you.
That's all I've got to say.
The songwriter obviously has a great love for the unnamed person of the song, and it drives him to put it into words, to create an expression of his love that would be a revelation to the beloved. The song sings of that, which the singer cannot sufficiently express about the beloved, but this does not defeat him. After all, there is this song. And although he claims, »That's all I have to tell you. That's all I've got to say«, I am glad that he had this to tell and this to say, and someone to whom to say it with all its flaws and inadequacies. It is unfinished, but beautiful. It is not everything, would it not be more than enough to delight your heart and lighten your spirit if someone had this to tell you, even if it was all they had to say?
Karl Rahner wrote »In this life all symphonies remain unfinished.«
For all those who, like me, are fumbling through the dress rehearsal, there is a pleasure all its own in rehearsing for the show which no spectator in a theater will ever know. Be an actor and get on stage.
For all those who, like me, who have stumbled over words and whose tongues were made of clay, there is a joy in the very art of creating something, not just in the finished product. No passive listener will ever come to know this. Be a storyteller and show up with a tale.
For all those who, like me, wanted a symphony and lost the melody, there is a pleasure all its in own in the composing, in creating something of rhythm and melody. No impartial bystander will ever touch it. Be a composer, and write your unfinished symphonies.
Why let a little incompleteness spoil a perfectly good life?
Erik Riechers SAC, September 2nd, 2020
* A beautiful rendition of the song can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utt2wLMbz0k&list=FLCWG96HZx8GTKKe2v0tBdSA&index=4&t=0s
To Stand Before the Day
Recently I encountered anew a special blessing into the day. I remembered how I had discovered it a long time ago and how I had often prayed it in the morning.
Now I perceived it anew, as often happens when something or someone falls out of sight and suddenly appears before us again.
I felt it physically - first in my posture, because I could not pray it sitting down, but had to stand up.
I may stand up at the beginning of the day.
And then to be quietly completely with myself . . . feel all my senses and let them come alive . . . and gradually enter the depth of my soul and my being borne.
Experience it for yourself:
I arise today
In the name of Silence
Womb of the Word,
In the name of Stillness
Home of Belonging,
In the name of the Solitude
Of the Soul and the Earth.
I arise today
Blessed by all things,
Wings of breath,
Delight of eyes,
Wonder of whisper,
Intimacy of touch,
Eternity of soul,
Urgency of thought,
Miracle of health,
Embrace of God.
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.
(John O’Donohue , To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 31rst, 2020
Because I am here, Where is it that I am absent from?
22nd Sunday A 2020
There is a small scene at the beginning of today's gospel.
Peter takes Jesus aside.
He reproaches him.
Jesus turns around, looks at his disciples, and rebukes Peter.
Here are his words. »Get behind me, you Satan!«
In an older version, this sentence was once translated as »Get out of my sight«.
Get out of my sight is a clear message. It means that if we do not think as God thinks, then we will be punished, and in the harshest manner. For the punishment is not that we are rebuked. No, the punishment is the deprivation of closeness and presence. The punishment is that we are sent away, that we are no longer seen, that we are no longer wanted and desired. »Get out of my sight« says, that I am now persona non grata.
This image of God has been preached to us often enough. We feel the harshness, the threat that lies behind it. It works with withdrawal of love, something that we humans fear very much. But the withdrawal of love is a human strategy and not a divine one.
But that is not what the phrase »Get behind me, you Satan!« means.
Peter takes Jesus aside, off the path he has taken. He reproaches him. This way leads him to Jerusalem. There Jesus suffered much and was rejected by the high priests and the scribes. In other words, Jesus is setting out on a path that will take him to where violence and abandonment await him.
Then it becomes interesting. Because the text says: Jesus turned around. That means he now has Peter behind him, has him at his back.
Then he looks at the disciples, because they are as affected by this scene as Peter is, and rebukes him. He makes a course correction.
Why is this necessary? Peter was the one who recognized Jesus as the Messiah and called him that. He is convinced that this Jesus has the words of eternal life. But now, when he has doubts about the way and the wisdom of the Messiah, he wants to take over the lead. And Jesus tells him through this word and his gesture: »Peter you should be following me. In order to follow, you would have to stand behind me. Let yourself be guided. Let me lead you on paths that you would not take. But this will only happen if someone else knows the direction, and therefore you must stand behind me. If you always follow the paths that you are already on, you don't need anyone to guide you. But if you want to experience something new, unexpected and untried, then stand behind me.«
Jesus leads Peter to the place where is invited to answer the question my friend John O’Donohue loved to pose: »Because I am here, Where is it that I am absent from?« This is a place of awakening. Peter has tasted something of the grandeur of God, and nibbling at the side of the path will no longer satisfy him.
But nobody is sent away here. Jesus wants to correct the relationship with Peter, not cancel it.
How does Jesus deal with a person who is not yet able or willing to walk in the ways of God?
He corrects the attitude, but he does not send him away.
- He helps people to reposition themselves, but does not write him off.
- He makes a return to the path of life (from which Peter deviated - he took him aside), but he does not dismiss him.
- He clarifies the circumstances, but does not terminate the relationship.
- He points out the right order, but not once does he want t say to Peter that he has no place in that order.
The withdrawal of love is a human strategy and not a divine one.
»Get behind me« means follow my path. And the name Satanas is an allusion to the Tempter in the desert. Peter is not being demonized here, but is made aware that his present attitude is that of the Tempter in the desert. He thinks like the tempter in the wilderness, who also tried to dissuade Jesus from the way, who also wanted to stand before him (cf. Bow down before me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of this earth).
When people do not have in mind what God has in mind for the world, then the order is distorted.
We human beings avoid the unpleasant; so we will avoid being at the mercy of others and violence. We will get out of the way.
Jesus turns these things and does not avoid them. Instead he deals with them, he confronts these realities.
When people try to avoid the path of life, Jesus clarifies how a healthy, life-enhancing relationship with God works.
This is an image of God that we can live with. And that is the point. No matter what our images of God might be, what use is one that keeps us away from the life-giving presence of the God it portrays? How does an image of God ever help any mortal to achieve anything, including repentance, if it repels rather than attracts?
I am not ashamed to admit, that I have been Peter in my life. There have been times when I have stepped away or strayed from the path that leads to life. Sometimes I was too afraid to go places that seemed too demanding, too frightening or too uncertain. And I have had times when I vocally and vehemently told God in no uncertain terms, that this was surely a mistake. Yet, I would never have returned to the path of life if the response had been »get out of my sight«.
I have been prodded, teased and persuaded to get back in line. I am happy to be here. There is a distinct advantage to being one step behind the Spirit Master. There is always One who is one step ahead of me. There is always One who is between me and the uncertain future that I fear. If you ask me, there is no better place to be.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 30th, 2020
»Lord, your love reaches«
Do we want to have as much as possible or do we learn to accept life and make the most of it with everything that is?
Then it might be, that we gradually no longer wish to be spared from evil and difficult things, but deepen and broaden all our senses. We learn to perceive beauty in unusual places. We feel the divine in moments in which we used to stumble over many things. We perceive that we are given more than we expected and recognize more and more the richness of life in its depth and breadth.
Being brought back to myself more and having less external distractions revealed to me the beauty of a face that smiled despite illness. I saw the splendor of an evening sky on my simple balcony. I enjoyed the spicy, resinous air in our forest. I recognized the treasure that lies in the silence. The desire awoke in me to make contact with people I had not seen or heard from in a long time.
And I allied myself anew with the praying person of Psalm 36 when he speaks:
Your steadfast love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep;
man and beast you save, O Lord. How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.
(Ps 36, 5-9)
He hymns the skies and clouds, the mountains the floodwaters - creation in all its breadth and depth.
He does not deny that we are at the mercy of many things, but he sees salvation and the Saviour and in it the preciousness of divine love.
Let us take the images seriously. When the »heat« becomes unbearable and we threaten to wither, his shadow will be there under which we can shelter. When we feel lost and homeless, he offers us his house and his table where we can refresh ourselves. When thirst consumes us and the longing for vitality dries us out, he dreches us with his abundance.
Let us look at our life: When and where have we had such experiences?
And how often have we given them to other people?
»For your steadfast love reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!« (Ps 57, 11) – we are always enveloped by it, we live and move within it.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 28th, 2020
Which request works?
»You cannot have everything!« - You must have heard this sentence again and again as a child (I even have a song in my ears!); perhaps you remember using this sentence against your children and their all-encompassing wishes. We all had and have to learn to decide. What do we really want? What is essential? What serves life? In order to mature, in order to become adults, we must ask ourselves these questions again and again and answer them for ourselves. We simply cannot have everything. How difficult it is for us in our pampered world of prosperity to accept this!
No one has been and will be spared the danger of a tiny virus, the coronavirus, during this year and beyond. People at all levels are learning and practicing how to encounter it and how to deal with it well. Thus, strategies are developed and rules are worked out. We learn them and practice them, because we want to stay healthy and get through this time well. And there were weeks and months in which we were happy, even proud, that we mastered this pandemic quite well as a society.
But then desires were and are awakened. We want to travel again, take a vacation, we want to celebrate together, meet each other more often and more closely and more relaxed and ... and ... and ... and ...
Indeed, the childlike idea creeps in that we can have everything, an unrestrained life of prosperity with all the freedoms AND health through protection from the virus. Sometimes we even complain that we have not lived » properly « in the last months, because not everything was possible as usual.
In her poem »Request« , so beloved by many, Hilde Domin expresses in inimitable fashion that no one is spared in life and the wish that it be so is neither helpful, nor does it work.
Nevertheless, rich life is possible.
What works is to ask
please
that at sunrise the dove
will bring the olive branch
that the fruit will be as colourful
as the blossom
that even the rose petals on the ground
can become a shining crown.
Let us look at the images: they speak of life possibilities, fertility and beauty. May we not overlook their signs in our lives - they are there!
Hilde Domin goes even further: even when the waves threaten to crash over us and everything becomes threatening, there is the perspective of healing and maturation:
And that we, out of the flood
out of the lions den and the
fiery furnace
will be released
renewing ourselves
even more wounded and even more healed.
To become and be an adult does not mean to expect less, but to live deeper and more fully.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 26th, 2020
Mass
I celebrated Mass the other day. I had been informed in the sacristy of all the precautions and restrictions I needed to heed before I had entered the church. No singing, no sign of peace. Disinfect your hands before distributing communion. Keep your distance. Indeed, always keep your distance.
I went into the Church and prepared the altar. When I looked up, several people smiled at me. When you are a priest, you get used to having all manner of people prepare the altar for you. Out of respect and gratitude for their service, I never interfere, but I take an irrepressible glee when I am able to prepare the altar by myself, whenever I get the chance. I love setting the table.
It speaks of loving thoughtfulness for people you care about. It speaks of reverence, because we do not prepare for that which is unimportant to us. It speaks of expectation, for there is no need to set the table if no one will come and take a place at it. It speaks of the willingness to share, of opening the heart by granting the simple access to the place where you expect to share, where you take what is yours and put it out on a table for others to partake in and enjoy. And when the people smiled at me, I was reminded of my mother, who would smile at me from the kitchen when I set the table in the dining room.
The Mass was simple. It was stripped down to the basics. There were stories of God, followed by stories about the maddening people with whom he is so madly in love. There were prayers for those present and those longed for, soft words for burdened hearts, remembrance of people who presumable think they are forgotten. There was a touch of Thanksgiving in the midst of the mundane and humdrum. A bit of bread was broken and shared. Eyes met where hands were not allowed to touch. There was communion, between those who ate the bread and with the One who transformed it for us. And there was gratitude for the chance of the gathering.
It was pure. There was no pomp. It was not entertaining, but edifying. There was nothing to jazz up the moment. It was more a simple lean meal than a banquet or a feast. It reminded me of meals I have shared with my family and my beloved friends. It reminded me of a dear friend who recently told me of the simple, attentive and loving way her mother used to prepare every Sunday morning breakfast for her family. It reminded me of my teacher’s gently insistent words: gather the folks, tell the stories, break the bread.
One of the people who attended paused after Mass to tell me what she missed: the singing, the embrace at the sign of peace, shaking hands before and after the Mass. I went back to my room and paused to say a prayer of thanks. I had loved it, all of it, every moment of it. The liturgists will ask for my head on a platter and the musicians will decry that the barbarians have breached the sanctuary. Theologians will bemoan my lack of nuance and subtlety. Critical Catholics will protest the lack of sophistication and modern critical commentary to every imaginable ideological concern under God’s uncritical, undiscerning sun. Traditionalists will judge it unworthy for its lack of transcendent, other-worldly ambiance. Yet, none of it changes the fact that I was content, sated by bread and story and companionship. I felt a little more alive, a little less burdened, a lot lighter in my spirit and closer to my God and our people.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 24th, 2020
Power as Influence
21st Sunday A 2020
Almost all conflicts between Jesus and his disciples (and he has quite a few) are about power and authority. »They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them (the disciples): 'What did you talk about on the way?' They were silent because they had talked to each other on the way about which of them was the greatest.« Even in the society of Jesus' day, the question of power was never far from the surface.
In today's Gospel, Peter recognizes that the source of Jesus' power lies in his fully accepting and living out of his role as a beloved Son. Jesus is truly the Son of the living God. For this insight, Peter is rewarded with the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
But while Peter has a special position, as the rock solid foundation and bearer of the keys, later (cf. Mt 18:18) Jesus will say to all his disciples: »Amen, I tell you: Everything that you will bind on earth will also be bound in heaven his and everything that you will loosen on earth, that will also be loosened in heaven.« People from the second row also have to deal with binding and loosing.
But here the story takes an amazing and often overlooked turn. Because for people of all times the tendency is to use the power of binding and to understand and exercise power as control over life, the world and fellow human beings. But not with God. He tends to turn to the power of loosing, because God exercises power as influence. And we, who have both options, must choose how to understand and exercise our power. It will be seen that this power is more of a challenge than a privilege.
1. Mt 16, 21-23
Power that does not withdraw and dispense from life,
but embraces the fullness and the heart of life.
The conflict between Jesus and Peter over the use of power begins in the very next scene of Matthew's Gospel.
Jesus foretells that he will go up to Jerusalem, where he will be crucified and rise from the dead on the third day. Peter does not want to know anything about it: »May God prevent that, Lord! It must not happen to you!«
This sincere token of concern brings him a rebuke. »Stand behind me!« Take your place in the succession and let me show you the way.
The problem lies in the way Peter sees power. Peter sees Jesus as the Son of Power; and he knows how power works with other people. Power is given so that you can dispense yourself from the fates and facts of life to which the powerless are helplessly exposed. The sons of kings do not die in the wars their fathers initiate. The daughters of legislators are not ground down the tax laws their mothers pass. The people in power exercise this power to secure themselves against the factors of life that would otherwise lessen, exhaust or drain them
Those who understand power in this way will find it folly for the Son of the High to simply submit to the conditions of powerlessness. But Jesus redefines the understanding and use of power. Power does not dispense itself from life, but rather embraces the conditions of life in a new, creative way.
The power that God has entrusted to us is not armor, but increased vulnerability. This power is an openness toward life and it wants to overcome the destructive elements within it. We should not want to escape, but to delve into the heart of life.
2. Mt 18, 21-22
Power that does not exclude, but includes.
Here we have the second episode of this conflict over power. Peter knows that Jesus has a great tendency to forgive. That is why he offers Jesus a very generous number. »Seven times?« In this exchange, Jesus' rebuke is milder, but it is just as clear. »Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.«
This is more than a contrast between a limited number and an infinite capacity. This is about the power of binding and loosing.
Peter also has the power to bind, but what good is it for if you cannot lock some people up and shut out other people? With people, power is used as a control, and then power will show itself as the ability to determine who is allowed to be there and who is not. We know this form of power only too well. (If you do not do what I want, then you cannot be part of my group. It is practiced from schoolyards to workplaces.)
That is what Peter does at this point. Insidiously, he asks Jesus when he can finally use the power of his keys and exclude others. Jesus, on the other hand, questions the whole premise of Peter. Power is not for the purpose of exclusion. Power is for the mission of inclusion. The power that flows when you love God, with all your soul, with all your heart, with all your power, brings people together. It does not tear them apart.
3. John 13
Power, not for abstract concepts, but for real human needs.
The third episode and the most famous conflict between Jesus and Peter is told in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. Peter refuses this service. Jesus replies that if he does not let himself be washed, he cannot have a part in him, that they no longer have anything in common. The ever exuberant Peter then asks for a whole bath.
But the question of power in this episode goes far beyond a role reversal. The Master serves specific human needs. Dirty feet are the objects of his care.
Just think of the rhetoric of service that overflows in the Church. This language is often, very often, more noble than this particular service. Talk about it is loftier and the words about it pompous. We speak of serving the Kingdom of God, serving the ideal social order, and serving the vision of the future.
But often, very often, it remains on the level of abstract concepts. Then we tolerate broken bodies and a shattered spirit becomes acceptable. Divine love not only requires that our power be used for service, but that it serve specific human needs.
This is what power could look like if we live it out like God on this earth.
1. A power that does not withdraw and dispense from life, but embraces the fullness and the heart of life.
2. A power that does not exclude, but includes.
3. A power not for abstract concepts, but for real human needs.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 23rd, 2020
Flow over, but do not grow empty
Times of crisis in our life are part of our life. Sometimes they last a few weeks, sometimes they turn into adventurous years. Times like this show us what is perhaps also true during times of calm waters: We often feel empty, we are tormented by excessive demands, we look for refueling opportunities.
If we are not careful, we believe we are switching off when we indulge in various forms of amusement. But later we are surprised that we have not recharged our batteries at all, that we have not recovered and that we are very quickly drained from fulfilling our tasks.
Maybe we should practice a new point of view. The attitude of Bernhard von Clairvaux, whose memory we celebrated yesterday, can help us in this.
Bernhard was an energetic monk of fascinating charisma and comprehensive learning as well as extraordinary self-discipline. He gives us the following:
Those who are wise, therefore, will see their lives as more like a bowl than a canal.
The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives;
the bowl retains the water until it is filled.
In this way it discharges the overflow without loss to itself.
The bowl imitates the spring. Only when it has been filled with water, does it pour itself out in a
stream and becomes a sea. Act likewise. First fill yourself up, then pour over.
The charity that is benign and prudent does not flow outwards until it abounds within.
I cannot see myself being enriched by your wasting of your powers.
For if you are mean to yourself, to whom will you be good?
Help me out of your abundance if you have it;
if not, then spare yourself the trouble.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 21st, 2020
»There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you«
When Maya Angelou was eight years old, she was sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend. But she did not hide it. Instead, she testified against him. He was sentenced to a year in prison but was released the same day. Four days later he was found dead, presumably the work of her uncles.
This had an extraordinary effect on Maya Angelou, because for the next six years she stopped talking except to her brother Bailey. She was convinced that her voice, her words, had killed a man.
Maya Angelou describes this episode of her life in her memoir »I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings«. In it she writes the sentence: »There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you«. She knew the weight of an untold story.
In the book of Proverbs stands a warning that is deeply linked to this:
»Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?« (Proverbs 6, 27)
This image of carrying fire next to the chest is always powerful for me. This is an image of the inner processes of our life, of that which moves us interiorly, preoccupies our heart and drives our lives. It is ab image of the untold stories that we bear within us.
We all have such fire, such stories within us. That is hardly the problem, because fire, just like stories, is something fundamentally good, something useful for life. This applies to the internal processes of the heart. No matter how broken, painful and uncomfortable they may be, they too are fundamentally good and beneficial to our lives. They are a part of our story.
Yet fire, like stories, can swiftly become dangerous in two cases.
- If left unattended. A burning candle on the Advent wreath is beautiful, gives off warmth and light and radiates security into the winter cold of life. But if we leave the room without putting out the fire then, in the end, more burns than we wanted.
- When it is left to the inexperienced. Because children do not recognize the power and danger of fire, they treat it carelessly. The matches in the adult's hand are useful instruments. If we put them in the hands of small children, they can quickly become dangerous for hearth and home. And again, in the end, there is more burning than we originally wanted.
The same danger exists for people when they do not take the inner heart processes of their stories seriously.
- What goes on in the heart must not be left unattended, otherwise these processes expand to places where they do not belong.
- We must not remain immature in relation to these inner processes of the heart. If we do not know how to deal with them, then they will spread and take up spaces that do not belong to them.
God does not want us to remain immature, that we deal carelessly with heart processes. We should look lovingly and gently at the story within. We should recognize these processes as having a powerful effect and, above all, take them seriously.
»Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?« (Proverbs 6, 27)
That is why Jesus often turns our gaze inward to look at what is in us, what is happening within us and what drives us. We should grow into a reflected consciousness so that we can clearly see the sources from which our moods arise, our motivations come and our attitudes grow. And we should do so in order that what goes on in the heart does not make us mute and speechless in the end. For the agony of an untold story will then determine everything in life, all our actions, thoughts and feelings. In other words, we should see to it that the clothes (the exterior of life) do not catch fire (through the internal processes).
We could, of course, spend our time putting out everything that lit the fire in the clothes. Thus, anger can seep into our hearts, we explode and the next person who comes along suffers the full fury of our wrath. We apologize and straighten things out (extinguish the burning clothes), but if we do not look at the anger inside of us, then the whole thing happens all over again. It becomes an endless cycle of explosion, remorse, and apology. We only put out clothing fires. Should that be the goal of our life, then we would be better off working for the fire department.
»Can a man carry fire next to his chest
and his clothes not be burned?« (Proverbs 6, 27)
Or we can use the time to lovingly and gently look at the untold story within us, at the processes of the heart, deal with it responsibly and keep an eye on it, so that only that burns which radiates light, warmth and security.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 19th, 2020
A summer day that supports us
The thoughts circle and do not come to rest; Heaviness spreads within us. The worries make us brood and we move through the yesterdays or speculate about tomorrow. Can we see and appreciate TODAY in its fullness? Do we even recognize and feel what is essential, the companions at our side, that which supports us?
Today I am sharing a song by Reinhard Mey with you. He does not deny the darkness, but is also not ready to give it supremacy - on the contrary: he knows and names his priorities and he sings about what was, what is and what supports.
So many summers spent with you,
Loved and cried and laughed with you.
Let us live happily today on this summer day,
How many more summers might there be?
All good things must end
Let us give away, let us be lavish.
The hand that gives away empties and fills at the same time,
Only what we give away makes us really rich.
Let's scatter happiness with full hands.
All good things must end.
So many summers spent with you,
Loved and cried and laughed with you.
Let us live happily today on this summer day,
How many more summers might there be?
The tears, the grief, the defeats
Sleepless nights, questions and laments.
The doubts, the fears, the worries and troubles,
Blossom-dreams that will not fade.
Standing together, borne together,
The tears, the grief, the defeats.
So many summers spent with you,
Loved and cried and laughed with you.
Let us live happily today on this summer day,
How many more summers might there be?
Love outshines everything in life
All the stars pale next to it.
The only message, the only meaning,
The only refuge lays therein,
To give one another comfort and warmth.
Love outshines everything in life.
So many summers spent with you,
Loved and cried and laughed with you.
Let us live happily today on this summer day,
How many more summers might there be?
Guard the light of this summer day
For the winter day that can safely come.
(Reinhard Mey, Album »Mr. Lee«, 2016)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 17th, 2020
To do what is necessary
20th Sunday A 2020
In his book, On Earth as it is in heaven, John Shea recounts a seminar about theological reflection that he led in the vicinity of London. On one of the days, the group discussed today’s story from the Gospel of Matthew. The exchange was broad. The participants shared many ideas about the interpretation of this story and how they could be applied to life situations in the present day.
»There was a quiet, older woman who didn't participate very much. But she was observant and seemed very interested. After everyone else had their say, she added quietly, ‘It's your daughter. She wants her daughter healthy and she will do what is necessary.’ «(p. 255)
This woman touched on and named something essential in this story. The Canaanite woman does what is necessary for her daughter, come what may. Jesus is amazed at precisely this woman and says to her: Woman, your faith is great.
Now a question arises: what constitutes faith? Most of the time we think that faith is synonymous with »belief in God«. And great faith is often interpreted as believing in God in situations of suffering. For in such situations of suffering there is a temptation to think that we have been forsaken by God. Great faith, on the other hand, claims that God is present even when there are no obvious signs of that presence. Holy people will always acknowledge and worship God.
But that formula does not work in this story. That is not the great faith of this woman. Her faith consists in the fact that she acts in a hardnosed way out of her deepest conviction. She takes nine important steps in the story.
- She needs to know what she really loves. Important questions must be clarified in her heart before she goes on the streets and confronts Jesus. What are my heart's concerns? What is it worth fighting for in my life? That is the unspoken premise of this narrative and it is the indispensable prerequisite for any narrative of great faith. We have to recognize what we really love, because only for that will we go all out. We do not fight for what leaves us cold, we do not fight for what is indifferent to us. If we don't care how the story ends, then we won't get involved.
- The woman must recognize that her dearest daughter is in danger. A situation arises in the daughter's life that needs healing. But she will only notice that if she watches carefully over her daughter, looks at her again and again and constantly checks what her condition is.
- The woman must recognize where salvation and life are possible. The fact that Jesus brings these possibilities of God with and within is useless if she does not know who he is and what he can do. She needs to recognise the potential in Jesus for her life and the life of her daughter.
- She is not passive. Her daughter's illness does not paralyze her. She walks towards Jesus. She does not wait at home for God's possibilities to come to her.
- She makes her request clearly and precisely. She knows what she wants (have mercy on me) and why she wants it (my daughter is tormented by a demon.).
- She does not accept silence. She does not break off the dialogue and does not sneak away just because Jesus does not want to talk about it for the time being. Her daughter's life is too important to her for that, and her concern that her daughter may live safely and freely again is too precious.
- She also does not let the feeling of discomfort in the others put her off. »Then his disciples came up to him and asked: Send her away, because she is shouting after us!« She does not go away on her own, just because her concerns make the disciples uncomfortable.
- She is ready to enter into confrontation. If she has to persuade the Jewish Messiah and remind him that although there are many ethnic groups, there is still only one God, so be it.
- She is a determined servant of these possibilities of God. She uses everything that is available to her. Her character changes in the course of the story. She is loud and assertive, then pleading and indulgent, then smart and confrontational. Her great faith is not just an inexorable devotion to the betterment of a person she loves and her situation. It is also the creative ability to find the way to such a betterment. That is the hallmark of creativity: it has no predetermined agenda. Creativity has a clear mission, but not an inviolable, universal strategy. Creativity does not know what it is about to face. It knows very well that there will be resistance, but it does not know the exact nature of that resistance. So this creative woman is ready, alert, and open to what will be needed. Do I need arguments? Then there are arguments. Do I need reverence? Then there will be reverence. Do I need confrontation? Then there will be confrontation.
And Jesus is amazed at precisely this woman and says to her: Woman, your faith is great. She doesn't let anyone or anything (not even Jesus) stop her to get to where life and salvation are.
And this path is open to us as well. We, too, could take these 9 important steps of a great faith.
- We should know what we really love, what is truly important to us. Only for this will we invest strength and energy, undertake adventures and even make personal sacrifices.
- We should notice what endangers our heart's concerns. If we do not realize that they need healing, they can die of neglect very quickly. Just as we pay close attention to our state of health, we should often and regularly look at the health of our heart's concerns.
- We should recognize where the possibilities of God are that could bring us salvation and life in our hour of need. Which people, stories, encounters or conversations could give us these possibilities?
- We should not become passive, but rather move towards God's possibilities for salvation and life, take steps and become active. This is especially dangerous in forms of spirituality where we are always passively waiting for God's action while we ourselves sit back and wait for him to come.
- We should clearly state our concerns. Often we know exactly what we dislike and what we no longer want, but we cannot say exactly what we need and want.
- The silence of others about our concerns should neither determine nor prevent us from pursuing and realizing them.
- Even if others do not feel comfortable with what is important to us, or even if they reject it, we should not let ourselves be turned away. What touches and moves us does not lose its meaning or legitimacy if others do not share it.
- We should be ready to enter into confrontation. For everything that is truly important to us, we have to expect resistance, disinterest and rejection. And if we really love something that is important to us, then we will enter into confrontation for it.
- We should use everything that is available to us; be loud and assertive, pleading and indulgent, smart and confrontational. Be creative, ready, vigilant, and open to what will be needed.
This is the point of the woman who says to John Shea, »It's her daughter. She wants her daughter healthy and she will do what is necessary.« The full range of human creativity must be practiced in the pursuit of healing, life and the future. That is a great faith.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 16th, 2020
»Because God gazed at her«
In the hot summer of 2003 I spent several days with my eldest daughter in Aachen. She had a lot to do and so I enjoyed the city for two days. When, on the morning of August 15th, the bells of the Church of St. Jacob rang next door, I let myself be drawn and went to the small community gathered around the altar to celebrate the feast of the Assumption with them. The pastor related the following story in the sermon: Some time ago he and a friend visited the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar. There they had wandered from work to work, deeply interested in art, when they witnessed a touching and moving scene in front of a picture of Mary. A little boy there asked his father: »Papa, why is the woman so beautiful?« The father crouched down, took his son on his thigh and answered: » Why is the woman so beautiful? - Because God gazed at her!«
We all live from being seen. Not to be looked at, to be overlooked, not being noticed, makes us uncertain of ourselves.
Hilde Domin puts it this way in her poem:
Your place is
where eyes look at you.
Where eyes meet
you are created.
. . .
You exist
because eyes want you,
look at you and say
that you exist.
(Hilde Domin, Gesammelte Gedichte ,1987)
It is told of the simply but charismatic Cure d’Ars that he often sat in silence for hours in his little village church. When asked what he was doing there, he simply replied: »He looks at me and I look at him.«
Gazing means more than seeing. It means taking something into our sight, to let our eyes rest on something. To gaze at a human being means turning toward them, to go with them at eye level.
Or, as John O’Donohue formulates it so beautifully: »When we gaze at something with undivided attention, we draw it into ourselves.« That means, when we are seen like this, gazed at like this, we are also drawn in. To be truly seen mediates to us a sense of security and protection.
And we hear what resonates when God looks at me: He looks at me as I am, in the depths of my soul, in my personal core; it doesn't matter whether I am important in the world or not, whether I am poor or rich, healthy or sick, productive or in need of help, inconspicuous or magnificent.
To be gazed at by HIM makes beautiful.
To be gazed at by HIM makes great.
To be looked at by HIM lets you sing. That is why Luke puts this wonderful song on Mary’s lips:
» My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; My spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.« (Lk 1, 46-49)
If the loving gaze from person to person makes life possible, how much more so if the person stands eye to eye with God, who is love. This experience gives irrepressible strength, deep joy, creative vitality, sometimes explosively, often gently growing.
I am because He is gazing at me.
I am allowed to live what is mine because He is gazing at me.
Receiving my reputation from Him makes me beautiful.
At the end of the Liturgy in the St. Jacob’s Church in Aachen, the Pastor dismissed us with the words: »When you now go outside and a person comes toward you, remember: God gazed upon them as well!«
Tomorrow may we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary with joy!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 14th, 2020
The Search for Perfect Solutions
In the last few weeks there has been criticism of the solutions and measures that politicians, doctors and virologists have proposed and introduced. Donald Trump may be the most prominent critic of this kind, but it does not seem difficult for him to find a lot of companions in the public lamentation of these imperfect solutions.
I happily admit that none of the measures or solutions are perfect. Masks help, but they cannot always prevent infection. Distancing is effective, but it cannot guarantee that we will not get the virus.
But the search for a perfect solution is always dangerous, because it can cost us life, joy, love and enjoyment wherever they are given to us merely because they are not perfect. But we can live well, even very well, with imperfect solutions.
So I am sharing a wisdom story that can help us to calm down a bit by giving up the search for the perfect solution and taking the search for all that life has to offer us more seriously. The title of the story is: Nasrudin and the Perfect Woman.
Nasrudin, the wise fool, was drinking tea when a friend stormed excitedly into his house. “Nasrudin” he shouted, beaming with joy, “I am getting married! I am so happy. Say, have you ever thought of getting married in your life? "
Nasrudin looked thoughtfully into the distance. “Yes,” he said after a while, “when I was young I really wanted to get married. I spent a long time looking for the perfect wife and the best of all mothers for my future children.
“I traveled a lot in search of her and finally believed I had found her. It was in Damascus. She was hauntingly beautiful. Her hair was black as ebony and her lips as red as pomegranate seeds. She was beautiful not only on the outside, but also on the inside. Her heart was kind and her nature meek and beyond that she searched for the deep truths of life. She was truly was really great, unique, and beautiful. Then Nasrudin sighed. “Unfortunately, she wasn't educated. Of course, that meant she was not the perfect woman. And so I kept searching."
“Despite all my disappointment, I continued my search. Years later, I met a woman again, this time in Cairo. I was very careful and took the time to form an accurate opinion about her, but the longer I was with her, the more she seemed to fulfill all of my wishes. She was both spiritually interested and educated; she knew the most beautiful poems in the world by heart and it soon became clear to me that she had sat at all the seven pillars of wisdom and learned there: she was beautiful, her hair black as raven feathers and her lips red as young cherries; she was graceful and at the same time very mysterious. I fell madly in love with her. ” Then Nasrudin was silent for a long time before continuing. " Yet, my friend, unfortunately it turned out that she had a tendency toward stubbornness so we argued more and more often. After a while I moved on again, because under the circumstances she could not be the best of all women and mothers.
And so Nasrudin continued to tell of the women he met in Medina, Aleppo, Beirut, Istanbul and Amman. All of them had hair as black as the night, like pitch or coal or ink or coffee with cardamom. And each of these women had lips red as scarlet colored cloth, like sun-kissed tomatoes, like the paprika spices of the merchants of the Souk, like roses or like blood.
Yet none of them were perfect. One turned out to be greedy, the other as stingy. One was jealous, another imprudent, and yet another insidious. In the end, none of them was the perfect woman.
The acquaintance, who had been beaming with joy just shortly before, was now sitting there, deeply saddened and full of sadness for Nasrudin. “I think I understand you, my friend. You are telling me you wasted your time. There is no such thing as a perfect woman. And with that you also want to warn me so that I do not fool myself and believe, despite my joy and my being in love, that I have found her! "
Nasrudin looked up and gazed directly at the young man. “But no, my young friend. But no! That is not what I want to tell you at all. On the contrary. Finally, I met the perfect woman. It was in Baghdad. She was even more graceful and beautiful than I had imagined in my dreams. Her hair was black, but our poets have not yet woven a word for that color. And her lips were a shade of red that no flower or plant has ever produced. She was also educated like a grand vizier and wealthy like the caliph. She knew how to entertain her guests wisely so that angels forgot heaven. At the same time, she was filled with a deep love for God, that widened the heart of the Most Holy and Most Merciful, praised be his name. Oh, she was the perfect woman."
The acquaintance leaned forward with great relief in his voice and his eyes wide with curiosity. “And” asked the young man eagerly, “did you marry her?”
Nasrudin shook his head sadly. "No, my friend, unfortunately not" he mumbled.
"Damnation," shouted the young man, indignant and forgetting himself. “You old fool. What possible fault could you find with this one? How could you not marry her? "
Nasrudin looked at him sadly. "Well, my friend, unfortunately for me, she was looking for the perfect husband."
Erik Riechers SAC, August 12th, 2020
Life through transformation
This first summer of the pandemic is very thought-provoking. In many places there is a wordless return to old holiday habits; loud protests are being shouted out into the world against alleged conspiracy theories and supposedly exaggerated government regulations. But whom does this serve? Where does life grow out of ignorance and self-centeredness? I notice rigidity in many faces and statements. But rigidity and hardness have never led to more life. On the contrary! Life always has to do with transformation and presupposes the willingness to let oneself be changed. Do we want that?
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said: »You are nothing but a path and a passage and you can only live from what you transform. The tree turns the earth into branches. The bee transforms the blossoms into honey. And your plowing turns the black earth into the sea of flames of the grain. "(In: The City in the desert, Citadelle)
The stories of God and of faith are full of stories of transformation. People bring what they are capable of into play and then experience that God makes his own contribution and that a change occurs that serves life and leads to abundance.
Let us imagine what would have happened if the servants at the wedding at Cana had been stubbornly resistant. Why and to what purpose should they fill 6 jugs with 100 liters of water each at this stage of the celebration? What is the point of this? But in John 2 we are told that they do so. What then happens makes the feast go on with joy and new abundance. Everyone can live from what has been transformed, from water to wine, from that which people have painstakingly provided to that which makes life worth celebrating.
We all live from transformation. Yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of Edith Stein's death, a woman who let herself be transformed, who could become a grain of wheat. As a highly educated scholar of Jewish origin and with adoctorate in philosophy, she was gripped by an experience in 1917 that began to transform her. A college friend had died in the war and she went to visit his widow in Bergzabern. She worried very much how this encounter would turn out in the face of the pain and grief. What could she say to the troubled woman? But she met a woman who was strong and firm in her faith and thus carried her cross. At that moment, said Edith Stein later, her Judaism had faded, her unbelief collapsed and faith appeared in the redeeming suffering of Jesus. That was her first encounter with the cross and she opened herself into what happened to her as a result. She searched, she read, and eventually the autobiography of Teresa of Avila became her turning point and she was baptized in 1922.
This highly educated woman did not deem her knowledge to be the highest or place her knowledge above everything else. She had an open, searching heart that was ready for encounter and transformation.
The grain of wheat that falls into the earth does not resist and does not hold on rigidly to remain as it is. It lets itself enter into the new environment and lets something happen to itself. The hard shell breaks open and life for many can grow.
Let us not remain or become hardened in this long time of crisis. Let us not stubbornly cling to what is supposedly ours. We could tranquilly trust that transformation is happening in us and through us.
We all live from it!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 10th, 2020
Where do we hear the voice of God?
19th Sunday A 2020
1 Kings 19, 9-13
And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.
And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.
And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.
Where do we hear the voice of God?
In today’s story from the First Book of Kings four images for the presence of God are named: A great windstorm, an earthquake, a fire and a low whisper.
A great windstorm, an earthquake, a fire are three classic images of the presence of God. They were all three present on the selfsame mountain on which Elijah finds himself (Mount Horeb is but another name of Mount Sinai) when Moses received the Ten Words from God.
On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly.
Exodus 19, 16-18
When the Prophet Isaiah speaks of the coming of God’s presence, he employs the same powerful triad of images.
And in an instant, suddenly,
you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
Isaiah 29, 6
These three images of God's presence all have something in common: they have enough power and violence to make themselves heard. They can force us to pay attention. They can force us to take directions and paths that we don't necessarily want to go.
In the rather shallow translation of today's reading, the last experience is described as the sound of a low whisper. But here an important part of the original text is missing, because here the Hebrew always speaks of a voice. It may be quiet and gentle, but it is a voice. Martin Buber translates the passage as follows: »but after the fire a voice of floating silence.«
This is not insignificant for this story of God. The last experience stands out from the first three experiences in two ways. It is quiet and gentle where the others are loud and powerful. But it is also a voice connected to a speaker, while the first three only make noises. A whisper would be merely a sound. Elijah reacts not only to the gentle and quiet, but to a voice. Because where there is a voice, there are opportunities for understanding, communication and relationships.
But a voice of floating silence has little chance against the loud and powerful experiences of storms, earthquakes and fire. It can easily be ignored, faded out, ignored. And it has neither the power nor the attractive quality to make itself heard.
A voice of floating silence only has a chance if we give it space and an opportunity to be heard. Such a voice can be heard when we listen. This is why the Celts say that listening is first reverence.
It is not just about how loud and penetrating the voice of God is in the world: it is about the form and quality of our attention.
We are accustomed to our attention being caught and held. Especially in this time of great fatigue with Corona and the associated restrictions, the call for it becomes louder again: »Entertain to me, convince me, rouse and keep my interest«. In other words, catch and hold my attention. Those who can do that make themselves heard.
Before we shrug our shoulders and dismiss that with »That's the way the world is«, we should at least pause long enough and honestly state the price that such an attitude entails. More importantly, we should clearly admit who is paying this price. Because in a world where only those who can catch and hold our attention can make themselves heard, there is a harrowing downside. Those who cannot do it are doomed. Because the poor, the refugees, the displaced, the youth, the old, the infirm, the sick, the homeless, the hungry and the homeless can neither catch nor hold our attention. They cannot entertain us. And that is why their voice of floating silence is mostly not heard.
That is why it is and remains true: listening is the first reverence. Because there is a second form of attention: I can pay attention to a person. We call this mindfulness. In mindfulness, the ability of the other does not determine whether I hear him, but I take the initiative and purposely, consciously give my mindfulness. Attention is drawn. Mindfulness is given. Goethe captured it: »Because that is the quality of true mindfulness, that it makes nothing into everything at the moment.«
Why would I give my mindfulness to a voice of floating silence? Because behind a voice there is a speaker and I can choose to meet this speaker, be he God or a person, with awe. Because the speaker has worth, dignity and purpose. Because he is loved and wanted.
Thus can a voice of floating silence lure us out of the cave so that we face God. Because God can make himself heard. After all, he has done it before in storms, fires and earthquakes. But this hour is an hour of clarification, because God also wants to know: would you listen, pay attention to me, if I do not force you?
The news these days pull us back and forth between storms and a voice of floating silence.
The civil war in Syria, the refugees without their belongings, the sick struggling for breath and life, the mourning who could not even say goodbye to their dead, but also the homeless and poor on the streets, and widows whose children will no longer come home: they cannot catch and hold our attention. They will only be respected and helped if we give them our mindfulness.
Where do we hear the voice of God?
O God of the softer tones,
you spoke to Elijah with the voice of floating silence.
Weave your words in whispers around us
that we might lean in with intense curiosity inside of leaning back in self-satisfied satiety.
You, whose gentle voice lures us out of our caves and hiding places, in our day and on all days.
Amen.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 9th, 2020
New ways, new actions, a new perspective
Again and again we humans want this: to finally do something different, to set out in a new direction, to gain a new perspective and to live. But the old familiar ways hold us tight. We repeat and practice what we always do. It is more convenient and it seems safer to us.
Since March we, as individuals and as a society, have been faced with major challenges that are new for us all. The worldwide active danger of the Covid19 virus forces new ways of acting on us as well as new ways and a changed view of many things that are taken for granted in life. Many of us accept it and persist in it. Many seemed to accept it and live according to it, but at some point it fell apart. Once again the well-known paths to parties and family celebrations, to beloved spots in the city and elsewhere are being taken again.
The familiar ways of acting are practiced again and the selfish and egocentric view that has been practiced for many years has not really changed and is now breaking it path once more.
So why, as some people initially hoped for, doesn't the crisis lead to a blessing?
Because we don't really want to set out.
Let us look at ancient history of the faith:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” So Abram went ... (Gen 12, 1-4)
God is asking Abram to set out in a threefold manner which we like to skim over. He should leave his country, his kindred and his father's house. To set out from my usual country means to tread new paths that I have never followed before, to put my feet on unknown ground and to take a completely new direction.
Leaving kindred behind means bravely taking new steps and not just doing what is usual, what I have always done and what others know and expect of me.
Leaving my father's house requires me to really grow up. Then I do not just take over the way my family thinks and sees, but change my view of myself, of those for whom I am responsible, and indeed of life as a whole. Then I immerse myself into my own experiences, consider and interpret them and gain my own perspective.
God's promise is clear: THEN you will grow up, be blessed, and bring blessings. We could also say it differently: If you do what flows from within you and what be demanded of you in a completely new way, if you walk your own paths and not on well-trodden paths, if you live what is within you and gain your own perspectives, then you will win life and new life will burst forth from you and blessings will come into the world through you.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, August 7th, 2020
The Sign of Jonah
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Mt 12, 38-41
The scribes and the Pharisees are not the only ones who would like to see a sign. At some point we all desired a sign. We would like a sign that relieves us. The sign should give us a brilliant clarity, rescue us from a tricky story, take away a problem or solve a crisis.
Jesus' answer is merely to promise the sign of the prophet Jonah, and that is not what we have in mind when we dream of a sign. Because the prophet Jonah is not brought out of a tricky situation, but sent deliberately into the heart of the situation. He is expected to go where he does not want to go. The problem is not taken away from him, but he has to take on a problem that he would keep far from himself. God does not solve a crisis for him, but entrusts this crisis to him.
Jonah will be in the belly of the fish for three days. That was an important part of his struggle with that which God entrusted to him. Nothing is spared him. A lot is expected of him. He has to endure darkness, insecurity, doubt and fear. And while these clarification processes are ongoing, he is brought to the place where people need him.
Jesus sees this image as an image of his own way. The Son of Man is brought to the heart of the earth where he has to endure darkness, insecurity, doubt and fear and then, in the resurrection, is brought to the place where his people need him.
That is the only sign we are given. We want a sign from God for our path, especially in times of crisis like this. However, we, too, will endure darkness, insecurity, doubt and fear to be taken to where God's people need us.
People who avoid this path, who avoid this experience with all their might, will ultimately not be where people need them. They want to be spared, but as Hilde Domin puts it so well: »The wish to be spared is no good!«. This is a good thing, because being spared is the basic recipe for immaturity. Those who are spared do not learn, do not grow. Those who are spared never discover what potential, power, talent and transformative power are in them. Those who remain untouched remain unmoved. To be spared does not lead to rest, but to paralysis.
Because in order to be spared we have to avoid people. Jonah wanted to avoid the people of Nineveh. »The people of Nineveh will appear at the Last Judgment of this gender and will condemn it.« Why? Because they know exactly what would have happened to them if Jonah had been spared. Their city, their children and families and their future would have been wiped out. That is what is at stake if we avoid people to spare ourselves.
The tiredness we feel in these long days of the corona crisis quickly triggers the desire for a sign. We too will only be given the sign of Jonah. And that is good. When we are in crisis, from whom do we expect help? Certainly not from those who only want to be spared, because they will avoid us at all costs so as not to be burdened by our questions, worries and fears. In the belly of the fish, in the heart of the earth, in the midst of the crisis, we will find the people from whom we can expect something.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 5th, 2020
The Fear Before the Adventure: A Prayer
O God of all our wild and meandering ways,
my heart withers at the mere thought of adventure,
when I hear the stories of my world.
Why are all the heroes so lonely?
Why must their adventures be borne by none but themselves?
What is so splendid about their isolation?
Even their statutes stand lonely above the admiring crowds.
In your stories, being an adventurer is not a solo performance
You do not write plays for one actor.
Your cast is magnificent in its breadth of characters.
Mose’s song had Miriam’s dance.
While David’s prowess saved a nation, Jonathan’s fidelity saved his friend.
Esther’s hesitation had Mordechai boldness.
Ruth had Naomi.
Mary had Joseph
Jesus had us.
And then it falls like scales from my eyes.
(Saul also had Ananias).
No paths I have walked were ever eased by loneliness.
Adventures without companions are nightmares.
Isolation is but unaccompanied terror.
I would rather stand in the sheltering of my sisters and brothers.
O God of all our wild and meandering ways,
my heart blossoms at the mere thought of adventure,
when I hear the stories of your world.
Erik Riechers SAC, August 3rd, 2020
A Mutual Help
18th Sunday A 2020
The Gospel story of the feeding of the multitudes is seen almost exclusively as an example of how Jesus helps his people. But would it be conceivable that this story also gives us an example of how we humans come to the help of Jesus? Could it be that this is about mutual help and strengthening?
Because this story begins with a deeply shaken Jesus. »When Jesus heard that John had been beheaded, he retired from there by boat alone to a lonely area.« Jesus was deeply affected by the violent death and brutal injustice against an innocent friend. And so Jesus does what many very badly affected people did before and after him: he withdraws. He withdraws from his work. He withdraws from his friends and fellow human beings. He needs time for himself and wants to be alone for the time being.
Well, even if we have no use for the world around us, it often still needs us. Nowhere in the story is it implied that Jesus had enough time to work through everything that depressed and shook him. Nowhere is it said that he is now less affected than before. But the crowds now stand before him. These people are also affected by the news of the execution of John, the violence of their king and the brutal injustice of the powerful against an innocent brother out of their midst.
The crowds of people, however, take a different path. As Jesus withdraws into loneliness, the crowd moves toward a common enterprise, towards a common action. In the face of John's violent death, they have not given up the hope of life, salvation and healing. They do not withdraw, but set out instead. They are not looking for loneliness, but for encounter. Abuse of power and the disregard for justice have made them hungry for more life in a world where too much killing takes place; for more salvation in a world where too much harm is done; for more justice in a world where there is too much arbitrariness; for more compassion in a world where there is too much mercilessness. What is increasing here is no the number of loaves, but the hungers of the human heart.
The Jesus who had withdrawn now meets crowds of people who are hungry for more life. And this encounter seems to change something in him. He sees the many people and what he sees in them stirs pity instead of withdrawal. The hunger for life in the crowd awakens the desire for healing in Jesus. This encounter is a mutual blessing, because both sides will be deeply drawn to a world in which salvation, life and healing play the decisive role, and that after experiencing a world in which violence, injustice and arbitrariness seemed to determine everything.
In this encounter, Jesus recognizes a great deal in his fellow human beings, including their potential. It is evening and there is nothing to eat here. The place where they are is described in a similar way to the place that Jesus originally sought out when he wanted to be alone: remote, lonely, abandoned. The disciples look at the place and come to the conclusion that there is no potential to feed and satisfy hungry people here. Jesus looks at the people in this place and recognizes something more: »They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat! «
The depiction of the biblical story remains much more sober than the language of the faithful. There is never any talk of a multiplication of loaves, nor of a miracle. There is talk of willingness to share and of a rhythmic give and take and give: the disciples give Jesus five loaves and two fish. Jesus takes them, blesses them and breaks the loaves. Then he gives the five loaves to the disciples. They take them and give them to the crowd. The crowd accepts the broken bread and eats, but they end up giving what is left over to the disciples. Throughout the story, everyone involved has been a giver and a recipient. Here, too, the story is based on an encounter that leads to mutual blessing. And again more life arises than before.
I believe that in the mutual encounter between Jesus and his people there is a transformative force that changes everyone in the encounter. Jesus and the people learn that people like Herod cannot kill the forces of love and justice that John triggered. Even in the lonely places in life they will not be able to wipe out the spirit. The people who makes life and death decisions at the banquets of palaces as if it were a game, will not be able to kill the willingness to encounter and share. And even if the hour is late, there are opportunities to satisfy hunger, to face injustice with power and to encounter and touch one another mercy and benevolence. The residents of the palaces have no idea of any of this.
And what of us? What do we desire of and what will we bring to the encounter that will transform God and humanity? How will we, with Jesus, respond to violence and injustice in our time? Will we be passive, withdrawn people in the face of corona, racism, abuse of power and disregard for human rights, or will we set out with a hunger for salvation and life, looking for someone who shares this hunger with us?
I began my homily with two questions: Would it be conceivable that this story also gives us an example of how we humans come to the help of Jesus? Could it be that this is about mutual help and strengthening? I deeply believe that this is not a lesson that Jesus taught his people, nor a lesson that the people taught Jesus. It is lesson that we teach each other, born of encounter and touch and relationship. In the Liturgy of the Hours we begin with the plea: God, come to my assistance. Lord, make haste to help me. It does my heart good to be know that sometimes I can come to his assistance and hasten to help him.
ERIK RIECHERS SAC
Vallendar, August 2nd, 2020
Against Exploitation
This time of the pandemic brings with it many depressing things. What particularly shakes me is that even in this situation there are people who are willing to exploit people in need. They offer remedies that do not work or try to make money out of them with financial schemes. The prophet Hosea raised his voice against such injustice and coined an important word:
For they sow the wind,
and reap the whirlwind.
(Hosea 8,7)
This word helps us to understand the God who pours out his heart in the book Exodus (22, 20-25). Strangers, widows and orphans should neither be exploit nor misused by his people.
The warning here is not only that we should not exploit other people, but that we are not to exploit to our advantage the current situation they find themselves in. Because strangers, orphans and widows have come into situations where they are easy prey. And such situations lure unscrupulous people to use the moment to manipulate them. »Now we finally have them where we want them.«
Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. For God says: »I will hear, for I am compassionate.« People of this kind will learn firsthand what it means to exploit this poverty, this helplessness and this impotence. Those who act and live unfairly will not benefit in the long run. Those who drive others off will not harvest fertile land, but desert.
»If ever you take your neighbor's cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.« (Ex 22, 26-27) These words are particularly serious. They contain everything that God despises about human greed, cold-heartedness and exploitation.
There is no keeping of the cloak as a deposit after sunset. Back then, many would have asked themselves: Why not? It's just good business practice. But it is again the exploitation and exploitation of someone else's situation. And again God says: »I will hear, for I am compassionate.« Those who sow such a wind will reap the whirlwind. They will not be rich, happy or satisfied.
For the image says:
Woe to you, if you take from a person that which gives him warmth: because then you are responsible for ensuring that more cold penetrates into the world and into people.
Woe to you who take what protects him: because then you are responsible for the fact that people have been exposed.
Woe to you if you take from a person that which gives him a sense of home, that in which he can wrap himself to find rest and peace: then you are responsible for the fact that people have to move into the night of life homeless and at the mercy of the elements.
God says: »I will hear, for I am compassionate.«
For they sow the wind,
and reap the whirlwind.
That is not a threat. It is a promise.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 31, 2020
Lord, To whom shall we go?
When people asked the Walter Burghardt SJ how they could personally lived more fully and deeply out of the Just Word of the biblical stories, he loved to tell them to make friends with men and women of justice. Read their words, listen to the way they speak, immerse yourself in their stories. I have often been deeply grateful for his wise counsel. Yet, the older I get the more I go one step further. To make friends with men and women of justice is to make friends with men and women of hope, for the hardest part of justice is to keep hope alive.
Among the most famous quotes from Dante Alighieri's work Inferno, is the line »lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate«, usually translated as »all hope abandon ye who enter here«. They are the words written over the gates of hell.
I have understanding for that line. It expresses a deep truth about the hells we humans create through avarice and envy, through self-absorption and hatreds too numerous to count. And that truth is savagely simple: Every hell ever fashioned saps hope from the human heart.
»All hope abandon ye who enter here«. I have understanding for that line. But I have greatest admiration for those who refused to abide by it. I have sought to befriend the men and women who have seen this writing on the wall and went into a hell anyway, to bring life and hope beyond the leeching powers of hell.
Howard Zinn was such a man. As a historian and political scientist at Boston University, he was an ardent student of civil rights movements and of peace movements. Following Walter Burghardt’s advice, I read his memoir You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. With every page turned my admiration waxed. Let me share with you my favourite passage from this book, and perhaps you will understand why.
»To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.« *
»All hope abandon ye who enter here«. I have understanding for that line. But I have greatest admiration for those who refused to abide by it, people like Howard Zinn. Yet, the greatest friendship I have tried to forge with a person who refused to abide with this line, is with Jesus of Nazareth. This is the deepest truth of the line of our Creed. »He descended into hell.«
In these days of Corona and the lamentation of second waves, we might spend a little more time refusing to abide by the line »All hope abandon ye who enter here« and more time writing a story of »compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness«.
*Howard Zinn, You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
Erik Riechers SAC, July 29th, 2020
Let them be who they will be I
The Younger Son
In his book The Spirit Master, John Shea tells the story of the Father and his two sons from an uncommon and startling perspective. He lets each character speak the story from his point of view.
In these days of uncertainty and hesitancy about Corona and the future, there is a similar dynamic afoot. Varied people have varied interpretations as to what the experience means. Some feel nothing more than the need to restore what was taken from them in this time. Others feel deep-seated resentment toward the restrictions and hardships this crisis brought with it. And some seek deeper meaning in it all while answering the call of the hour in service, accompaniment and love toward to their companions on the journey.
This will be a tale told in three parts. We hope you will immerse yourself not only into a magnificent tale told by a master storyteller, but also in the world of the parable and its possibilities. It would be delightful if we grew in understanding and insight into the story Jesus told so long ago. It would be redemptive, if we could also grow in understanding and insight through the story into the moment we are living through right now.
Then Jesus said, »There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.«
The Younger Son
On beef,
the meat around the bone is best:
On woman,
though, I prefer the pump parts.
What a feast my father throws!
O belly, we’re back!
No more watch and rumble
while the swine swill and snort
and I bite through my lip and drool
for a munch on one of the carob pods.
But a love slap on the unclean rumps!
They made me remember my own trough –
DADDY
I rehearsed a speech,
a mumble masterpiece.
With a mouth turned down,
an eyeful of mist,
repentant as a whore with clap:
I whimper:
“Father, I have sinned against heaven
and against thee.” (voice falters).
(Daddy, your little boy has done wrong
and he’s so sorry that he’ll never do it again.
Really, he won’t.)
“Do not take me back as a Son:
Take me back as a hired hand.”
(But TAKE ME BACK,
my belly and I do beg,
you large-lardered,
stuffed-saddlebagged,
wine-drenched
old Daddy.)
Grovel a little to guzzle a lot:
Crawl on your belly to feed it.
That is my philosophy.
But the old man upstaged me.
He fell upon me in mid-sentence
ruining my clever act.
But the script was magic.
A robe, ring and sandals
suddenly appeared;
and this feast fell from heaven.
It was like I was,
what can I say,
a long lost son,
a dead man come back to life.
But I suspect Father is up to something.
No one can be that happy
to see the return of an appetite
That swallowed half an inheritance.
But, then again, I always was his favorite
And I could make him dance to any tune I piped.
Gushy old men are my speciality.
Anyway, the calf is succulent.
I have what I want,
and that is what I have always wanted.
John Shea, The Spirit Master
July 24th, 2020
Let them be who they will be II
The Older Brother
The Older Brother
All these years!
Even the servant boy sensed it.
He would not look at me
as he told me the news:
“Your brother is home,
and your father has killed the fatted calf
because he has him back safe and sound.”
He has had ME home –
all these years –
and no music ever greeted ME
as I dragged in
from our fields.
All those mornings!
With him coughing up his night phlegm
and complaining of the cold,
and me throwing a blanket around his bones,
and sitting him on a bench in the sun.
All those days!
With him staring off in the opposite direction
of wherever I was,
growing weary from watching
for the one who does not come,
and me looking up from the earth
to find his back blocking the sky.
All those harvests!
With me, giddy as a child who has found a coin,
yelling for him to come
to see the hundredfold crops and sagging vines,
and him coughing and sighing
like the wheat was dust and the grapes were rocks.
All those nights!
With him droning a prayer
and nodding over his food,
and forgetting to bless me before bed.
And me watching for the embrace
he was saving,
hoping for the words
he was hoarding,
eager for an unfeigned arm
around my shoulder,
for a kiss strong enough
to bring blood to my cheek.
Now he tells me that
all these years
we have been
together and have become
one.
“You have been with me always;
and all I have is yours.”
I need more, Father,
I need you to run to ME
out of breath and heart-bursting,
not as you are now
with your sensible “Now see here” logic
about the fittingness of feasting
For someone else.
All these years!
John Shea, The Spirit Master
July 26th, 2020
Let them be who they will be III
The Father
The Father
I have two sons,
neither of whom wants ME for a father.
So they make me into the father they want.
One makes me into a pimp for his belly.
He thinks he tricks me into concessions,
cons a calf from a sentimental old fool.
He credits my dancing to his piping:
but the music I hear has another source.
He is always empty
so my fullness is hidden from him.
His cunning gives him no rest
so my peace eludes him.
He secretly seizes in the night
what I freely offer in the day.
He wants a father he can steal from.
Instead he has me,
a vine with more wine
than he can drink.
It is hard for him to forgive me
for providing more than he can plunder.
I am abundance.
He must learn to live with it.
The other one counts my kisses.
He wants me to count his.
“For two days ploughing,
take this hug.
For a plentiful harvest,
receive this blessing.”
He is so unsure of himself,
he cannot share my assurance.
He lives by measuring what he does not have.
An eye anywhere else
is an eye lost to him.
He thinks I take him for granted;
but I lean on him like a staff.
he is the privileged companion
of my morning pain and evening praise.
I would allow no one else to see
the stumble of my memory,
the embarrassment of my body.
But he credits my love to his loyalty.
He wants a father, indentured to him,
paying him back in affection
for his back-breaking labour.
Instead he has me,
an ancient tree with its own soil.
He does not understand
that he cannot calm his panic with a bargain.
There will be chain between us.
I freely tie my wrist to his.
I have two sons.
Wherever they are,
I go to meet them.
I am their father.
But I am who I am.
Let them be
who they will be.
John Shea, The Spirit Master
July 27th, 2020
Desert Experience
Oh, how long have I endured on this inhospitable desert floor! I owe the fact that I am still alive solely to my frugality. Of course, my roots are extremely long. And when the winter time brings some rain, I bloom almost abruptly. One or the other then pauses when they pass this way on their journey from Beerscheba to the south in the early part of the year, and marvel at my white blossoms. It does my soul good. Because for the greater part of the year I look more like a shrub and I am hardly noticed. After all, I am now nearly two meters high - I give shade now and again to one or the other tired traveller.
One such as this was here yesterday. He came alone, dragged himself close to me in the midday heat! He had to curl up to more or less come under my shadow. Somehow I felt that he did not just want to take a break. And indeed: I heard him whisper something about » It's enough, Lord. Take my life «. Oh my, I thought, if you want to stay here, then nobody needs to take your life, then you will dry up all by yourself. Unfortunately, there was no breeze that would have passed through my thin branches - otherwise I would have tried to draw his attention to me. Perhaps he would then see life in me and consider how this is possible here. Maybe then he would look at his life. But there was no chance - he was already fallen into a deep sleep.
Restless and saddened, I kept a quiet watch over him, the tired stranger. I myself know the drought and how close I came during some autumns to drying out and perishing. But I never ceased pushing my roots deeper and deeper towards the water; and as soon as the blessed water came from above, I greedily took it up and let myself flow full with it. It is worth living for that, dear wanderer!
But how could I, a broom tree in the Negev, convey this to my guest!?
Then I heard a voice and the man awoke from it. »Rise and eat!«, it had briefly spoken. Next to him was a still warm bread and a jug of water and you cannot imagine my relief: he ate and drank! Now he, too, allows himself to flow full with water and nourished and then he will want to live on and set off soon, I thought. But there was no sign of this; he lay down again just as weakly as before. No wonderment, no joy, no desire – whereby, he had not had to do anything for these gifts of life! This went beyond my little broom tree comprehension. We who live in the desert value everything that keeps us alive and draw on it as soon as it is given to us. And how my blossoms dance in the spring wind and with what joy do I pass out my seeds! But this person felt nothing of all this.
Which Lord had he addressed earlier when he wished to die and asked him to take his life? Was it the Lord, Yahweh, whom I heard people speak of throughout the years? They also called him savior, liberator and told stories of life when they passed swiftly through this desert. If he meant this Lord, then it seemed that likely that he would seek to help him live rather than to die. Did he not he understand that?
Perplexed, I kept my eyes on the sleeper and found no peace.
»Rise and eat, lest the way be too far for you « it suddenly sounded forth next to me or within me. I do not know, but the voice was clear, powerful, and determined. And it worked. The man ate, drank, got up and took up his bag. He stretched his stiff body, shook himself a little, and headed south towards Sinai without a word.
A tremor went through me. What kind of Lord must this be? He is asked to take his life, but he stubbornly ensures that life goes on.
I felt a smile deep within me: Indeed, the only thing the man had to do for himself was to eat and drink!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, July 22nd, 2020
Choose life
»I want to finally live!« I am confronted with this statement repeatedly and in various ways. People speak it after long dry stretches where they feel and find little joy and meaning. They speak this sentence when they are ground down by a lasting lack of orientation and an enduring emptiness. A hunger rings forth from this sentence. A thirst lies at the heart of it.
In the end, however, after the sentence is pronounced, people often discover that it is incorrect. Because when it comes to doing something, to struggling, making decisions and getting involved, they shrink back. What they discover is usually painful and extremely unpleasant, because we are very reluctant to look at this side of our soul. What they discover is what they have not spoken aloud, but what they really want. They really want to live, but only if life is given to them.
In Deuteronomy 30,19 God makes a different, but very clear offer. »I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.« Life is a possibility that God offers us, but we must choose it. Yet, because we would prefer to have life without the effort of choosing, fully finished and served on a silver platter, God calls heaven and earth as his witnesses against us from the very start. This was never his offer. He gives us a choice, not a finished product.
In 1 Kings 19 there is a parallel passage to the Dt. 30,19. Here Elija sits down under a broom and wishes for death. But then he goes on to say what he really wants . »It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.« He does not want to choose death, but rather that God should kill him. The offer of God, also for Elijah is: »I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.« But Elijah does not want to choose. God should become his murderer and thereby relieve him of the need to choose between life and death.
Thus, God sends him a messenger who brings him a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water, touches him, wakes him and says: »Arise and eat.« At that moment, God again presents Elijah with a choice between life and death. In doing so God says to him: »I give you the opportunity to choose life with water and bread. But do not imagine for a moment that I will kill you. You cannot make me the murderer of your life. If you want to die then choose death. Then don't eat and don't drink.«
And lo and behold: Elijah eats and drinks. Then he lies down again. So God sends him the messenger for a second time, again with the same offer. This is not to be belittled, because people often need more than one chance to really take something to heart. At the same time, this decision cannot be postponed indefinitely, because he is laying a desert that will kill him very swiftly if he does not come to a decision. »I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.«
In the end, Elijah chooses life. This is in no way a romantic story, let alone a fairy tale. Because as soon as Elijah chooses life, he has to wander through the desert to the mountain of God, Horeb, for forty days and forty nights. At the beginning of the story, he only went one day’s journey into the desert until he wishes to die at the broom tree. With the choice of life, he not has to cover a distance that takes 40 times as long to cover.
The broom tree hears how Elijah wishes for death. I sometimes wonder what the broom tree would think if it heard the sentence »I want to finally live!« Because at the start, this too is nothing more than a wish. But if we really want to live, then we have to turn this wish into a decision, combined with everything that a decision entails in terms of effort, labour and investment. The desire to finally start living is cheap until we answer a question: What is a life really worth to me? And this is the question we are asked by God when he says to us: »I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.«
Erik Riechers SAC, July 20th, 2020
Of Wheat and Weeds
16 Sunday A: Mt 13, 24–30
I love biblical stories. No matter what the topic happens to be, they always remind me of three important wisdoms for my life: You are not the first. You are not the last. You are not the only one.
I love the messy stories better than the clean ones (and in the end, all the biblical stories are messy ones). Because my life is messy. The lives of my brothers and sisters are messy. The life of the world is messy. What would a clean, flawless and antiseptic story be able to say to us who have never had the luxury of living a life that is clean, flawless and antiseptic?
During this time of crisis, I was recently asked by a reader why he is often touched at the beginning by a sermon, impulse or story, but after a short time falls back into old patterns, attitudes and views. He had read an impulse from the series »May you be sheltered« and felt that he grown more loving, considerate and merciful in the days thereafter. Then he came back in contact with an old conflict and, as he interpreted it, he had lost everything he had gained before.
He is not the first. He is not the last. He is not the only one.
People leave the church on Sundays, inspired by a liturgy. They feel rooted, grounded, or realigned once again and feel the renewed confidence that they can face the trials of the world with constant mercy and justice. The parking lot and its traffic will be their first ruin. Honking the horn, they sing songs that are not to be found in church hymnals.
That is exactly the experience of the wheat and the weeds. The field of this story is the image for the human heart. Just as weeds can be found in every field, they will be found in every heart. We move between moments of knowledge and clear orientation on the one hand (wheat) and broken and distracted behavior on the other hand (weeds). There are times when we have everything under control (wheat) and then someone or something throws us completely for a loop (weed).
As long as we humans dwell in time and space, the kingdom of God will be like this in us. There will always be a struggle between the initiative that God plants in us and the resistances that are within us. The good and the bad will always exist side by side in us. This is not a sign that all of us are always getting it wrong, it is simply the reality of the human heart.
That is why Jesus never preaches of conversion as it can take place once and for all. We must immerse ourselves into a process of never-ending conversion. Here a fine distinction is of particular importance. This conversion that is always needed is not only a prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of God. No, this ever-necessary conversion is the way in which the Kingdom of God permeates the earth of our hearts. When the wheat and the weeds have stopped growing and have reached fullness, then it will be necessary to sift them. But as long as our hearts are still growing, as long as we are still in the process of becoming and the fruitfulness of God is still developing within us, that time has not yet arrived.
Wheat and weeds grow side by side. They are so interwoven that they form an inseparable unit. Wheat grows from the earth of the heart when we successfully embody our deepest inner convictions about love. Weeds grow out of the earth of the heart if we cannot embody, implement, or implement precisely the self-same convictions about love. We are a mixture of wheat and weeds
That is why we need time. All true growth takes time, in us as individuals and in a church or a society. Time is an opportunity for conversion, the chance to change our opinions and beliefs, and to do so again and again. We are repeat offenders. What we need to practice, and this with a little gentleness, is to become a repeat repenters.
It will certainly remain that way in this life. I was recently told that it will not be like this at the end of days. That is absolutely correct. But in case you have not noticed this yourselves, we have not yet arrived at the end of days.
As long as we still have breath within us, struggling with life is the goal. What we know is the way. We know what we should try, what we want to become and how we can promote and nurture it. That we should live lovingly, justly and in service is not a state secret. We know the way. What we do not now all that well are our own hearts. They are more sensitive than we would like to admit, they have more scars and more resentment than we would care to acknowledge.
When I, as a novice, complained loud and long about the imperfection of the community, my spiritual director said to me: »This is the community, not heaven.« In the community, wheat and weeds grow side by side.
It certainly could not hurt to look at such a strong agricultural picture from a farmer's perspective. The farmer does not see weeds as a mistake, but as an annoying necessity. Weeds do not grow because you are a bad farmer, but because farming without weeds is simply impossible. They are a part of the experience, a part of the process.
There are no clean solutions, neither in agriculture nor in the landscape of the soul. Radical courses of action, political or social, human or systemic, long for something that does not exist. The victims of racism do not have more decent living conditions and equality if we set fire to the inner cities, ransack shops, and tear down statues and damage houses. And we will not become better people if we scourge ourselves and make ourselves small or try to clean up the landscape of the heart with hardness or brutality.
What really matters is that we can distinguish wheat from weeds so that on the day of the harvest we gather in what is life-giving and throw away what is harmful. At the moment they often grow side by side in my heart. It is crucial that we know what we want to harvest. I know exactly what I want to keep and protect and what I don't. And with that in mind, I can calmly say to the weeds of my life: You have currently taken up some space in my heart, but in the long run you have no chance.
I am not the first. I am not the last. I am not the only one.
ERIK RIECHERS SAC
Vallendar, July 19th, 2020
An Exercise of the Sea
We want to have our life under control
to determine our small world ourselves.
We talk ourselves deeper into our notions,
childlike desires, demands, reproaches.
Sometimes we then grow short of breath,
we gasp for air.
And it is time to draw close to the sea and step into the surf:
Sea
When one comes to the sea
one should start to remain silent
at the last blades of grass
one should lose the thread
and breathe in the saltyfoam
and the sharp hiss of the wind
and exhale
and inhale again
When you hear the sand sawing
and the shuffling of the little stones
in long waves
you should stop what should be
and desire nothing more just the sea
Only the sea
Erich Fried
It's like an exercise
of letting go,
of surrender,
of becoming silent,
of devotion,
of self-forgetfulness
of drawing breath.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, July 17th, 2020
»The Struggle for Tenderness« II
When May began, the media talked weekly abut loosening the restrictions – including gradually doing so in old age homes. But nothing changed for Hans and Mercedes. Adding to his pain came a desperation that he also felt physically: his old asthma broke out again and began to torment him. He did not feel understood by anyone among his circle of friends. »Very few could understand how badly he needs his wife and how she needs him. And: How a man misses his wife and a woman misses her husband cannot be compared to how you miss a grandmother or your parents. «* This he confided to ZEIT- Magazine.
By the end of May, there was an increasingly large easing of restrictions in old age homes nationwide. However, the need for security in the retirement home, in which the Hans and Mercedes live, is very high and so everything here was still handled very strictly – successfully, in regard to protecting the elderly from the virus.
However, the misery of the loving old couple became oppressively stronger. They could now meet about every 10 days. Of course, a telephone registration was required and this was becoming more and more difficult, since the phone was mostly busy and often their son made the appointment. They were then together in the chapel of the house for less than half an hour. They sat opposite each other at a table with a Plexiglas pane between them and under constant control. At one such meeting, his wife exclaimed in Spanish: »What crime have we committed to be treated like this?«*
When Hans heard such statements from Mercedes during these difficult weeks, it always warmed his sad heart, because her erudition and her intelligence sounded through - she quoted Spanish poets or incorporated old experiences into her words. Even if she seemed to be deteriorating- his Mercedes was still there! He even managed to smuggle cakes and strawberries past the Plexiglas pane - and she ate with pleasure!
In June - it was already in the advanced third month of this disruptive situation - an email finally came with the message: » Visits are again possible in the respective living quarters every day.«* - at a distance, of course!
But now it became clear how this time of distancing had affected Mercedes. She raged and shouted something about the Leftists and the war. Old traumas from her childhood in Franco’s Spain, in which her hometown had been under siege for three months, had re-emerged: once again she had been forced to live three months apart from the world. Her husband could not calm her down and his fear grew that » something had irreparably broke down « during this time.* His heart was not filled with joy, but with great despondency and sadness. He felt at an end and asked their son to take on the next visit. How happy he was when he called him, lured him to the balcony and waved to him from the window with Mercedes at his side. He gave his mother the phone - and Hans beamed when she professed her love for him.
The struggle for tenderness is not yet at an end. But there has been an evening in which he was able to remain with her until she fell asleep – and during which she was finally able to say »their « sentence again: » I am happy that I have you.«
He feels gratitude, but also anger: »Because I realised how many days had been taken from us. «*
» Love is patient and kind; … Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.«
*ZEIT-Magazine of July 2nd, 2020
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, July 15th, 2020
»The Struggle for Tenderness« I
Of all the stories we heard and told during the Corona crisis, I bet that the fewest of them were love stories.
» Love is patient and kind; … Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.« Thus writes Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians and many couples chose this reading for their wedding and tend to believe that their love is precisely described here. Yet, such a love matures and is forged in life and whether it becomes masterpiece will be seen long, long after the weeding.
In the spring of this year a 65-year-old love story was continued in Berlin and I am grateful to ZEIT-magazine that I was allowed to read this story.
Mercedes and Hans look back on fulfilled and lively decades, both professionally and privately. They were able to fashion their lives together in Germany for over 6 decades and then in Spain after retirement. Hans had held a university chair in Saarbrücken for over 30 years; Mercedes, whose intelligence and love for surprises he still loves to this day, built small schools for the children of Spanish guest labourers.
For some time now they have been living in a retirement facility in Steglitz. Two years ago Mercedes began to suffer from dementia as a result of a luckily rather mild fall, but she had to move from their joint apartment to a room in the nursing section.
In their great love, which had lost none of their fascination for one another since they met as students in Madrid 65 years earlier, they were able to fill this situation with life. Every morning and evening, Hans came to his beloved wife for two hour. He spoke of the fact that a kind of marital community was formed that he had never known before. »'He read her books, including her own, they listened to music, he caressed and washed her. . . . He drew strength from her evening ritual: when she was given an anxiety reliever, he sat at her bed, holding her hands as she relaxed and became more and more tired and, just before she fell asleep, she always said the same sentence: ` I am happy that I have you. 'She meant her husband and son..« *
But then in March this ended abruptly. Due to Corona, the 86-year-old was no longer allowed visit his wife, who lives only 30 meters away from him, as the crow flies. He soon turned to the press because he was very worried and received no help at the home. In their phone calls, he increasingly noticed that Mercedes was growing worse. How could she live without his closeness? Nobody could give her what Hans gives her.
By mid-April, he had been allowed to see his wife three times. »See but not touch. That means a world of difference to him - and probably for her too. In the next weeks a battle would ensue around this world of difference.«* Little wonder, since the meetings took place in a large, prepared room, with a face mask and a distance of 2 meters, initially with a nurse in attendance as well - like a visit to a prison. At the first meeting, Mercedes called out, : » What kind of shitty meeting is this?« Weak as she was - she got to the point. Yes, they could finally see each other again, but what was that compared to what they needed!
Hans now dreamed of recapturing their evening ritual and had been hopeful since mid-April, when the number of cases was slowly declining, that this was not far off. On April 20, he confidently wrote an e-mail to the managing director: » Today I will simply write down a dream for you. … I am allowed to return to my wife's room. ... When my wife is in bed, I will stay with her until she falls asleep, as I have done for a year and a half. Then she says once again: 'I'm happy. ‘«
*ZEIT-Magazine of July 2nd, 2020
(To be continued on July 15th)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, July 13th, 2020
15. Sunday A 2020
The Word shall not return to me empty
When my old teacher began a new series of lectures he would place a biblical word in the room. This is the word we heard in the first reading.
»So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it..« Is 55, 11.
Thereafter he asked the first big question of our training as narrative theologians. »Ladies and gentlemen. If the Word of God never returns to him until it does what he sent it to do, then the question arises: what, exactly, should this word do?« Then it was our turn.
To help us, he was happy to tell us a little anecdote from the life of Martha Graham (world-famous American dancer and choreographer). After a performance she received the press. The reporters showered her with praise and could not find enough superlatives to describe her dance. Then a reporter asked her, »Can you explain the dance to us?« Her answer came immediately. »Don't be foolish, darling. If I could explain it, I wouldn't have danced it.«
This tip did not help us much either. The problem was simple. We assumed, as most people do, that the word has only one real purpose, namely to lead us to understanding. It should educate us, make us wise and give us insight. Sometimes it is true. Sometimes a light goes on, something becomes clear to us and we understand ourselves, the others, life and even the world a little better.
Sometimes. But not always. Sometimes we hear the word and nothing is clear to us. On the contrary; we are frustrated and annoyed because the narrative is difficult to understand, because the parables give us no revelation, and the whole Bible appears to us like a book with seven seals. If it was God's purpose to send His Word just to enlighten us, then he took on too big a project. Because each of us knows that the word often returns to him very without having brought about enlightenment in us.
Again and again we experience the confusing complexity of the biblical stories and cannot tame them. We tell about a God who negotiates with Abraham and Moses, then we tell a story about a God who yields no inch with Job. The God who is a quiet voice for Elijah is a whirlwind for Job. The loving father does not intervene in the death of his son. And inside we scream: illogical! And we stumble over ourselves to create logic as quickly as possible.
But logic is the very last and least passion of God.
The word that comes from his mouth is not primarily a word of understanding, but a word against forgetting. He sends out his word and it does not return until we are reminded of what God does not want to be forgotten. The word given reminds us of many things that we would easily forget.
When we use analytical language, the situation is often clear. We can understand explanations and precise instructions more or less easily. But such words, as popular and sought-after as they are, have another characteristic, a characteristic that we almost always conceal. They are all extremely easy to forget.
The vast majority of God's words, however, are narratives. They are rarely unambiguous, are usually complex, and often require a lot of time and space to interpret them.
But whether we understand them or not, we don't forget them. In this first lecture, John often said to us, »If Jesus had written a book about the spiritual life, we would have long since forgotten everything in it. That is why he told us stories so we don’t forget them.«
The words (narratives) of God ensure that we do not forget the poor, the oppressed and the broken. Without the Word of God, they would have little chance. We often talk about poverty, but God's Word reminds us of the poor and gives them a name and face. We speak of systemic oppression, but God's Word reminds us of the oppressed.
The words about Lazarus and the rich man remind us that beggars are at our doors and we should do something about it. Jesus' healing of the ten lepers reminds us that outcast people have no home unless we offer them one. The feeding of the multitudes, such a multi-layered narrative, simply reminds us that people are hungry.
For people who suffer from relationships in their families, this word helps us not to forget that love, security and acceptance can also be given to us in other, unconventional ways.
When we are childless, when we are sterile, when we feel empty and feel no life in us, this word reminds us of unexpected pregnancies and of life that grows in people, where it should not be and often where it is normally forbidden.
This word tells of a woman touching the hem of his robe so that we do not forget that in the crowds around us there are people who are bleeding to death.
That reconciliation is a possibility;
that justice is troublesome;
that self-knowledge will not harm us;
that mistakes do not have the last word about us;
and that life can be shaped, protected and increased, especially in places where we will prematurely write it off:
the word of God reminds us of all that.
And it will not return to him until we remember. God is far more concerned about what we forget than what we do not understand. Because what we don't understand cannot really harm us. But what we forget can cost us our zest for life. We all know it. Each of us knows love. But we do not know how it works. And sometimes we are even surprised that it works, that we are really loved after all. But woe to people who forget that somewhere in the world a heart beats for them.
So I want to tell you a story from John Shea.
In the nineties John Shea went to Ireland to hold storytelling Workshops. A 75 year old told a story from her childhood in a small group setting.
»I was one of fourteen children and my mother tried to put order in everything that had to do with our brood. Every Sunday we would walk to the church about three miles away. But before we set out, there was a home ritual every bit as set in its ways as what the priest did at Mass.
There was only one mirror in the house, and my mother would stand in front of it. Then each of us would queue up and pass between my mother and the mirror. As we did, she would straighten us up and comb our hair. After this combing we could go out and play. When everyone was done we would gather and walk to church.
One Sunday, I was about third in the queue. My mother looked down the line and saw that my little sister did not have a shoelace in her shoe.my mother looked at me and said, ‘Go back and get your sister a shoelace.’
But I did not want to lose my place, so I didn’t budge. When my turn came, I stepped between my mother and the mirror. My mother said nothing. She simply combed my hair and off I went to play.
I came in a little while later. My little sister – the one without the shoelace - was between my mother and the mirror. My mother bent down and took a shoelace out of her own shoe and put it in the shoe of my little sister. When I saw this I went into the back of the house and got a shoelace. I came out and knelt at my mother’s feet and put the shoelace in her shoe. As I did this and while she was combing the hair of my little sister, she reached down with her free hand and stroked my hair.«
Her story ended there. John Shea met her outside after the break and thanked her for the story. »It was rich and moving. I don‘t know what it means, but I was moved by it.«
Note John Shea’s words: »I don‘t know what it means, but I was moved by it.«
The woman was not convinced. She thought her story was stupid and that she should not have told it. But John Shea told her, »We are all the better for having heard it.«
Every afternoon, after lunch, John would sit under a tree smoking his cigar. On Thursday, the fourth day of the conference, he sat under the tree without a cigar. The old woman approached and asked him where his cigar was.
»It’s in my room, but I am too tired to go get it.«
»I noticed you did not have one, so I brought you a cigar«, she said. She handed me a cigar.
While preparing to smoke the cigar, it suddenly dawns on him. The cigar is the shoelace.
After the next session he approached the woman and said to her, »The cigar is the shoelace. The cigar is the shoelace.«
»She looked up at me and stuck out her chin. ‘I know that’ she said. She looked down and then looked back up at me. ‘It was a pact with my mother’, she said with emotion. ‘It was a pact with my mother’. As she said this, she hit her heart twice.«
»So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it..« Is 55, 11.
Dear Sisters, Dear Brothers,
I do not know whether you understand this story. But I am certain of one thing. You will never forget it.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 12th, 2020
Our hearts measure up to all of this
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak.
2 Corinthians 4, 8-13
Paul makes 4 statements against resignation.
- We are afflicted in every way,
but not crushed;
- perplexed,
but not driven to despair;
- persecuted,
but not forsaken;
- struck down,
but not destroyed.
Our danger is that we often only tell the first half of the story. Then the narrative reads: We are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. What comes after the »but« is usually not told.
- We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.
We are able to find and design the spaces of life, even where people would deny them to us.
- We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.
We are able to endure tensions, even when we do not have or receive black-and-white answers.
- We are persecuted, but not forsaken.
Pressure, agitation and disregard are realities that we know: but they do not have the power to make us people of hopelessness. We believe, come what may, that we are his people, that we have value, dignity and meaning, that we are loved and wanted, and that our God goes with us.
- We are struck down, but not destroyed.
We are still here! We are still breathing, we are still alive, we are still moving. The world still has to reckon with us.
And because that is the case, Paul continues:
»Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written,
‘I believed, and so I spoke,` we also believe, and so we also speak.«
This means, we too have something to say about all that is happening in the world
We also believe, and so we also speak: The world will not be fashioned without us, even if the darkest powers of greed, possessiveness, terror and injustice try to prevent us from doing so.
We also believe, and so we also speak: The spaces of life for the People of God will not be determined without us, regardless how wickedly we are dealt with.
We also believe, and so we also speak: The priorities of life cannot be set without us.
This crisis is long, painful and persistent. The proposed solutions and the craze of lifting restrictions are short-sighted, reckless and unbearable in the long term. But as long as we believe and speak, the last word has not be spoken. Our hearts measure up to this crisis.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 10th, 2020
Tatort and the Holy Spirit
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Gal 5, 22-23
I have made a discovery over the years regarding German culture. When I unsuspectingly gave the comment that all of the programs of the crime series »Tatort« were more or less the same, I was swiftly informed otherwise. The passion with which I was informed about the locations, commissioners and actors of the various »Tatort« programs was breathtaking. At the end of this clarification, the sentence fell, »Erik, all Germans love Tatort.«
I am very pleased to hear it, because this text is made for crime scene fans. Here Paul invites the listener to track down the Spirit like a commissioner.
Like every commissioner, he starts by searching for clues and the first thing he finds are the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
These fruits are already at hand. We do not have to acquire them. In inherited interpretations, believers are typically called upon to acquire these fruits. But there is no question of this in Paul. He wants us to notice them.
These fruits are proof that the perpetrator, the Spirit, was already among us. When we find evidence, we deduce backwards to the source. (Just ask Sherlock Holmes). For example, if we find a 38 round, we know which weapon it has to come from. When we see apples in a box in the market, we know that apples can only come from an apple tree, because apples have no other place of origin. If I then find : love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control, then I know that they also have only one origin, namely the Holy Spirit. And we are already on the track of the divine perpetrator.
When I see these apples in the store, I do not have to see the tree to know where they come from. Where we find the fruits of the Spirit in our life, we do not see the perpetrator Spirit, but his fingerprints. We know he must have been here.
Now, in our search for clues, we come to discover that the fingerprints of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control can be found everywhere. This perpetrator has been everywhere. We find these fingerprints criss-crossed throughout our life. Not just in church, in the liturgy, or in prayer. We experience these fruits in everyday conversations, where we show patience that even surprises us. In the office, at work, we have experiences of goodness. In the bedroom where parents put their children to bed and where people love each other again, we experience love and joy. We encounter friendliness when barbecuing, and we experience loyalty and self-control on the playgrounds of both children and adults. Sometimes we experience these fruits as gifts that others give us. Sometimes we experience these fruits as gifts that we give to others.
These fingerprints are to be found everywhere. That means, that the perpetrator is everywhere, the Spirit is present and active everywhere in our lives. This is not insignificant, because here we are told something essential about the perpetrator. He is reliable.
Nothing heals without reliability. An elderly woman recounted to me the visit of a young man who entertained her for an afternoon. He played games with her, sang her favorite songs, and even did some magic tricks for her. Finally, the old lady said to me, »And since he was here, I've been so depressed and sad.« Her daughter, who was sitting there, jumped out of the chair and then out of her skin. »Mom, how can you say that? He came and sang for you. He came and visited you. He came and entertained you.« Then the old mother shouted back,» But he never came back! «
But he never came back. As beautiful as it might have been, it was not reliable. Nothing heals without reliability. Who of us can live from a single act of love? Who among us of us will be healed by one experience of kindness, one experience of loyalty?
Thus, at the end of our investigation, we can conclude: In order to track down this perpetrator, we have to research all of life. This perpetrator is unlikely to be apprehended
But, brothers and sisters, sometimes there are cases that we do not have to solve. Because nobody loses anything here, nobody is robbed, killed, humiliated or betrayed. The perpetrator leaves more behind than when he arrived. So a good strategy would be the following:
1. Notice the clues of the perpetrator (fruits of the Spirit).
2. Become more grateful.
3. Live more consciously (like a commissioner looking for the perpetrator).
4. And enjoy your richly gifted life.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 8th, 2020
Crisis and Meaning
How can we traverse the paths of our lives when they become difficult, when crises shake us, when we feel powerless? We all know such times and this year there is the additional experience of the pandemic that connects us worldwide. Such a global crisis experience was last seen in and through World War II. There are diverse testimonies of how people endured, bore and survived misery and danger at that time, both externally and internally. Their stories nurture us to this day. We need only think of Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi or Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Eva Erben or Marceline Loridan.
As a Jew, the Viennese psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) knew, like millions of others, existential threats and brutalization. He survived four concentration camps from September 1942 to the end of April 1945. His father died in one camp, as did his wife; his mother and brother were murdered.
He had already found his focus in his medical studies: depression and suicide. This led him to the center of his work, the question of the meaning of life. He had to go through hell and lost his most beloved ones, but he did not break. His thinking and work became deeper, richer and more fruitful, to this day.
How can we traverse the paths of our lives when they become difficult?
» If you know the meaning of your life, this awareness helps you more than anything else to overcome external difficulties and internal complaints.«, said Viktor Frankl.
Today we come across phrases like, » The main thing is that we have our good health « or »it’s all good! « And currently we hear, »Finally everything is back to normal again! » - Nothing seems more important than to return to superficiality and supposed lightness of being as quickly as possible. But life is not only pleasant and if I try to somehow bend and reduce it to this, it becomes flat and attains no real depth. Viktor Frankl always said that suffering, gravity, need and death are part of our lives. All of this has a purpose that we destroy when we try to separate the dark from our lives. We would take the true shape from our lives. "Only under the hammer blows of fate, in the white heat of suffering from it, does life take shape and form." A man who had to go through the hell of concentration camps could say that. In the pain of suffering he could see the formative power through which his true self was shaped more and more, and so he could fulfill the meaning, the task, the calling of his life even deeper and more fully.
We Christians go to Master's workshop and Jesus never set an example or promised us an easy, simple life. His concern was and is the abundance, the real wealth of an authentically lived life, in which nothing is ignored or excluded. He lived as the true son of the Torah and in it is said: »Today I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you. I present life and death to you, blessing and curse. So choose life so that you live, you and your descendants. «(Dt 30,19)
I can truly live my life in all its breadth, in all its facets from light sky blue to somber black-gray, if I know the meaning of my life and always choose it anew, namely, to fashion what is given to me, even if it is sometimes very little.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, July 6th, 2020
14. Sunday A 2020
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you,
and learn from me,
for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Mt 11, 28-30
Who of us does not feel troubled and weighed down by heavy loads? And who of us does not want peace of mind? As soon as these words of Jesus are spoken, we already feel the great desire to register for this recovery package.
However, this longing lures us into a trap. Because as human beings we mostly want someone to take the burden off us, and that I why we do not listen to the text until the end. Because Jesus' offer is not to take the burden off us once and for all. Here he actually suggests an exchange. Jesus' proposal is to put down an unbearable burden and take on a bearable one.
It is always the same with Jesus. He is always interested in taking what is unbearable from people, and at the same time he is always clear and consistent in his demand that they should take on something (my yoke) that is bearable and serves life.
There are several things that are unbearable for us: guilt, sin, death, blindness, paralysis. If we carry loads of this kind for too long, we will perish. But in order to live freely, redeemed, seeing, alive and flexible, we also have to take on something bearable. The yoke has many names in Jesus’ preaching: go; sell, search, give away, act on it, etc. They are also a burden, but a light, bearable burden.
Let us take forgiveness as an example. Forgiveness is a bearable burden. The unbearable burden is the fact and feeling of guilt. We always think that our past and our mistakes are troubling us, but it is actually our guilt about them. Because if we deal well with our past and our mistakes, then we don't bear our guilt forever. It is unbearable when we say: »I feel guilty, because I failed at the time. I feel guilty for not being good enough. I feel guilty for making wrong decisions. I feel guilty… «. And so on, and so forth.
In the long run, guilt is the unbearable burden. But even though we are sure of God's forgiveness (I am kind and humble from the heart), and we are relieved of the burden of guilt, we have to take on something else, namely, the yoke of forgiveness that we have to find in ourselves and which we need to accept.
It is not enough to say that God's passion is forgiveness and not the punishment of his people (My yoke is easy). How many times do we actually have to hear »Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden«? It won't be enough to say that we want redemption, freedom, or new life chances.
At some point, we have to lay down the burden and rest a little. At some point, we would have to stop constantly nagging at ourselves, churning up the old, digging around in old wounds. Eternal, uninterrupted self-analysis eventually becomes a substitute for life.
We have to find enough compassion, vitality and courage in ourselves to forgive ourselves. There is always a yoke, something we have to carry, if we want to live beyond the unbearable burden.
Time and again, there are forms of self-observation that will occur in people. These forms are disfigured, damaged and toxic. If we observe ourselves too habitually, we can put off life experiences before they can take place. In almost addictive speculations about how to proceed or what the future holds for us, we come up with all sorts of scenarios and are so disheartened and frightened that we dare not risk, attempt or try anything.
Lay down the unbearable burden of eternal, relentless self-reproach and rest a little. Take up a lighter load:
Go through life for a while and live without analysis.
Sell something to which you cling, but that is not good for you.
Search for new opportunities in life.
Give away the old excuses as to why you're not good enough.
Act and set something unknown in motion.
These are things that Jesus lay on our shoulders and when we put them into practice, they are truly a burden. I know, because every time I recommend them to people, they complain about how difficult it is to take them up. Of course they are a burden, but a lighter one, a bearable one. We dream too much of an unencumbered life and do too little to create a resilient life.
Erik Riechers SAC, July 5th, 2020
The Crisis and Shalom
Will the great worldwide crisis of this extraordinary year change us humans? It does do one thing: It helps to uncover how we really are - as individuals or as a society. The way in which we deal with responsibility, risks and restrictions has to do with our inner self. Like every crisis, the insecurities of the pandemic reveal how strongly we are determined by external circumstances, or how rooted and stable we live in and out of our depths.
Recently, an experienced therapist talked about how unbalanced and unstable we often are in life. Our emotions surge up, the inner sea is so restless that it is impossible to look into the depths. Only when the surface became calm again could we see what is available to us in the depths and draw from it.
A word of Jesus’ comes to mind: »See, the kingdom of God is within you.« (Lk 17, 21) If we went to this source over and over again, peace could spread within us, shalom in the deepest sense of peace and well-being. For we already carry this abundance within us. Instead, we experience aggression and violence on the night streets, protests and conspiracy theories, ignorance and recklessness, far and wide. All of this speaks of discontent in the souls, of how much people are dependent on external circumstances and are susceptible to seething emotional turbulence. Of course, this has consequences and is also reflected in our outward behavior.
The ways of the indigenous peoples can wonderfully express the interweaving of the inner and outer worlds:
The first peace, which is the most important,
is that which comes within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers,
and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit,
and that its center is really everywhere,
it is within each of us. That is the true peace.
(»Black Elk«, Oglala Lakota people)
In order to stay on the track of this peace, I have to become silent and expose myself contemplatively to myself and the world. And gradually the sea becomes calm. I recognize the wealth in me, in my depths. Then I can practice walking in the center.
»See, the kingdom of God is within you.« Times of crisis come and so do fluctuations. That is why we practice living in and out of this center within us.
And we genuinely wish one another »shalom«.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, July 3rd, 2020
So that the circumstances do not change me
In his poem »Counsel«, Wilhelm Bruners suggest how we should enter into the day. It is his counsel that we should »take the first information from the Songs of David« before we listen to the news and read the papers. Then comes my favourite passage: »Note the order if you want to maintain the strength to change the circumstances«.
His advice is dear to me and I follow it every morning. Truly, we should do everything to maintain our strength so that we can use it to change the circumstances of daily life and the dominant culture around us.
But what happens when our strength does not suffice to change the circumstances? Often people think that there is nothing left to do. But that is not true. If my strength does not suffice to change the circumstances, then I have to be careful that I employ my strength so that the circumstances do not change me.
Elie Wiesel tells the following story:
»Listen to a story: One day a just man came to the city of Sodom. He began to preach to its inhabitants, telling them to change their evil ways. He wanted to save them from destruction, a destruction he knew would come as a result of their sins against one another. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘stop your cruelty, stop your inhumanity! You must be kinder to the stranger, to the children of the stranger!’ He went on like that for many days, but no one listened. He did not give up. He continued preaching and protesting for many years. Finally, a passerby asked him, ‘Rabbi, really, why do you do that? Don’t you see no one is listening?‘ He answered, ‚I know. No one will listen, but I cannot stop. You see, at first I thought I had to preach and protest in order to change them. But now, although I continue to speak, it is not to change the world. It is so that they do not change me.’« *
If my strength does not suffice to change the circumstances, then I have to be careful that I employ my strength so that the circumstances do not change me.
To those who will not listen, the Rabbi appears to be a madman. But, here too, Elie Wiesel remains true to his deepest faith intuition. We should study the »madmen« »in order to learn how to resist. Madness holds the key to protest, to rebellion. Without it, if we are too ‘sane’ by the standards of our surroundings, we can be carried along with the world’s madness.« *
If my strength does not suffice to change the circumstances, then I have to be careful that I employ my strength so that the circumstances do not change me.
*From: Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom, by Ariel Burger
Erik Riechers SAC, July 1st, 2020
Traces from days long past
We all remember people who left deep marks on our lives. We are essentially created for relationship and encounter. Martin Buber put it this way in his thoughts on education: »The human being becomes an I through the thou.« We are not even aware of many of these traces.
Today we commemorate two men, whose traces have been visible in the greater Christian family for 2000 years and are repeatedly considered and celebrated: the Jewish fisherman Simon Petrus from Galilee and the Roman citizen and Greek-educated Jew, Paul of Tarsus.
Why could they - coming from the margins of the Roman Empire of that time - leave such indelible marks on our soil? The answer sounds simple: Because they chose the narrow path in life. But what did that require of them?
They had to make decisions and act accordingly
Their way repeatedly demanded of them that they be focused and decisive.They could not avoid encounters and situations, but face them and dealt with the challenges.
Let us take a look at a few stations of their respective ways.
In the Gospel of Matthew we hear of Peter for the first time in chapter 4. » While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.« Whatever constituted the fascination of this call, Peter decides to follow Jesus. Thus, his path with him begins and much later, in a difficult hour, he can say to Jesus: »You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!« (Mt 16, 16)
How narrow this path is and how difficult we find it at times to focus on it and not veer from it, is something he discovers shortly afterwards. When Jesus makes it clear to where his path is leading, namely to death, Peter says to him: » “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you. « Jesus, however, helps him to remain on the narrow path: » Get behind me…« That means: Stay on my track, even when it gets narrow.
Peter learns his »handcraft« and later shows repeatedly that he does not avoid the challenges on his narrow path. The Acts of the Apostles repeatedly tells us about it. Thus, he can confess Jesus as the Risen Lord and heal a paralytic in the temple and later stand up for it before the High Council, despite all hostility, prohibitions and threats: »Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.« (Acts 4, 19-20)
Thus the traces of Peter mark the ground on which we stand.
In the Letter to the Galatians, Paul tells of his way. He recounts his earlier life:
»For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.« (Gal 1, 13-14) But he was called by God himself to a new way on which he first needed help and had to practice: »… nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.« His path always challenged him anew - the Acts of the Apostles and his letters are filled with this. It, too, was a narrow path, not a motorway.
People who walk the broad paths of the masses need not do any of this. They can let themselves drift along, do not have to focus to stay on the path, can easily avoid difficult situations. But there are no traces of them left behind either. How could there be?
Our question should be: Which path leads to life? That is exactly the heartfelt desire of Jesus. . Towards the end of his great life-instructions on the mount, he says: » Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.« (Mt 7, 13-14)
Peter and Paul are witnesses to this. They left their mark on the world, because they made their way into life and are therefore a role model for all of us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 29th, 2020
13. Sunday A 2020
One day Elisha went on to Shunem, where a wealthy woman lived, who urged him to eat some food. So whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat food. And she said to her husband, “Behold now, I know that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing our way. Let us make a small room on the roof with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, so that whenever he comes to us, he can go in there.” One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.” And he said, “What then is to be done for her?” Gehazi answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.” He said, “Call her.” And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. And he said, “At this season, about this time next year, you shall embrace a son.” And she said, “No, my lord, O man of God; do not lie to your servant.” But the woman conceived, and she bore a son about that time the following spring, as Elisha had said to her.
2 Kings 4, 8-17
Two years ago we held a Wellspring Day (a day of biblical recollection) in which we very intensively contemplated the stories about Elischa. When we arrived at this passage of today’s liturgy, we posed a question to the group. What awakens a gratitude in me that is deep enough (and not merely superficial) that I am not only touched, but moved to invest time and space in order to give life to others?
The woman from Shunem awakens a deep gratitude in Elischa. Let us take a look at what awakens this gratitude: food, a room, a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp
At first glance, the list seems rather meager. After all, for these little things Elisha is ready to put in a word with the head of the army or even with the king. And in the end, he gives the woman the fertility that enables her to carry a child. The price-performance ratio seems to have gotten a bit out of hand here.
Or perhaps not. Those who have eyes to see will note, that each of her gifts represents a deeper, richer world of life and love.
- She gives him something to eat. Food is always that which sustains life. But to give him food, she must first keep an eye on his hunger.
- She sets up a small, upper room for him. She grants him a room that belongs to him, a place where he can dwell. And she does this for a person who otherwise has no place for himself, no space that he can call his own. For this, she must keep an eye on the homelessness of this person.
- She gives him a bed. This is the gift of peace and quiet, where everything that belongs to us, that is under tension and has to carry loads, can rest. For this, she must keep an eye on the exhaustion of this person.
- She places a table at his disposal. This is the place where we can put down food, books and other valuable things so that we have our hands free and can relish them better and more deeply. The cheap things of life we can put on the floor, but the valuables of our lives require a table. If you place a meal on the floor, you reduce a human being to a dog. A table ensures dignity. But for that she had to keep an eye on the poverty of this person.
- She provides him with a chair. This is the place where we can take a seat, linger and stay. If someone offers us a chair, it is an invitation to linger and take some time. But if we have to remain standing, we know that the other person would like to get rid of us as soon as possible. But for that she had to keep an eye on the longing for belonging in this person.
- And in the end a lamp is provided for him. A lamp brings light where no otherwise light cannot go. A lamp can extend light into times when light normally cannot rule. But for that, she had to keep an eye on Elisha’s subjection to disorientation.
In the Lectionary, this story is abbreviated and the following part is left out:
One day he came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. And he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite.” When he had called her, she stood before him. And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”
This part is not insignificant, because it clarifies what gratitude towards such a woman, such a giver of life, can look like. If this woman's reward comes from the king or the chief of the army, it will be power, status, wealth, or influence. That is the currency of the rulers and the powerful. That is what they have to offer.
But it is not her desire. This woman was touchingly worried about the life of a helpless man and does not begrudge him life. She knows that power, status, wealth, and influence are dangerous for people like her. We always argue that these things can also serve life, but the overwhelming experience with them is that they corrupt us. Power, status, wealth and influence divert our attention towards them and away from people. They are not known to sharpen our view of life. Most of the time, they become an end unto themselves.
The woman wants what all servants of life want, namely, more life. A rule as old as the biblical story says: Where life is offered, life will arise; whoever grants, enables and serves other lives will receive life and become a bearer of life. The woman will have a child.
At the moment we are very preoccupied with the world of rulers and the powerful. After long days of crisis, they should now give us back everything we had to do without: sports, restaurants, travel, consumption, cinema, theater and all forms of entertainment.
I pose the question at the start once more, but more pointedly: Will these be the things that awaken in us a gratitude that is deep enough (and not merely superficial) that we are not only touched, but moved? Will this merciless restoration of superficiality and mindless consumption move us to invest time and space in other to grant life to others?
What use is all of this to us without people who grant us life: food, a room, a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp?
What use is all of this to us if we build a society and a Church that know nothing but superficiality and consumption? Who keeps an eye on the hunger of our fellow human beings, if we only deal with our satiety? Who keeps an eye on the homelessness of the severely afflicted, if we only care that we are well accommodated? Will we keep an eye out for people's exhaustion during these days, if we only care about our relief? Where is an eye for the poverty of the many economically weakened people, if we only want to restore our prosperity? Do we even want to keep an eye out for the longing for belonging in other people, if we only care about the restoration of our social contacts? Do we have an eye for the disorientation of so many people for whom this crisis is far from over, when we only have our own future in view?
If anyone can understand and appreciate this woman, it is Jesus of Nazareth: “The foxes have caves and the birds of heaven have nests; but the Son of Man has no place where he can lay his head.” (Mt 8:20) His experiences will make him keenly appreciative of life's little gifts and services: food, a room, a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp. Those who stay close to the Son of Man stay close to the poor. Those who stay close to the poor appreciate everything that serves life and all who are life carriers for them.
So I return once more to our question: What awakens a gratitude in me that is deep enough (and not merely superficial) that I am not only touched, but moved to invest time and space in order to give life to others?
If we grant and prepare life for others, life will merge or us.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 28th, 2020
»My house shall will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.«
(Mark 11, 17)
After many years I had taken the long journey upon myself. I wanted to visit the temple in Jerusalem again, I wanted to enter it. Since my youth it was splendid in my memory, its beauty had something heavenly about it. Even though I did not believe in the God of the Jews, he had enchanted me at the time.
I left my daughter behind, who was now well back on her own feet, and went south in the course of many daily marches and then up into the Judean Mountains. Finally Jerusalem drew near, the city on the mountains - what a sight! There was nothing comparable in my Canaanite homeland. When I finally approached the Temple Mount, the alleys grew ever fuller. Many people were on the way to their sanctuary, because it was just before the great Passover festival of the Jews. And so I went with the crowds south around the Temple Mount and climbed the steps - slowly, with a pounding heart, step by step. Then I stood in front of the entrance gate to the portico. I knew it was the only gate that I was allowed to walk through as a pagan woman, so I walked through it more consciously and found myself again in the forecourt of the Gentiles. Yes, we were only allowed in this area, the actual temple was not permitted to us. There was so much longing for the holy inside of me. It had accompanied me up all the way up to this place, indeed, even driven me. That suddenly became clear to me as I stood in the hustle and bustle and looked up at the huge temple building.
It was different from back then, many years ago. I was no longer a youngster. Life had shaped me since then. But here, too, it was not the way I remembered it. So much business, so much hustle and bustle, so many merchants! Sacrificial animals passed over their tables, coins changed hands - this seemed to be all about business.
Just as I wanted to look for a quieter place, it happened: voices grew loud, tables were knocked over, pigeons fluttered and people jumped to the side. For a moment there was a swath cut through the masses and I saw the man who was about to tip over another merchant table. I carefully stepped closer. Then I heard his voice. It was clear and distinct: »Is it not written in the Scriptures: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you have made of it a den of robbers. « I had to squeeze through a few onlookers in order to be able to see him even better. My heart seemed to stop: I had met him once before. He was traveling with his friends in my homeland more than a year ago. He did not want to be disturbed and yet I took a chance. I was in great distress. I fought for my daughter like a lioness. I insisted she was to be freed from the evil spirit that had possessed her. When he suddenly was so close by, I put all my hope in him. But: how dismissive he was! I did not give up. I whimpered like a puppy. I know that I am not one of his chosen people. But may we not live as well? I will never forget his look when he realized that he was my hope and sent me back with the words: Go home, the demon has left your daughter! And so it was – thanks be to God!
That I should encounter him here, today – he, the one who saved my daughter!
And what had he said? »My house shall will be called a house of prayer for all the nations. « Then it would be so for me as well. Then I would truly be allowed to enter and my heart could touch the holy. We could all pray together. Tears run down my cheeks –this sentence touches all of my yearning that has driven me to this place.
Now I lose sight of him. I withdraw behind a pillar and look toward the sanctuary. What a precious moment! This rabbi, who healed my daughter, the child of a heathen, has the courage to say, at the very heart of his religion, that all can pray here.
His God is all the God of us all. . . What a pilgrimage! And for one moment I am filled with the feeling, that I have found my home.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 26th, 2020
I believe in the sun, even when it isn’t shining:
The Birth of John the Baptist
»I believe in the sun even when it is not shining. And I believe in love, even when there’s no one there.
And I believe in God, even when he is silent.« These words were written in the Warsaw Ghetto, a place of crisis and death. They were prayed in a place of atrocity against the brothers and sisters of the one praying these words.
We are currently coping with a crisis that is much milder and easier for most of us. Can we pray like that, talk like this about God and, more importantly, talk like this about our faith in times of distress? Maybe today's feast day of the birth of John the Baptist can help us.
The mystery of John’s birth lays in the fact that God does not just offer us life, but that he offers us life beyond our expectations. When the angel of the Lord announces the Baptist’s birth, he announces a gift of new life in a place and time neither Elisabeth nor Zechariah expect to find any such thing. There should be no budding life in a woman of Elisabeth’s age or medical history. This is the time for barrenness, not babies. This is a time for Geritol, not gestation.
However, God offers the two of them a life beyond their expectations. Barrenness suddenly blooms. Expectations are radically challenged, as life is offered at a juncture where the future looked as dry and withered as the womb of Elisabeth. The lesson is simple. God defines where life will be granted, and our expectations are no impediment whatsoever to God’s freedom to surprise.
There are many places where God offers us life beyond our expectations. It happens when women discover that they are expecting a child they did not plan or expect. It happens when we care for our elderly and ailing parents. It happens when we nurture people with severe disabilities. It happens in the days beyond funerals. It happens in the throes of cancer and chemotherapy. In all these moments, and in many others like them, we are crushed and deflated because we are convinced that we have come to the threshold of an experience that will drain, defeat or, destroy our lives. We cannot even begin to contemplate that we are being offered a gift from God. So we need a little help.
This requires of us a second moment of reflection. When God’s enforced silence finally kneads the recognition of blessing from our stiffly resistant hearts, then we, like Zechariah, need to say, »His name is John«.
The name Johannes means »God has shown us grace«. When Zechariah names his son, it is not merely a designation. It is a profession of faith. The man, who did not think that God could or would offer him life beyond his expectations, now clearly says that the birth of the Baptist is a moment in which God has shown his grace.
We, too, need to profess that God’s love is at work in the unexpected places. We need to name our unexpected and even resisted blessings and to admit that God has shown us grace. Silence is appropriate to give us the chance to deepen our understanding of what is offered to us in the unexpected hour. However, once we understand what God is offering us in the surprising hour, then silence must be broken.
In the end, our silence must be shattered. When the children we were afraid to bring into the world have filled us with laughter and brought light to our days, it is time to say, »His name is John« (God has shown us grace).
When we have accompanied the dying to the edge of life, feeling it hurt like hell, and still know we were privileged to be there, we must proclaim, »His name is John« (God has shown us grace).
Perhaps we have suffered the scourge of cancer and chemotherapy, only to discover it has formed us into disciples of greater love, service and sacrifice. Even more surprising is the realisation that our blessing was born of our bleeding, bruising and breaking. Now is the time to make it clear to the people around us, that »His name is John«, for God has shown us grace.
I had a friend who could do that. In a life marked by many losses and tragedies, he was a narrator of grace. Be it the early loss of his father, the death of his best friend, or his own suffering from the illnesses that took so much from him so early, he was a storyteller of blessing. He could work out the places where God had shown him grace. He was still a child when he could discover a lion's heart in his loneliness and homesickness. I had a friend who could do that. His name was Johannes.
On this day when we commemorate the birth of John the Baptist, there should be a quiet, even melancholy, joy about us. Let sheepish grins play across our faces. Let tiny smiles tug at the corners of our mouths. Let a chuckle escape our lips at the memory of all the times when we stood with Zechariah, sure of tragedy while being drenched with grace. Then say a silent prayer of thanksgiving that God has given us all a chance to change our minds.
For Joachim on his feast day.
Zichrono livracha (May his memory be a blessing)
Erik Riechers SAC
June 24th, 2020
The Human Being and Art
Many children love to put color to paper. At first it may look like doodles to our eyes. Later they try to paint their view of their world. Sometimes they immerse themselves at the painting table in kindergarten or at home and later proudly show their works. It is the same with music: a few rhythm instruments, and already they try out what is possible with them. If they have plasticine in their hands or play on the sandy beach, they start to shape and model.
Even at this very early stage of artistic creation, we can recognize the essentials: unplanned times and stimulating spaces are needed to become creative and to express what is in us. New worlds can arise in creative dedication and that awakens joy - inside and outside, with the creator and in the beholder. Our observation of children or the memory of one's own childhood can thus show us that artistic activity essentially belongs to us human beings. In creative fashion our soul expresses itself, ideas are born in us and become reality. We want to create something beautiful, we enjoy working on it, it pleases others and they feel gifted. Has not an experience of the past few months been that we felt poor because we could not go to choir rehearsals, because theater and concert visits were not possible? Museums were closed and creative courses that might be part of our weekly program did not take place. Art is not merely an addition or a luxury in case time and money are left over.
» Art is a matter of the most profound, a test of the fineness of spirt and soul.«
We should nurture it and not dismiss it as irrelevant or even superfluous. Because if it is always only about the useful and pragmatic, if a great deal functions, indeed, if we function, but everything that stirs in our soul and what our spirit weaves finds no expression, our humanity will be lost.
The Bible tells us how we humans are created: as God's image and likeness, that is, with the ability to be creative like the Creator
What truly did our hearts good in the weeks of greatest isolation amidst all the worrying and caring? We sang for each other and with each other from balcony to balcony or we connected musically via the Internet. Children painted rainbows on windows, families painted stones and used them to lay footpaths. Musicians recorded house concerts and sent the films out into the world. How much art has been and still is shared - a blessing for donors and recipients.
Many of us love the biblical Psalms. They are themselves a poetic art form. They often mention in which way and by what creative means people can bring before God their thanks, their praise and their love:
I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness, O my God;
I will sing praises to you with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel.
My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you;
my soul also, which you have redeemed.
(Ps 71, 22-23)
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
May my poetry be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
(Ps 104, 33-34)
Art unfolds within dedication and is an expression of the fullness and beauty of life. Whether I am active as an artist or contemplatively surrender myself to it, it touches me in the depths of the spirt and the soul.
Should we object that we have no time and leisure for creative activities and attentiveness on account of all of our tasks, then let us listen again to God's instruction for life. He commands us to keep a seventh of our lives free from pragmatic usefulness and toil: » ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.« (Dt 5, 12-15)
God knows: Our soul, our innermost center, needs food and possibilities of expression. And he encourages us to keep times and spaces free so that we don't become slaves – to whomever.
I like the sentence of Ernst Barlach: » Art is a matter of the most profound, a test of the fineness of spirt and soul.« Because he does not refer art to the professionals, but to where it belongs: in the midst of each of us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 22nd, 2020
12. Sunday A 2020
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
And not one of them will fall to the ground
apart from your Father.
But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
The talk of sparrows, pennies and counted hairs is characterised by a lightness of touch that can be very misleading. For through this language, Jesus tentatively moves toward a deep and creeping fear within human beings. Addressing and looking at such fears requires a gentle hand, for otherwise the fear of the fear grows ever worse.
So Jesus begins with a simple question. »Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?« In fact, you could buy two sparrows for a penny at the time. In other words, they were cheap goods, they were insignificant, because they were easy to replace.
And yet Jesus emphasizes that God does not forget one of them. Why? Because here lies the deeply hidden fear. We are afraid that we and our lives may be meaningless. We do so much and yet the question creeps up on us: are we easy to forget? Does anyone notice what I do, who I am, that I am? When I look at everything I do and endure, the question comes up at some point: Does any of this have a purpose? Or is my life meaningless?
That's why Jesus talks about sparrows. He suggests that everything that at first appears cheap and insignificant (sparrows) will not be forgotten by God. Here Jesus lifts us into the fullness of God. We, who often feel so insignificant and inferior, are not just on God’s radar screen. He knows us in intimate detail.
Here Jesus reveals one of the most valuable insights into the heart of God. In a poetic account of Psalm 139, Huub Oosterhuis writes: »Do you know me? Who am I? Do you know me better than I do?« Well, here Jesus answers the last question clearly. Yes, I know my people better than they know themselves.
»But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.« We can hardly imagine it, but it is so. But the message here is not that God cares about us, but that God cares more about us than we do. We humans worry a lot about our lives, invest a lot in our health and appearance. But who of us knows how many hairs we have on our heads? Do we know how many hairs we've lost? Some of us no longer know the original colour of the hairs upon our head.
Here we have to make a clear distinction between our type of care and God's art of caring. Because our way of caring is (1) abstract and (2) selective.
Every day we make decisions about what deserves our care and receives and what does not. We have internal criteria for these decisions. We will not wash the car today, because there are no arguments or accusations coming from the car. We choose: I will do one thing, I will leave the other. I will take care of this plant, but I will dispose of the other one. Our way of caring is selective, very abstract, and sometimes very arbitrary. I throw this shirt away because I'm tired of it. It's still okay, but I just can't stand it anymore. That's how we humans do it.
We are abstract and selective in our caring process. That's why we do not know how many hairs we have, because we don't take care of everything equally, we do not treat everything equally. And then we project our abstract and selective way of caring onto God.
But it is not like that with God. Kierkegaard once said; »There is an infinite qualitative difference between the divine and the human«. We should take that seriously.
The divine is a source and a process of support for everything, equally. God holds everything in being, supports everything in being. God's art of caring is in no way similar to the way of human caring. God supports the earth and humankind at the same time, the seemingly insignificant birds and the exceedingly important people.
God's care is not selective. He refuses to choose between us. God's care is universal, unconditional, enormous, and ever present. The art of divine care is not selective. And it is not abstract.
After the sentence: »But even your hair on your head is all counted« comes the key phrase: »Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.«
Here we have the remarkable dynamic of how to deal with fear. We should put an end to our isolation and bind ourselves back to all of creation. We are part of this creation, just like the sparrows. In this creation, God receives and supports everything equally. We are part of a larger work and still we do not go under. God cares for our deepest selves, even if we feel it as small and unassuming as a sparrow. Who we really are is worth more than many sparrows. Our real self is safe, protected, and secure.
The fear of being meaningless cannot be reassured with competitiveness and comparisons. We do not live in competition with creation or with each other. We have to go to the deeper space where we are part of the divine care, a care that is omnipresent. In this space of the soul, of the heart, we are safe.
But the fact that God has this trust in us is not enough. Because God is not afraid. It is not God who fears that his people's lives are meaningless. Any confirmation of His care for us will ultimately have no effect until we ourselves confirm what God sees and loves in us. »As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live,« wrote Goethe. »You are of more value than many sparrows,« says Jesus. Well, then we should not speak of ourselves in any manner beneath our dignity, and certainly not sell our lives short.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 21st, 2020
The Power of Words
»Words are things, I’m convinced.
You must be careful of the words you use or the words that you allow to be used in your house.
Words are things, you must be careful. Careful about calling people out of their names. Using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that.
Someday we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls, they get in your wallpaper, they get in your rugs, in your upholstery, in your clothes and finally into you.«
– Maya Angelou
Since I was a child, I was told to watch my words. They forgot to tell me why.
When I was young, my teachers taught me not to curse.
But they did not teach me the power of words,
so I did not know what cancers they carry into the world.
I was raised not to use the Lord’s name in vain.
But they did not teach me the power of words,
so I did not know what happens when you mistreat the holiness of a name.
I was reminded not to use vulgarity.
But they did not teach me the power of words,
so I did not know how vulgarity demeans the speaker’s soul.
Do not to speak ill of others, they said.
But they did not teach me the power of words,
so I did not know how words can sicken the heart of people.
They told me never to use racial pejoratives,
But they did not teach me the power of words,
so I did not understand how words colour sight.
I was taught not to ridicule the weak, taunt the disabled, and demean the poor.
But they did not teach me the power of words,
so I did not grasp how they add scars to those already wounded.
»Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me« taught me to ignore the jibes of others. But it utterly failed to teach me the power of words.
And power they have. They can do to your soul what sticks and stones can do to your bones.
They have power when they are spoken.
They have real power: to create and build, to tear down and annihilate.
They can plant a seed and carry hope.
They can smother dreams and cut the heart out of us.
They can infuse courage and stiffen the backbone.
They can wither resolve and make our guts turn to water.
They have power when they are withheld:
The »I love you« no longer uttered.
The compliment not given.
The acknowledgement not offered.
The gratitude unexpressed.
The greeting not given.
I am no child and still I watch my words. Great teachers taught me why.
Since knowing them, I heed no man or woman who do not watch their words.
I will give no quarter to those whose words drip venom into the heart through the ear.
I will not keep company with the vicious critics who demean the efforts of others while offering nothing of themselves.
But to all who take care of their words, who weave them thoughtfully and considerately, who infuse them with warmth, I say: Friend.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 19h, 2020
You are not the God …
Lord of all life,
If the days and weeks of this lingering crisis have taught me anything, then it is this:
You are not the God…
of my dreams,
of my expectations,
or even the God I wanted.
I ask you to treat me like an adult, let me make decisions, forge a path and discover what awaits me. But when I am tired of crisis, weary of perseverance, exhausted by the labours that life and love demand of the adults in the room, then I want you to take care of business for me. Don’t explain to me the meaning of this moment, just make it pass by. Do not teach me how to navigate storms, just still them for me.
I want to be free to make choices, set directions, and determine my own actions. As soon as the crisis crowned us, I complained bitterly about the price of responsibility and accountability, of having to make so many choices, constantly orient myself through battering storms and determine what comes next. I writhe in the chains of my freedom and beg for scapegoats to unload them on.
I ache for community and companionship in hours of my isolation and loneliness. You do not look away, which suits me when I want to be seen and drives me crazy when I want to be left to my own devices. I love the camaraderie that shortens the road, but hate the longer roads that camaraderie demands of me when others need to pour out their hearts.
I crave the sharing of life and love with you and your people, but would dictate to you the hours when they suit me best. The moments you choose are madness, the truth you speak is inconvenient.
I want you to speak to me the Word of life, but I wish to edit it in advance. I hate it when you tell me things I do not wish to know, even though I badly need to know them. I hate it when you point out to me where the men and women are lying beaten and blooded beside the road. I would keep company with priest and Levite, masters of averted eyes, of forgetting what has already been seen. You set me up with Samaritans, road crossers, oil pourers, bandage binders, shelter seekers, purse openers and coin givers.
I treat maturity, freedom, community and love as hobbies: I pursue them
when I feel like it,
when I am in the mood and
when it suits my purpose.
You treat maturity, freedom, community and love as a calling:
for every season under the heavens,
for every hour on the clock,
for every grain of sand tumbling through the narrow neck of the hour glass.
It is an inconvenient truth that there is a life beyond my mood swings, a horizon broader than my perspectives and matters more pressing than my self-interest.
You are not the God of my dreams, my expectations or even the God I wanted. It takes a long time for me to grudgingly mutter: Thank you.
For I am a dishonest dreamer:
I dream of advantage, not service
I dream of privilege, not community.
I dream of being carried, not of helping to carry.
You are not the God I wanted, but the God I needed.
You are not the God I expected, but the God who came anyway.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 17h, 2020
Buzz words
For years it is apparent to attentive readers and listeners, how quickly terms quickly terms become presentable and advance to buzzwords that then often appear in all areas.
As of late, it is the word »systemic importance«. As the first relaxations were being considered, the first task was to look precisely at which areas are of the utmost importance to the maintenance of our common welfare. The highest priority was always given to what was necessary for our basic supply. That is why supermarkets, gas stations, banks and post offices were always open. Beyond this, everything of »systemic importance« were gradually opened more swiftly than areas that seemed to be less essential for the functioning of our social system. Here, at the latest, important questions arise: Who decides this? Of which system are we speaking? What measure of values are applied? Are we even speaking of human beings at all?
Buzzwords seem to be unbeatable. Our media spread them in no time at all. They arise from very simplistic black and white thinking and foster it. We, however, should be resistant.
One example made me reflective:
Hospital chaplains recently commented on a letter to the editor on the systemic importance of their work within the »Church system«. At the end they posed the question: »How fundamentally relevant are sick and dying people for us as Church?« and came to the conclusion: »Without the sick, the Church is not whole!« (CiG 22-2020, p. 236)
What a statement! Does that mean that a Church of the healthy is not whole? Is it only whole with the sick? How can we understand this? Let us take a look at the book of life, our Bible.
Over 8 chapters the oldest Gospel tells of Jesus activity in Galilee. Here the Evangelist Mark demonstrates how the coming Reign of God is unfolding. The proclamation of Jesu: »The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospel!« becomes visible through his attention to the people. It is a matter of his people becoming whole, becoming well and blossoming. It is time that they – and we – become what we are from God: seeing, hearing, upright, upstanding, free from illness-inducing spirits, flexible and alive. To this end, he sends out the disciples to proclaim precisely this and to act like he does – toward all. All of us are in need of salvation.
Thereby, the sick challenge us as Christians to encounter them as people, not as parts of a system, and to stand by them. They make us aware that God is concerned about the people, about every person. From the beginning of creation we people are his chief concern. For this matter of the heart Jesus lived (and died). Since the sick always require special attention, they are also always the chance and reminder of the core message of our faith and of the foundation of our Church. Every human being is worth looking at and being accepted. Every human being is in need, none are perfect. Our social interaction with the sick thus reveals how seriously we take the message and mission of Jesus.
For Jesus it was never a matter of a system. He lived the love of God to humanity. That is our way in order to become whole as a community of believers - »ever more disabled, ever more whole/ always anew/ released / unto ourselves«. (from Hilde Domin, Bitte)
Words can be used like buzz saws. We can, however, also quietly, questioningly and reflectively pause and then step anew onto the track of life.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 15th, 2020
11. Sunday A 2020
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
Recently a woman told me a story that unfortunately does not occur all that seldom. In the office in which she world, her colleagues often have long talks about superficial topics, they chatter. She, however, has very different issues, seeks depth and meaning for her daily life and thus keeps her distance from such conversations. She is more than willing to talk, even yearns to enter into a meaningful conversation, but not at any price and certainly not about anything. As a consequence, her colleagues do not see her. They do not notice her.
This is a story as old as humanity. When men and women are dare to be different, when they do not share the dominant concerns of the world around them and do not join the chorus the crowd, then they are not seen. Since the Corona Crisis has gradually begun to ease there are any number of people who are no longer seen: who speaks of the victims of this illness anymore? What of the grieving who lost loved ones and were unable to bury them with dignity and honour? Who even mentions the people who offered themselves up in the hospitals for weeks on end? What about all those people for whom the crisis is far from over? What filled every column of every newspaper just four weeks ago is not even mentioned any more. They are no longer seen.
One part of today’s Gospel is also not seen. »When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.« This talent and lifestyle of Jesus that enables him to see the people is something we urgently need to regain for ourselves.
The way in which Jesus sees is remarkable.
- He sees the people; not just his friends, relations and colleagues; not only the people who share his interests, are of his opinion and follow his teaching. He sees the people. For Jesus being a human being is reason enough to be seen. Publius Terentius Afer captures this well when he writes: »I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.« Nothing that Jesus sees is alien to him. He does not look away, because it is all familiar, all part of his own story as well as or own.
- He sees their exhaustion and weariness. He sees what they are suffering from, what presses down on them, what burdens them. This is neither a superficial nor a cowardly way of looking out into the world. Precisely when we recognise suffering and burden we are tempted to look away, to avert our eyes. That which exhausts and wearies people is not easy on the eyes. Now that many of us are doing better after the long days of the pandemic, we do not gladly look at all those who remind us that the pandemic is not over, and neither is the suffering.
- Jesus sees that they are exhausted and weary, because they have no direction and no accompaniment. He knows the causes behind their suffering. He does not just see that they are suffering, but why they are suffering. If no one accompanies them, they are not seen. Their concerns are not taken seriously, their hunger not honoured, their issues downgraded. We manage to look past their need. We manage to cut out and segregate what we do not wish to see.
And the reaction of Jesus? He has compassion on them. And what about us? We too encounter people who are exhausted and weary. But do we see them? Do we even want to see them?
We change the topic as easily as we change the channel. We speak more of our desires than their need. It is astonishing how quickly we have resumed talking about our desires in the face of deepest need. We are afraid of not being able to crank up our consumption fast enough, of being unable to realise our holiday plans or of carrying out our leisure projects as we would like. Unemployment, rising rates of depression, loneliness, migrants who cannot find a welcome in the world, let alone a holiday resort, impoverished countries who face a health catastrophe, the increase in domestic violence and many other things are simply brushed under the carpet.
We fear what compassion will cost. For compassion means being willing to enter into the chaos of the other. But how much will that cost us? How much time and space will we have to make available? Which expectations and cherished habits will we have to change in order that others might live?
We are afraid, but fear is not the problem. The way we deal with fear is the topic. Classically, the Bible names three false ways of dealing with fear: denial, repression and avoidance. All three have one thing in common. They are three different ways of looking away.
Maya Angelou once wrote: »The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.« How will we ever reach hearts when we have not even seen them?
Erik Riechers SAC, June 14th, 2020
The Veiled Holy
The old woman imperceptibly shook her head and you could see that she did not feel comfortable- not physically, but deep in her soul; she was not understood.
In the extended family circle they had spoken of former days, of special hours and days in the Church’s year that she had so loved.
The last great feast before the summer was especially dear to her heart: Corpus Christi. In her youth the entire village was preoccupied for days with developing tapestries made of petals and collecting the appropriate flowers, with setting up altars and to decorate everything for the great procession. There her beloved Jesus, veiled in bread, was carried through the streets. And she had begun to softly hum: »I adore You devoutly, Godhead yet unseen…«.
Her children, who had still experienced this custom, interjected, that so much of it has been external, just show! That was not what really mattered.
She wanted to retort: »And – what does it look like these days? The externals are everything – baptisms, First Communion, weddings; do you think I don’t notice how the external feast is the only thing for so many? «
Yet, the conversation had already moved on to other topics and she disconnected from the conversation and stepped into her sanctuary.
All at once some lightly tapped her and tore her away from her thoughts. It was her 13 year old grandson. »Oma, I believe I know what you mean«, he said, »in my class there is a boy who lives in a really simple family. No one really notices him, he simple tags along with them. But I like him. I met with him a few times in the afternoon. There is something fantastic about him! He can tells stories, you would not believe it! We dive into adventures – he has glorious ideas. But we can also just simply talk to each other, about what we experience and how things are going.«
The grandmother smiled. Yet, her grandson was not yet finished. »Papa always says, I should keep company with Philipp more; he comes from a respectable family, they have name and status. But «, he paused briefly, »he always puts on such airs and I do not know, who he really is.«
Again his grandmother smiled. »Yes, yes, the Holy, the Authentic, is veiled«, she almost whispered. »Yet, we can draw near to it. That is how it always is. We share simple bread and encounter the dearest of the children of humanity. You know, when your grandfather and I married, we wanted to do all things beautifully, and we managed to do so. Why? Because our love for one another was holy to us, because it was so beautiful and we tried to show something of it. But what was truly inside«, she softly tapped on her heart, »no one could see that. The two of us had to veritable unpack it bit by bit and never came to an end.«
She closed her eyes and sang softly to herself: »I adore You devoutly, Godhead yet unseen…«.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 12th, 2020
The Day the Olive Tree spoke to me of God
On a free afternoon during a pilgrimage through Israel, I took a book and sat down beneath an olive tree to read it. It was pure and blessed relief after days of non-stop walking, praying and talking.
While reading Nikos Kazantzakis Report to Greco I was struck by particularly beautiful passage: »I said to the almond tree, 'Sister, speak to me of God.' And the almond tree blossomed.«
Playfully I looked up and said: »Sister, how about it? Will you speak to me of God?« It was then that I discovered that olive trees do not deal so lightly with inquiries of the soul as almond trees. They take their conversations about God extremely seriously.
»Son of Adam, to speak of the Creator is a task for great hearts. You cannot hold onto a blossom, but you can hold onto the words of the deep heart.
May I take you seriously, Son of Adam? You have asked me a question, but a question is only a question if you are interested in the answer. To speak of God is to grow in places where life will not flourish without your dedication. Would you hear true Words about God, or have you only come for comfort, to rest in my shade, to have me shelter you, to have me soothe you? I do not bandy words about God, young friend.
My kind are among the oldest denizens of the Land. Some have seen the annual festal moons rise more than 2000 times. We have seen a shepherd-made-king weep and flee to prevent evil under our branches in the Kidron Valley. In that same place we have held vigil over a carpenter become a shepherd as he wept and remained to face evil. Our skin is story.
You would have me speak to you of God? Then I tell you this. Our Creator made us resilient. Resistance is never futile. When drought denies us water, we resist. When diseases attack our lives, we resist. When fire burns our bodies, we resist. Even when we have been reduced to ashes and all the earth about is charred, our roots regenerate us and let us rise as new fruits from the fire. We resist.
What of you, Son of Adam? We have marvelled at the resilience our mutual Creator has woven into our human brothers and sisters. Do you make use of it? Do you resist when lives are threatened, start again from ashes if need be? Or is life not held as precious among the sons and daughters of Eve as among the olive trees?
My kind does not strive to shimmer with beauty or tower above the world, yet we grow lovelier with age and our every curling wrinkle fills us with delighted pride. The Creator molds us still.
What of you, Son of Adam? Can you walk a simple path with pleasure, or does your heart only sing when you out shine the others? Does your aging become you? Are you becoming more interesting with every passing year? Are lines of character being etched in your face and your soul? Does the Creator mold you still?
We esteem the life and growth with which our Creator suffused the soil and we hold fast to it, even when it is not rich and flushed with nutrients. We have touched water in the deep places where others do not sense life. We do not wait until it flows lavishly across the surface of the world, but dig deep to claim its power for our lives.
What of you, Son of Adam? Do you cherish and hold fast to every bit of life and growth, be they ever so thin and plain? Will you work with any gift given to you by God? Will you go deep to find what keeps you alive, or are you a perennial spectator of life, waiting to be served?
A lineage of honour and courage runs through my kind. Our kind was there when God chose a branch from the boughs of my ancestors to carry to Noah. Since then we have been heralds of the hope for peace, the hope that evil and destruction will be rid from the world, and that we can all live in safety.
What of you, Son of Adam? Will you let yourself be chosen, even if you must give something of yourself? What would you be willing to part with in order to kindle hope? What would you give of yourself that will speak of peace to your people? What kind of herald are you?
So I would speak to you of God once more, little brother. That branch was to us what flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone is to your kind. When your people were beset with destruction and fearful of the future, we sent you a sign. Now that our time has come, and we are beset with destruction and fearful of the future, will your kind set a sign for us?«
Then the olive tree fell silent.
And I awoke, startled, troubled.
I pulled myself up, leaned against the gnarled trunk of my sister and let my breath whistle out. »It was only a wild dream.«
She whispered to me: »Wild dreams were ever his favourite way of talking to us!«
As I said, olive trees take their conversations about God extremely seriously. Since then, so do I.
Toda raba, achot g’dolah.*
*Thank you very much, older sister.
For Carmen, a daughter of Eve.
Erik Riechers SAC, June 10th, 2020
We ask for nothing else...
A soul so wounded by love
Tomorrow is the feast of Columba the Elder, an extraordinary Irish saint of the 6th century. He was highly educated, composed poetry and sang; he was politically active and also combative; as monk and missionary he established many churches and monasteries, the most important being Iona in Scotland, that is still vibrant today. He founded it with 12 companions who had come with him from Ireland and continued to do missionary work there. He returned to the west of Ireland several times, which was in and of itself an adventure each time. It is an example of a truly actively lived life.
His companions often asked him to write down a rule, but he constantly staved this off. »As it had to come, one day Columba lay on his deathbed and his brothers were saddened, for not it was definitely too late to write a rule. They gathered around the bed of their founder and asked him for at least one last teaching for the time after his death.
Columba raised his hand and said:
´Like the five fingers of my hand, everything essential to the spiritual life can be summed up in five thoughts.
First: The heart is never definitely born.
Because the heart of a human being is never definitely born, we must always keep before our eyes:
Second: Being human requires practice.
Third: Being human takes time.
We must heed and honour this practice and time in the hearts that are growing. For
Fourth: They ensure that rhythm is given for the body, for the body needs rhythm.
Fifth: They ensure, that home is given for the soul, for the soul needs a home.’
Then Columba died.
The brothers wrote the five words on their fingers. But one day the heart absorbed the inked words through the skin into itself. As the writing faded, the words were already long embedded in the hearts of the people of Iona.«
Why are we telling all this to you today?
We are starting a new rhythm for our accompaniment in this unusual year. It can and may become a year of renewal and internalisation and the wisdom of Columba can teach us to gently, patiently and lovingly deal without ourselves and others. His prayer was fervent and holistic. He never separated it from the here and now. It was like an acting of devoting oneself, attuning oneself and letting things happen.
»… We ask nothing other than that you give us yourself. For you are our all: our life, our light, our salvation, our food and our drink, our God. Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus, with that breath of your Spirit: wound our souls with your love…Blessed is the soul so wounded by love.« *
* from: Steve Rabey, Im Haus der Erinnerung – Keltische Weisheit für den Alltag
As we continue our path together this week in a somewhat other rhythm, then we may pray thankfully and clearly, courageously and confidently as the companions of Columba:
I thank you for this, my God:
I am a traveller
and stranger in the world,
like so many of your people before me.
(Columba)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 8th, 2020
Trinitiy Sunday 2020
A religion teacher tried to tell her class something abut the Trinity. She did not get far. The language about the Trinity is confusing, dry and impenetrable for most Christians, let alone children. This language was born out of the philosophical attempt to speak about God. It is not the language of the biblical stories. That is what it is also not the language of the people in search of a relation and encounter with God in daily life.
But what caused to religion teacher to stumble was yet to come. She has brought several images of the Trinity to the school and allowed the children to contemplate and comment on them. One 11 year old boy said: »They do not seem particularly pleased to see each other.« From the mouth of babes. I have thought that, but never spoken it aloud.
I ask myself, what kind of images have we painted, with words as well, that such an impression is created? In the Trinity lays a revelation of love, but not an abstract philosophical treatise about it. The biblical story speaks of the Three as a community of life and love. At the same time, their community is a school of life and love for us. It wants to endear our hearts to the steps of life, the processes of loving. The Three offer us no definition of love, but a path to it.
In this school of love there is a constant flow of love between the three persons. It reveals to us the true dynamic of love. Who better to teach us this dynamic than the three architects of love? Therefore, we need three life lessons from them.
- Love moves from unity to uniqueness and back again.
- Like every person in the school of the Trinity, we, too, are called to live so that each person is a recipient and giver of life at the same time.
- Like every person in the Trinity, in the school of love, we must love in such a manner, that every person spontaneously and freely takes the initiative in loving and does not wait for the other begin.
If this is our story about God, what kind of reaction and impression will we then awaken? If we live and do this, what kind of faith will grow from it? I am fairly certain it will be significantly other than »they do not seem particularly pleased to see each other.« And I am equally certain that it will then not be spoken about us as Christians.
Several years ago John Shea dared this question: If we immerse ourselves into the love story of the Three, what would be recognise and profess? Thus, I entrust his liturgical creed to your hearts on this Sunday. It is not in the customary language of our liturgy. But it is the language of the love experiences of a people that learned a lot in the school of the Trinity.
A Prayer of Belief: A Liturgical Creed
We believe that where people are gathered together in love
God is present
and good things happen
and life is full.
We believe that we are immersed in mystery,
that our lives are more than they seem,
that we belong to each other
and to a universe of great creative energies
whose source and destiny is God.
We believe that God is after us,
that God is calling to us
from the depth of human life.
We believe that God has risked God’s self
and become a human being in Jesus.
In and with Jesus, we believe that each of us
is situated in the love of God
and the pattern of our life
will be the pattern of Jesus –
through death and resurrection.
We believe that the Spirit of Peace
is present to us, the Church,
as we gather to celebrate
our common existence,
the resurrection of Jesus,
and the fidelity of God.
And most deeply we believe that in our struggle to love,
we incarnate God in the world.
And so, aware of mystery and wonder,
caught in friendship and laughter,
we become speechless before the joy in our hearts
and celebrate the sacredness of life
in the Eucharist.
(John Shea)
Now, isn’t that a story we would love to be a part of? If it is, then it is a story we would love to tell.
Whenever that 11 year old boy is today, I hope he found the teller of this tale.
Erik Riechers SAC
Trinity Sunday, June 7th, 2020
Talk and Action
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, » And in general - even the slightest work is higher than talking about what has been done.«
Many bemoan it, but the crisis of the pandemic demonstrates, among many other things, how addicted we are to words. Yet, the more we talked and talk, the more premature and swiftly all kinds of publications were issued, the less they stood the test of time, sometimes only for one day. What did stand the test of time and fostered life was and remains the action of all the people who did not talk a great deal, but acted. They were the ones who accompanied others through the dark valley, sometimes carrying them. And let’s be honest: that is how it always is.
I John’s Gospel Jesus says: » But whoever does what is true comes to the light «. (John 3, 21) He says it to Nicodemus at the end of his nighttime conversation. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and »leading man among the Jews«, had sought out Jesus by night to talk with him, to philosophise and have an exchange of views. Yet, as John describes in detail, he does not really understand Jesus; and Jesus’ last sentence to Nicodemus is: » But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.«
Words are important, but only the action that flows from inner truth leads to the increase of life.
In our days, a young politician proves herself to be convincing, of whom it is said she belongs to a » new generation of leaders for whom empathy is as important as decisiveness and assertiveness«. * It is Jacinda Arden, young Prime Minister of New Zealand. She repeatedly shows that she does not just preach to the people, bit that she is with them and acts. Thus, she unrelentingly pushed through the anti-Corona-measures in her country and achieved great success thereby. Her budget for 2019 did not set economic growth as the highest priority, but the well-being of the people.
» But whoever does what is true comes to the light « - and light is the world of God, his Kingdom in which life is possible for all, not by talk, but by action.
Thus, we could nurture contemplation and weigh words, live interiority and out of it come to true action.
* taz online, 30.05.2020
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 6th, 2020
Not without Companions
For weeks people have been talking and speculating about the end of the Corona crisis. Regardless of what they wish or imagine, this exercises bears within it a dangerous illusion. Crises do not simply end. They slowly ease off and we slowly emerge from them.
After 40 years in the desert, Moses holds his grand farewell speech at the border to the Promised Land. A part of his speech emphasises, that the crisis is not yet over. Nee tasks grow out of old crises. Conquering a desert does not yet signify that a new territory has been conquered and fashioned.
In the desert Israel had to learn to strip off attitudes and behaviours that they had learned and internalised as slaves in Egypt. After such a long period of time, they first had to practice how to live as free people. People cannot continually live in fear and terror and then expect that it leaves no mark on them when they are rid of them. For weeks we have nurtured and fostered timidity toward contact and closeness. Distance and restraint were inculcated into us. Now new possibilities are being opened again, bit do we have the courage to use them? Contact is again permitted. But will we seek contact, risk encounter?
After this crisis comes a time of reconstruction. A thought of Wilhelm Bruners has occupied Rosemarie and me for weeks. He sees the same themes emerging after this crisis as 70 years ago after World War II: The questions of life and death, youth and the elderly, community and loneliness, public service and withdrawal. Yet, in comparison to World War II, this reconstruction will be, for he most part, interior. It is not rubble that needs to be cleaned away, but mistrust. Everyone is speaking of economic stimulus packages. But what will they stimulate aside from consumerism? No economic package in the world will help us answer the questions the crisis raised in us. An economic miracle will not help us to regain trust in one another, restore the courage that enables us to gradually wager more life and to cautiously attempt touch, encounter and relationship.
There needs to be a restoration of interiority, healthy spirituality and of the heart. But not without companions.
For this reason, Rosemarie and I will carry on with »May you be Sheltered!«. We have noticed, that people do not need as much as they did in the past 11 weeks, but on the other hand we are far from reaching our destination.
Every Sunday I will write a homily for you until the resumption of normal Masses is possible. As of June 8th, reflections will be published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so that in a regular rhythm we have access to the empowering, orientation, encouragement and comfort of the stories of God.
One day before his death, Martin Luther King Jr. encouraged his people.
»Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!
And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!«
Thus, Moses spoke to the people. Thus, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to the people. Yet, the message was never, »It is over«, but rather that things are coming that they should not fear but fashion.
We will manage this as well, but not without companions. For if we now need to undertake an interior reconstruction, we should do it as companions on the journey.
In my name, and in Rosemarie Monnerjahn’s name, we continue to bless all our companions with the wish: May you be sheltered.
Erik Riechers SAC. June 5th, 2020
»he could do that «
The poems and stories of the pastor Wilhelm Bruners have long accompanied and enriched us. Many people who traveled with him through the Holy Land during his 18 years in Jerusalem cherish this memory like a treasure upon which they can draw again and again. He opened the Scriptures and rooted biblical words in the earth as he told stories and moved across ancient land. In his poetry be combines with sensitivity the wisdom of the Stories of God with the heart of the reader and the listener.
Toda, on his 80th birthday we wish him rich blessing and greet him with a »L’Chaim!« - »to life!«
And let his words to speak – what could be better?
he could do that
with every piece of bread
that he shared
he gave himself
because he believed and loved
because he sought community
because he rediscovered his life
in them
because he could say
I-AM
because he
wept and celebrated with us
with tears in his eyes
because he became one of us
because he did not
shield himself from us
because he became a brother
and it was no lie
he can still do that:
guiding the tracks of our tears to the light
and rise with us unto life
unto the indestructible
Wilhelm Bruners, Am Rande des Tages, 2020
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 4th, 2020
The Masks we are not Forced to Wear
Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart; though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly. Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling. A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.
(Proverbs 26:24-28)
Wearing a mask is an act of hiding – from others, and perhaps from oneself. From God, however, we cannot, nor do we need to, hide. He hears our cry. He answers our unspoken prayer. He heeds the unheeded and brings them comfort.
In the aftermath of long term crisis a mending of identity is often required. We have often worn masks that no one forced us to wear. Afraid to show our true selves, we wore a mask of certainty where we felt nothing of the sort. Fearful to let God or others see what is raging, roiling or bubbling within us, we don masks of disdain, anger, outrage, indifference, and exhaustingly painful coolness.
The biblical stories of disguise (such as Jacob disguising himself in order to inveigle a birthright or Tamar disguising herself to trick justice for herself where it is not freely given) are deeply religious chronicles of psychological growth and maturation. What they tell us is simple and profound: those who stand before God need no disguises to achieve self-worth when standing before humankind. The stories of God tell us to drop the masks.
During these days when we are forced to wear a mask to cover our mouths and noses, we grudgingly accept the necessity of doing so as a safety precaution. They are uncomfortable, annoying and make it harder to breath easily. And we complain vociferously about them. Then why wear masks no one forces us to wear? We willingly choose masks that are supposed to protect us from one another, from sorrow, ridicule or misunderstanding. And like the ones we are presently forced to wear, they are uncomfortable. They make us more fearful, more suspicious and less trusting, and that makes it harder to breathe easily in each other’s company.
In his song »When the Masks Fall«, my confrere Alexander Diensberg shows us the kind of honest, healthy questions that are raised when people drop the masks.
Whereto with all the many questions?
Whereto with all the puzzlement?
Whereto with all the many pictures,
which really are only shards?
Whereto with all the darknesses?
Whereto with all the vanities?
Whereto with all the many fears,
which really are only shards?...
Whereto with all the many sufferings?
Whereto with all the sadnesses?
Whereto with all the many crosses,
Which really are only shards?
Whereto with all the many plans?
Whereto with all the many tears?
Whereto with my childhood dreams,
Which really are only shards?...
When the masks fall, they set faces free,
the faces of us all, wounded and shy.
Scars of old times will be buried deeply in them,
Wounded and shy – but free!“»
Life is already difficult and suffocating enough as it is. Why should we then wear masks that no one forces us to wear?
Erik Riechers SAC, June 3rd, 2020
Back to daily life
In the liturgy of the Church year we have return to ordinary time. For 50 days we remembered and celebrated the resurrection – from the fright of the first hours on Easter Sunday through the fearfulness and the repeatedly astonishing experiences of the disciples of Jesus to the mighty sending of the Spirit.
The crisis-related enforced deceleration and quiet of these weeks offered us the chance to take more time for the biblical texts and to thereby ask ourselves the question: do I know this?
A new, at times hesitant perspective of life is offered to me, but I am frightened by it and pull back – do I know this?
I am going in circles in my backwards glances and in my brooding I make no progress - do I know this?
I am called by name, I am addressed and feel new life grow in me - do I know this?
Sometimes my confidence is suppressed by fearful worry - do I know this?
I share my hopes with others and experience a strong community - do I know this?
There are times when strengths come to me that I did not suspect in myself -do I know this?
May we, truly strengthened, move into and through our daily lives.
May we develop an eye for the moments of new life, so that we will always be able to pray in thanksgiving:
You changed my mourning into dancing; you took off my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness. So that my glory may praise you and not be silent.
O Lord, my God, forever will I give you thanks.
(Ps 30, 12-13)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, June 2nd, 2020
A Prayer to the God of Surprises
Attack
when the sun has turned the lake to flame
and the waves are music on the beach.
Ambush me
in the quiet beyond words
I have with her.
Spring at me
from the running boy.
Vanquish me
in the courage of the weak.
Take me by surprise
in the wrinkled smile
of the lady with the floppy hat.
But be warned.
I will be on my guard
welcoming defeat.
John Shea
Erik Riechers SAC, June 1st, 2020
Pentecost 2020
Vincent Pallotti took the Pentecost experience very seriously. He saw in it the fast of mission in which all people, men and women, are filled with the Spirit. On each one this tongue of flame rest and that is why Pallotti detects here the primordial image of a church of co-responsibility for all.
As a Pallottine I grew up with these images and share Vincent Pallotti’s conviction, today more than back then, that in a church of co-responsibility for all, the mission must also be the task of all.
What I find gets short shrift in all this is not the result, but rather the process that leads to this Pentecost event. I believe, that we cannot truly take Pentecost seriously until we recognise it as the fulfillment of the trust God places in us.
I am the trusted one of God. This is the key phrase in our relationship with God on the way to co-responsibility. There can be no partnership without trust. But this trust is fulfilled at Pentecost, not begun.
The beginning of this process of unfolding trust lays a long ways back, in the garden of creation. There God sets his trust in us for the first time and in a foundational fashion. First, he places all of creation into our hands, entrusts it to us. He trusts us, trusts that we can not only manage it, but that we will do it in his intention, as his image and likeness, as his representatives. Secondly, in the creation of Eve, he leads man and woman together and sets his trust in us yet again. He entrusts us to one another for safe-keeping.
The process of God’s trust in us is continued n Jesus. Before his ascension into heaven, Jesus entrusts the mission to the world to us, unto the ends of the earth, for all peoples. We are to immerse them into the dynamic of love and relationship that constantly flows between him, his Father and the Spirit. He entrusts all this to us.
Then comes Pentecost. The Spirit comes and does not hold back. The sight for the fullness of life is restored for people who have hidden behind wall too often and for too long. Gifts are poured out and mighty visions and passionate visions are enkindled. Men and women are filled with clarity and strength, intoxicated with the yearning to proclaim his inexhaustible and untameable word in all languages and for all people.
The Spirit comes at Pentecost and gives us the inner motivation to translate God’s trust in us into life. Therefore, Pentecost cannot be the feast of the mission for all in a Church of co-responsibility if it is not first the fulfillment of the trust God places in us.
When the fulfillment of trust comes, then we will have to fulfil three inner tasks.
The Spirit drives us to liberate, develop and wager what it has woven within us:
- Liberate :
The Spirit sprouts in seed of hope and humor. Thus, we must foster this sprouting in us so that we approach life more hopefully and humorously. The Spirit dances in the pulse of life, thus we must let out the liveliness within us and set ourselves in motion with zest. The Spirit burns in the fire of our passion, but then we must reveal this passion. Everything is there, everything is entrusted to us. Yet, no one lives until it is liberated for the life of the world.
- Develop:
The gifts of the Spirit must also be developed. They are given to us as potential, not as finished products. The fullness that resides in us must expand and stretch to that despite so much banality we might enthuse many people. We should unfold our gifts of the Spirit so that love can overcome violence without employing violence and the ill-treated creation can find ever more friends and advocates.
- Wager:
»Send forth your Spirit« is the request we address to God. When the Spirit comes, we are the ones being sent forth. Since he famously is known to blow where he wills, we must be ready for every surprise that blows into our lives with him. The mission of the Spirit is a wager. He will shake our familiar excuses, shake us awake from our lethargy, and whirl about our false securities.
Then come three tasks for the outer world. They lead us to a Church of co-responsibility for all.
God’s trust in his people means:
1. Live free!
The Spirit does not speak of the freedom of the children of God, but challenges us to live out the freedom of God’s children in all its dimensions, in full strength and in its entire breadth.
The Celtic Christians say, that the Spirit is not a domesticated pet, like a dove, but a wild goose. We are called to live out the wildness of God in us.
2. Take on responsibility!
The Spirit lets us anticipate what a world according to his heart would look like. In the world that he would fashion, even the small and the discouraged would stand up and do today what seems only possible for tomorrow. We are not the spectators of this process, but the collaborators of this work.
The stormy Spirit, who blows into our closed-heartedness, challenges us to take on responsibility, to blow into situations of life in order to make hard people soft again, to show the timid a horizon beyond their walls, and to transform intimidated whisperers into the powerfully eloquent. »Act accordingly and you shall live!« is the basic formula here.
3. Act creatively!
The Spirit gives no guidelines, marching order or organisational charts. We are sent out with the full trust of God. The Spirit comes wordlessly. He comes stormily, violently, tumultuously and shakes us thoroughly, but without words. We are now responsible for the words and that requires that we act creatively.
We cannot wait until the conditions improve. We may not wait until something or someone opens the locked doors and shuttered windows of our society and church. We need to get creative, seek paths, take initiative, and find solutions. The Spirit has sent us forth because the face of the earth badly needs our attention.
Pentecost wants to renew the people of God. The Spirit does not want to inform us, but to animate us. As a Church of co-responsibility for all it cannot be that all our conversations revolve around us as a Church. We are sent in order to harvest something of life, to feed the poor and to live as redeemed people so that other people might live redeemed.
Therefore, Pentecost cannot be the feast of the mission for all in a Church of co-responsibility if it is not first the fulfillment of the trust God places in us. God is truly counting on us.
Erik Riechers SAC, Pentecost, May 31st, 2020
Pentecost-Spirit
Narrative Theologians learn and teach it: Take the stories seriously!
Take your own stories seriously! Take all the stories of God and his people seriously!
The Bible is for the most part laconic, therefore, it is all the more important to plumb the weight of every word, to relish and interpret the metaphors.
Today we give you a poem, which is full of biblical metaphors and creates a link from the origins of our faith into the future that we are to fashion.
Wilhelm Bruners, a master of the word, wrote three years ago:
Pentecost-Spirit . Future-Spirit
Woe to us, if heaven gets serious
an allows fire and glowing coals
to rain upon us. When it takes our breath away
because the fire breath of God comes over us.
When, tossed from our nests,
We become full-fledged, whether we want to or not.
When our nosedive begins into a world
that urgently needs us.
Blessed are we, when all that is dead
is incinerated in God’s Fire- Spirit
so that our future
has a living chance.
wilhelm bruners, June 2017
Let us read it word by word and hearken within us what this word unleashes in us and where we have encountered it in the Bible before.
Take your time, read it again and again, and you will experience the depth and explosive power.
50 days after Pessach, the Jewish people celebrate Shavuot , the heart of their faith, namely the giving of the Torah. On precisely this day the Holy Spirit descended upon the assembled disciples and set free the power for the future. Here the resurrection finally becomes liveable and we can be called blessed
»when all that is dead
is incinerated in God’s Fire- Spirit,
so that our future
has a living chance..«
Thusly, let us celebrate Pentecost!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 30th, 2020
»Toss your fear into the air«
One of the last words which Jesus speaks to this beloved disciples in the Acts of the Apostles is:
» While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. « (Acts 1,4-5)
In these days we bring to life the remembrance of this. This Spirit, the Holy one, the Giver of Strength, is also promised to us.
Yet, like the disciples, we know fear. Sometimes out hope fades away. Sometimes we believe, that we have no more strength for the next day.
We also know the finiteness of our life, which we repress or which weighs on us, because it puts us under pressure.
Thus, for months our world is especially filled with the fear of life, because we are afraid of dying.
Yet, all that is part of our being human and we could look at it gently and honestly.
Rose Ausländer (1901-1988), truly rich with life experience, found the following words:
You’re here, still
Toss your fear
into the air
Soon
your time is over
soon
heaven grows
under the grass
your dreams fall
into nowhere
Still
the carnation smells sweetly
the thrush sings
still you may love
give words away
you are here, still
Be what you are
Give what you have
Rose Ausländer
In order to be what we are and to give what we have, we need God’s Holy Spirit.
May he strengthen us so that we might » no longer be children « and » tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind «. (Eph 4,14)
In John’s Gospel, Jesus says in farewell: » I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!« (Joh 16, 33)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 29th, 2020
The Heart of the Adventurer V
There is nothing like a crisis to unveil the true nature of the heart. When the going gets rough, then we see whether a heart of the adventurer beats in us, or whether we harbour the heart of a tourist.
The heart of the adventurer is marked by the readiness to pay a price in order to live freely. This heart refuses to raise the claim that it be dispensed from the crisis or the toll it demands. The heart of the tourist holds fast to the belief, that it has the right to a comfortable life that demands no price while insisting on every advantag
Proverbs 30, 18-19 offers us a stunning glimpse into the heart of the adventurer.
The writer of Proverbs modestly admits that four things baffle him.
…the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a serpent on the rock,
the way of a ship in the heart of the sea,
and the way of a man with a maiden.
It is the puzzle posed by the third line that concerns a people who, like all adventurers, are entering into undiscovered country.
In ancient times ships stayed close to the coast, using the sight of land to direct their journey. In other words, they used the tried, tested and true to navigate. This gave them a great sense of security, but it also severely limited the routes they could take. You simply had to follow the curve of the land. There were faster ways, smoother ways, better ways to sail, but none of them were pursued for the sake of keeping the shore in sight.
Whenever human beings make security their personal overriding concern and issue (the tried, tested and true), then they severely limit their ability to move, explore and discover. Because they always use the same securities in order to navigate, they never manage to discover that there are other ways to live, faster and better ways to fashion life and community, and even much simpler ways of living and acting.
This is the perennial problem of the Tradition. For the most part in today’s Church, the Tradition has been reduced to the equivalent of the shoreline. We give people the lay of the land, and then tell them to slavishly follow it. At the moment we see it at work in the often slavish willingness to do whatever it takes to resume public liturgies.
But the biblical understanding of tradition is deeper and healthier. Tradition is not the shoreline, but the enduring ability to sail any sea and keep the ship afloat, no matter what is tossed against that ship.
The heart of the sea was its unknown and unknowable centre, far from the shore, terrifying to think of and impossible to navigate.
Considering that the biblical image of the heart often stands for the unknown and the hidden, the way of the ship at the heart of the sea (the unknown and the hidden), then the challenge is to risk precisely that, entering into the unknown and the hidden.
In Luke 5, 4 Jesus will tell his disciples to launch out into the deep. This was hardly welcome advice for the fishers of that day.
It meant risk, since hardly one of them could swim and to fall out of the boat in the depths meant you could not simply stand up and wade back to shore.
It meant uncertainty, because the deeper the water got, the murkier it got, the less you could see in the water.
It meant you had to trust, that the tremendous amount of water under you would carry you, and that the murkiness contained the life you were looking for.
But it was basic wisdom on the part of Jesus. Because although hugging the shore is easy, comforting and very enticing, there is one tiny drawback: there are no fish near the shore.
Fish mean life, and there is no life to be found near the shore.
There is no life to be found where certainty determines where you can or cannot go.
There is no life to be found where you are wrapped in a certainty and security that enslaves you, because you are so addicted to it, that you cannot go any place that would endanger it.
Then you spend all your time and energy preserving not your life, but your security. And therein lies the fatal error. All too many people confuse having this security with having a life.
The Celtic Christians did not share the conviction of the Roman Church that there were seven deadly sins. In fact, they were utterly certain that there was only one mortal sin, one deadly sin: the unlived life. The seven we love to name are merely the examples of how life remains unlived.
The writer of Proverbs is baffled by the way of a ship at the heart of the sea. How do you keep life and spirit afloat in the midst of the hidden and unknown, far from the certainties and securities that once sustained and calmed us? The only way you will ever find out, is if you sail to the heart of the sea. And for that you will most assuredly need the heart of an adventurer.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 28th, 2020
God, you are close to us
In my youth I saw Pier Pasolini’s Film » The First Gospel – Matthew « on television while I was at home. This black and white film impressed me a great deal at the time. Finally a biblical film that was not a Hollywood epic! Here the images spoke of the barrenness of the land and the poverty of the people. The spoken words were all selected out of the Gospel of Matthew and nothing was added to them. The faces of the people in action got under my skin –they were so honest, simple and strongly expressive and carried me along into the growing tension of the plot. However, in the end it was one sentence that fell into my heart and lives there until this day. It is the last sentence of the Gospel and it was the last sentence in the film:
» . . . I am with you all days unto the end of the world.«
Never before had I heard it in this way and every time when I hear it since, I feel again the warmth of this never-ending promise that encourages and comforts and in which I can believe.
It is as if I come into contact with the name of God, as Moses heard it at the thorn bush: »I am the ‚I-am- here‘«.
Jesus promise means: He is with us and journeys with us on every day, whether they be relaxed or full of tension, healthy or sick, sad or joyful. Just as he sends his disciples to all peoples, so he promises them and us, to be with us to the end of the world. I understand this »end of the world« not just spatially, but also temporally – HIS presence does not end.
As a companion of the journey of this trust and in this week moving toward Pentecost, may a small prayer be of service to us:
God, you are close to us, now, here, in this moment and at all times.
God, with you we would like to walk, give us the impetus.
With you we would rest; give us the breath.
With you are provisions, accompany us.
Remain familiar to us and become new to us.
(Manfred Büsing, Lectio divina, Vol. 22, 2020)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 27th, 2020
»At the same time«
Sometimes we hear a story of a song in a totally new way. We are not the same as we were the last time. Other aspects step to the fore, deeper levels are reached.
Thus, a few days ago I again encountered Barbra Streisand with her song »At the same time« - a song about the connectedness between all people. For decades we have been speaking of globalisation – of the economy, travel, climate change and environmentalism, of aid activities during great catastrophes and of the present threat through illnesses and epidemics. Yet the term is mechanistic and cold.
By contrast, Barbra Streisand loves the lyric poetry of Ann Hampton Callaway, because she knows «how fragile the planet is, how fragile souls are, and how desperately we need unity« *
I invite you to encounter this song with your ears and your hearts, to take it into yourselves and to explore what it sets in motion within you:
At the same time
Think of all the hearts beating in the world
At the same time
Think of all the faces and the stories they could tell
At the same time
Think of all the eyes looking out into this world
Trying to make some sense of what we see
Think of all the ways we have of seeing
Think of all the ways there are of being
Think of all the children being born into this world
At the same time
Feel your love surround them, through the years they'll need to grow
At the same time
Just think of all the hands that will be reaching for a dream
Think of all the dreams that could come true
If the hands we're reaching with could come together joining me and you
When it comes to thinking of tomorrow
We must protect our fragile destiny
In this precious life there's no time to borrow
The time has come to be a family
Just think of all the love pouring from our hearts
At the same time
Think of all the light our love can shine around this world
At the same time
Just think what we've been given
And then think what we can lose
All of life is in our trembling hands
It's time to overcome our fears and join to build a world that loves and understands
It helps to think of all the hearts beating in the world
And hope for all the hearts beating in the world
There's a healing music in our hearts beating in this world
At the same time...
At the same time
* Barbra Streisand, Higher Ground CD 1997, Accompanying Booklet
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 26th, 2020
A Prayer to the Master of Shock
Too many people come to the conviction, that if they believe in God, they have taken out something akin to a divine life insurance policy. Naturally, when a time of crisis arises and they are not immune or exempt, they become either angry or depressed.
There is only one cure for that and that is the restoral of a healthy image of God. I know just the man who can help us with that.
A Prayer to the Master of Shock
When you told the seventy-two
to travel without bread and coin,
was it to boggle the mind of the rich
and buckle the heart of the fat?
For you were the master of shock,
Dancing out of the desert of fast
with the message in your mouth
that the earth had not yet cooled.
Then you said
the far flung God was as close
as the widow without justice
and the stranger without a roof.
And you rose up,
like an open hand in a time of war,
and stood by every fire and sea
wherever ear would hear and eye see,
hanging stories like axes in the air
about a son of shame who returns to fanfare
while a son of duty stays without a party,
about a worker who bears the heat of day
while an afternoon stroller is the first played,
about a son who says yes and means no
while another says no and means yes,
about a priest who passes by the other side
while a terrorist wraps wounds,
about a poor man who dines with Abraham
while a rich man cannot find a finger of water,
about a good man whose prayer is swallowed in air
while a sinner has the ear of God.
And when the cripple
at the Sheep Pool of the Five Porticos
told you
the water only heals
when the angel troubles it,
you turned on him like a knife,
»I am the water that troubles«.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 25th, 2020
7th Sunday of Easter 2020
The art of great conversation
In John’s Gospel, the Farewell Discourse goes on for 4 chapters. But I have always felt that it was more of conversation than a discourse. In the course of the long talk he speaks with his disciples, answers their questions, turns to his father and speaks of what is stirring and happening within himself. This is a matter of a last great conversation in which Jesus pours out his soul and places everything that is valuable, precious, dear and worthwhile to him into appreciative hands.
If we wish to manage such a conversation as Jesus die, then we should pose two significant questions:
1. What is so dear to my heart that I simply have to pass it on?
2. To whom shall I entrust it?
In today’s Gospel Jesus pours out his heart and soul. He places what is valuable, precious, dear and worthwhile to him in sure and appreciative hands, namely, in the hands of his trusted ones, the disciples. To be invited to hear and share such a conversation is to know you are trusted.
If we wish to pull that off, we need to hold fast to something:
Listening is the first reverence.
In such conversations, I must be present, listening and attentive. I have to take notice, take it in and take it along. That is how it was with the disciples around Jesus.
If I do not do this, then neither my hands nor my heart are secure enough and appreciative enough for something precious to be placed in them.
Without the first reverence of listening nothing truly valuable can be passed on and then the valuable has no future.
Yet, such a conversation in which I pour out my soul and place everything that is valuable, precious, dear and worthwhile to me in sure and appreciative hands, has a price and it always demands its payment.
The price is belonging. The Farewell Discourse is not the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus selects his own listeners, and belonging is his measuring standard. There is a good reason why Jesus warns us not to cast our pearls before swine. This is not an insult but a deep wisdom of the soul. Swine do not know what to do with pearls. In other words, never, ever, entrust what is most valuable to you to those who have no idea what to do with it and therefore can neither appreciate nor protect it. Belonging creates trust, but belonging takes time, and raw quantities of it.
This brings us back to the two questions.
1.What is so dear to my heart that I simply have to pass it on?
This presupposes a sense of my life. It presupposes that I have not lost contact to my inner life. The valuable, precious, dear and worthwhile matters of a life do not lay on the surface, but can only be found when we plumb our depths.
2. To whom shall I entrust it?
This presupposes the kind of relationship to others that generates trust. Belonging becomes critical here. I have to know whom I would like to whom I entrust what is precious. Whom will I show the most beautiful things, the most moving things, the most precious and worthwhile treasures of my life? The answers can only lay in relationships of belonging. I will not be able to entrust it to the unknown and the stranger. In order to protect myself and my heart’s desire, I will also not entrust it to someone familiar to me, if I know in advance, that they will not know how to appreciate it.
If I had asked, »When was the last time you enjoyed a really great meal?«, we would pause for moment of reflection and soon have an answer ready. Yet, if I pose the question, »When was the last time you really great conversation, which sang and echoed in your heart afterwards for weeks and months? «, then you will have to think hard for a long time.
Still, we can learn and practice the art of great conversation. The lovely part is, it does not have to be a Farewell Discourse. At any point in life, we can converse about what is valuable, precious, dear and worthwhile in our lives and entrust it to others. A time like this, a time of crisis, would be a very good place to start.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 24th, 2020
When everything becomes so different
As I recently waited for my grandchildren outside of the kindergarten, I entered into a conversation with the mother of a preschool child. She told me that her daughter was crying repeatedly because all the nice things she had anticipated with joy were canceled. »How much she wanted to have a sleep-over in the Kindergarten at the end of the year! And now everything is canceled«, she lamented.
It is a fact. We are experiencing a loosening of the severe regulations. Thus, children can again be brought to the institutions, but that is by far not as it was or what was planned, what a six-year-old had prepared for or was hoping for. That is a pity and I saw the sadness in the eyes of the young mother.
Fortunately, it is not existential. Then other images come to mind. They are images of lost children, of abandoned children, of children whose lives are determined by illness. They are images of flight and deportation, of ghettos and favelas - a millionfold.
During these days a gripping graphic novel by the Israeli artist Esther Shakine will appear in German. In »Exodus« she tells and illustrates how she survived the Shoa and finally found a new home in Israel. Her childhood in Hungary is happy and carefree, with cats and friends. But at some point the stars of David appear and later the police storm her home during the night. Her mother hides her in a closet, but her whimpering is heard and the closet is torn open. »His boots were directly before my eyes. Pitsy hissed with fear and ran away. The policeman wanted to give her a kick and nearly fell down. . ‚Damned cat!`, he cursed. I stayed back alone in the closet. I no longer cried. Thereafter , I did not cry for a long time.«
Everything is falling away.
While going on the wrong track through the city, she finds a priest who takes her into the orphanage of the monastery, where she finds a home until it’s bombardment at the end of the war. After that, she wandered aimlessly with other Jewish children, often to the train station, in the hope of finding her parents. But they never come.
Via a Zionist children’s home and after many adversities, she arrives in southern France in 1947 and embarks with 4500 Jews onto to a ship to Palestine. It is the »Exodus«. The British do not allow them to set foot on land. The refugees return to Germany. Only the next year does her passage finally succeed. Thus does the story end, with the sunset of her first evening in the kibbutz: »I had the feeling that I had finally arrived.«
How can people bear so much suffering and brokenness in life, repeatedly, sometimes for many long years?
In Psalm 77 the person praying laments his great need. He finds no comfort, indeed, he feels himself rejected and forgotten by God and poses question after question to God:
Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favourable?
Has his steadfast I love forever ceased?
Are his promises at an end for all time?
Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?
Yet then he pauses:
And I said, ‘ This is my anguish; does the right hand of the Most High act so differently? ‘
This, too, is still a question. Does God still have something to do with me, even when everything comes so differently than I imagined, so difficult and hardly bearable?
The person praying here remains on this track and enlivens the memory:
I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember your wonders of old.
I will also meditate on all your work, and talk of your deeds.
Your way, oh God, is holy indeed.
During such times, can we find this track? Can we look past our personal actual need? Can we have a sense of trust in the totally other God who goes with us?
Come, Spirit of God and strengthen us that we might pose our questions with courage.
Come, Spirit of God and widen our view and our heart.
Come, Spirit of God and enliven our trust and our hope.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 23rd, 2020
Twisting ourselves out of shape
These days, we are officially allowed to celebrate public Masses again. Some hail it as a victory. I am not among them.
The guidelines and restrictions are so ludicrous that they disfigure the Eucharist into something unrecognizable. Only a tiny select group of people are allowed to participate, everyone else is excluded. All must wear face masks, stay six feet apart, and no singing is allowed. Communion is distributed with plastic gloves and tongs or from behind Plexiglas barriers.
In order to accommodate these restrictions, we have turned the Eucharist into a hollow shelf. How is this a Eucharist when every gesture screams, Stay away from me? How are we celebrating the hope of the resurrection when every gesture shows that we are deadly afraid of each other? How do we celebrate communion while rejecting its building blocks, namely, contact, closeness, sharing and encounter?
It calls a story to mind. Clarissa Pinkola Estés recounts it in her Book »Women who run with the Wolves«.
A man came to a SZABÓ, a tailor, and tried on a suit. As he stood before the mirror, he noticed the vest was a little uneven at the bottom.
“Oh,”said the tailor, “don’t worry about that. Just hold the shorter end down with your left hand and no one will ever notice.”
While the customer proceeded to do this, he noticed that the lapel of the jacket curled up instead of lying flat. “Oh that?” said the tailor. “That’s nothing. Just turn your head a little and hold it down with your chin.”
The customer complied, and as he did, he noticed that the inseam of the pants was a little short and he felt that the rise was a bit too tight. “Oh, don’t worry about that,” said the tailor. “Just pull the inseam down with your right hand, and everything will be perfect.”
The customer agreed and purchased the suit. The next day he wore his new suit with all the accompanying hand and chin “alterations.” As he limped through the par with his chin holding down his lapel, one hand tugging at the vest, the other hand grasping his crotch, two old men stopped playing checkers to watch him stagger by. “Oh, my God!”, said the first man. “Look at that poor crippled man!” The second man reflected for a moment, then murmured, “Indeed, the crippling is too bad, but you know I wonder... where did he get such a nice suit?”
Do we really want to twist ourselves so out of shape simply to create the appearance that what we are doing is fitting?
Erik Riechers SAC, May 22nd, 2020
Ascension 2020
Sometimes what we celebrate in the liturgy is not attuned to what we hear in the story of God. In today’s liturgy we have a strong focus on his ascension. Yet, in the story of the Acts of the Apostles Jesus places the emphasis elsewhere. He prepared the disciples for their mission after his departure.
»It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.«
He makes it clear that we have a task as wide as his earth. He has entrusted to us a responsibility for his people that is boundless.
But the disciples do what we often do: They stare at what was given earlier. Jesus makes it clear, that his presence among us, in the form and figure of the Holy Spirit, will live on, but that is not what they want. Jesus gives us the strength of the Spirit in order to fashion and wide and wild world. We, however, would prefer to keep things as they were. Disciples of every age require messengers of God to shake them out of this paralysis.
»Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?
This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven,
will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.«
The translation is weak. This is not a matter of looking, but of staring. It is the fixation that paralyses us.
Ascension reminds us that we are at the fourth of 5 stages of the Paschal Mystery. The core statement of the Easter Season is, that Easter is so great and deep a mystery that no day can contain it.
Easter is one event, but with five important phases that combine to form this event. Paschal life consists of five clear stages; death, resurrection, the 40 days, Ascension and Pentecost. Each of these stages also has a deep meaning for the people who would like to live out of the Paschal Mystery.
Death means the loss of life. In this stage we must mourn and honor our losses.
Resurrection means the reception of a new life. That is an offer from God, but people are neither obligated nor are they forced to accept God’s offer. We can also reject this offer of new life.
The forty days are the time of maturation, of reflection and of practice, so that we might gradually decide in favour of the new life.
And then we come to the Ascension. Here we practice the refusal to cling to the old life. »Men (and women) of Galilee, why do you stand staring at heaven?« Ascension is the moment where we must decide whether we accept new life or are only interested in the mummification of our former lives.
This is the only way in which we come to Pentecost, to the point where can receive a new spirit and actually experience something of this new life. Pentecost, the fifth stage, is the reception of a new spirit.
Ascension is the encounter with the God who requires us to let go of the old, so that the engaging with the new can succeed. In religious circles we speak often of letting go, which is very weak from a biblical point of view. The stories of God always speak of letting go in conjunction with the ability to let yourself enter into something new. We should let go of some things so that we can enter other thinks better. Yet, only when the adventure of God knocks do we notice what it means to let something go in order to enter into the divine adventure. No one will receive a new spirit while clinging to their old life. But we can reject the offer of a new life by always wanting the old one back.
We have a name for that: nostalgia. We know it only all too well, this yearning for the »good old days«. But this romanticizing of the past is only a way in which we avoid the challenges of the present. Nostalgia is dishonest. The old days were never as good as we portray them. They had their share of pain, suffering and strain. If we all entered a time machine and returned to 1955, I guarantee you that we would encounter people there who would be yearning for the »good old days«.
Ascension does not only speak of the glorification and fulfilment of Crist, but also of the task he left behind for us. Before his ascending, Jesus emphasises that we have a task as wide as his earth and that he has entrusted to us a responsibility for his people that is boundless.
We, however, can cling to old conceptions that hinder us in forming our days. We hold fast to old dreams that hinder us at working at the vision of today. We mummify old structures instead of seeking ways how we can live here and now
Death, resurrection, the 40 days, Ascension and Pentecost; this is the true rhythm of life and the terrible and pathetic practice of mummification.
At the disciples at the Ascension Jesu stood then where stand now: between heaven and earth, paralysed, unable to move and to fashion our lives. This standing between heaven and earth reminds me of the Word of God in the Book of Deuteronomy. »I call upon heaven and earth as witnesses’ against you. I place before you, life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life that you might live.«
A true word for the people of Ascension, who consciously choose life and not mummification.
The message of the angel is gentle, but I will translate it clearer language. People, the homework assignments are down here.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 21rst, 2020
Wiil this crisis change anything?
This question arises repeatedly in myself, my surroundings, but also in public conversation. It speaks of the yearning that we always feel when we ourselves or our beloved people have to go through difficult times in which those things break away which we consider to be self evident, which we consider to be safe and lovingly familiar. We yearn that there might be a meaning in the crisis and that we or others will allow ourselves to be positively changed. Then, matured and enriched after the crisis, we would fashion our lives differently.
The rather melancholic and introverted Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard once wrote: “ Transformation can only go forth from those who have been transformed .« This means that it does me no good to desire any form of transformation whatsoever, if I am not willing to first to face the invitation or the provocation that has transformation as a consequence. If, for example I am a very spontaneous, even flighty person and I wish that I would act with more consideration and that I would be more consequent in staying with things, I will not attain this if I follow every disturbance and every intervention from outside. If something approaches me, I must accept it as a task and as an exercise. I look at what this means, I place it so to say “on the table” in order to work at it and on myself. Or, if I never face what the hour demands of me, but rather allow the difficulties to pass by my heart superficially, the wish for more depth will not be fulfilled, indeed the yearning for it will atrophy. Instead, I would have to look at the difficulty or the need, be at my own or that of another, I need to “put it on the table”. Only what is placed on the table will be transformed. That is how Nico Derksen once said it long ago. We cannot hope for transformation if we withdraw from every church that would lead us to transformation.
We should not expect transformation from those who did not practice allowing themselves to be transformed, but a repeat of the claims on life all remain self-righteous in the attitudes and ways of thinking, which they have always fostered.
Let us be honest: the people who truly went through the times of affliction - often with great suffering of body and soul - discovered the Essential, lived transformed, and found the path of life of which Paul speaks:
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit.
(2 Corinthians 3, 18)
To come to the path of transformation, we may not kill the yearning through distractions or superficial self gratification. Thereby, we only cover up and disguise thIngs. Those who are accustomed to living in this way will also not be changed by a crisis.
Those who allow themselves to enter into that which the other demands of them no transformation in the lives and they will be further transformed by the present crisis. They know that transformation requires a letting go in the sense of releasing one thing in order to be open for another.
Can I allow things to happen, trusting in the Spirit of the Lord, like a caterpillar that does nothing but allow itself to be transformed? That would be truly glorious.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 20th, 2020
For all who would give up hope
When she entered the room, he looked up and love pooled in his eyes. Like the poet of the Song of Songs, his heart spoke of her »she whom I so love«.
Yet, his heart was troubled. He saw the strain in her, the suffocating burden of the traumas of yesterday and the burdens of today.
»How was the day, my dearest one?«, he asked with worry interlaced with tenderness.
»I have given up hope«, she replied.
»That will not do«, he said as he leaned with his left shoulder against the wall.
»I cannot manage it. I have given up hope«, she repeated. Her eyes were so full of tears, but her voice was so void of courage.
He felt so helpless. So he told her a story.
»My grandfather was a terrible drinker. His favourite drink was Turkish anisette. But he grew troubled by his constant drunkenness and all the pain it caused his beloved wife and children. So one day he sat down to drink his anisette, but this time he added a little water to dilute it. But it way of no use and he got drunk anyway.
So he decided it was time to make a change. He gave up the Turkish anisette and started drinking Scottish Single Malt whiskey. Here, too, he always added some water to dilute it, but it was to no avail. He still got drunk.
Not one to give up without a fight, he made another change. Now we would drink only a fine red wine from France. Again he was careful to thin the wine with water, but it did him no good, In the end, he still got drunk.
One day he called his wife and children to him. “You are my most beloved people in the world”, he said. “I have an announcement to make. I have given up anisette, then whiskey and now red wine, having always diluted them with water. No matter what I did, I still got drunk. I have resolved to give it up. As of this moment, I am giving up the water.“«
His pearl of great price looked at his somewhat bewildered. »My dear, what does that story have to do with me?«
»It is quite simple, my dearest one. When you told me that you were giving up hope, you were like my grandfather who wanted to give up the water. If you want to heal what ails you, then you are both giving up the wrong thing.«
Erik Riechers SAC, May 19th, 2020
The sum of the day
Years ago, an acquaintance lamented at the end of a year, that this year had been so terrible and horrible and that he was glad that it was now coming to an end. On the one hand, I understood him, since I knew that he had lost his last grandparents, in brief succession, during the second half of the year. Yet, I pointed out: »This was not the whole year. Look at the wonderful feasts and experiences you had during the first half!« He grew quiet, paused and then he agreed with me. The first half of the year had even been exceptionally joyous and radiant with the elderly ones for him and his family.
In this time of the pandemic, it often appears to me that the life which we are all leading is reduced only to this pandemic, or that it is perceived as if the pandemic was only determining topic - regardless from which side of the reflection people find themselves.
In what we offer at Siebenquell we repeatedly make the effort to widen our view to the whole of life. The Bible speaks often of the fullness of life and here we can practice the broad point of view. All of it is life: the light and the heavy, suffering and joy, the light and the dark, the broken and the healed. When we modern people wish for fullness or hear that fullness is promised to us, then we expect only the beautiful that we may relish. But that is not how life is. A wise old man on his deathbed said to his wife: »Let me also relish this here!« All his life he had practiced to accept the whole the fullness, the entire spectrum of life.
Friedrich Hölderlin, whose 250th birthday was marked in March, expressed it this way in a small poem:
As with lifetimes,
so, too, with the days.
None are enough for us,
None are totally beautiful,
and all have, if not their anguish,
then certainly their imperfection,
but add them together,
then a sum of
joy and life results!
When the Bible speaks of the glory of the Lord or of the glory he has prepared for his people, the word »kabod« is often used. It expresses heaviness, weight in the sense of weighty importance. Some translate it as »pretty heavy «.
We are invited to see in the sum of a day, a year or a life, the glory: everything is there and has its weight. This preserves us from superficial white washing as well as one-sided doom and gloom.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 18th, 2020
6th Sunday of Easter 2020
To the Last Generation Recounting
I have sat at the deathbeds of people who regretted that they could not leave more behind for their children. They understood their contribution to their future primarily in the sense of the financial emoluments they would leave behind.
On the other hand, I have eaten at tables with richly rewarded heirs who quarrelled over the last will they deem to be unjust. At times they were willing to destroy all their familial relations in order to acquire more money. They were apparently of the opinion that one could fashion the future with money, but without family.
What we leave to the next generation can be truly dangerous.
What would I like to leave to the next generation? This is the question facing Jesus. Today’s text from John’s Gospel originates from the so-called »Farewell Discourse«. John gives it the form of the last will and testament of Jesus. And in it Jesus takes up a sentiment from the deep heart of the Psalmist:
»Let me open my mouth in a rhapsody,
let me voice the verses of old, ;
that we have heard and we have known,
and that our fathers recounted to us.
We shall not conceal from their children,
to the last generation recounting
the praise of the Lord and his might,
and his wonders that he did.«
(Ps 78,2-4)
In Jesus last will and testament he places the greatest value on relationships. Therefore, his bequest to the disciples is something that will not tear them part like money, land and possessions, but something that will hold them together.
»Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.«
Jesus leaves love as his bequest to us. It should bind us to one another and lead us together. He sees a future in this for us. Now we are again at the question: What would we like to leave to the next generation?
Several weeks ago, Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, complained about the economic damage cause by the Corona Virus. Then he stated, that many grandparents would rather risk their lives than leave behind an unstable economy to their grandchildren. This, too, is an answer to the question: What would I like to leave to the next generation?
But what kind of a future do I wish upon the people who come after me? Is it enough to leave behind a healthy, stable economy to people, but no love? They will be haunted all their lives by the thought, that as soon as they endanger the stable economy they will be as cold-bloodedly sacrificed as their grandparents were. Would the economy for which I am supposed to sacrifice myself, ever make a sacrifice for me when I am ill, old, disabled or unemployed?
What will we do with a generation that thirsts for inspiration? Is the economy supposed to be their muse? And what of those who experience too little life because they have no share in our economy? Love can give an answer. Are the artists, who give us words and images so that we do not leave behind the true bequest in the death of forgetfulness, simply to be written off? They will certainly not be categorized as relevant to the system by the economic forces at play.
I do not deny that people make the choice of Dan Patrick. In these days I am often horrified how often human lives are wagered in order to save the economy. Human sacrifice seems to be socially acceptable again.
Nevertheless, we all have to answer this question and there is an alternative. We could choose to relationships of love. To all those who will inherit from us we could bequeath our passion for life, relationship and love. We could so treasure and protect our love for each other, for God and his creation, and then pass it on to the next generation.
Thus, I end my homily with a favourite story. It is called: »The Most Precious« and tells in enchanting fashion of a woman who knew what she would like to inherit.
There was a man in Sidon who lived together with his wife for ten years, but she bore him no child. So they went together to Rabbi Simon ben Jochai and requested him to dissolve their marriage.
The Rabbi spoke: “As you were brought together with food and drink, thus shall you be parted through food and drink”.
The man, however, had previously said to his wife; “You may take what is most precious to you with you to your father’s house”.
What did his wife do?
She prepared a rich meal and arranged that her husband would drink to excess. When he fell asleep, she waved her servants and maids over and commanded them: “Lift him from his bed and carry him into the house of my father.”
At midnight the man awoke from his sleep, for the wine had given way. He spoke to her: “Daughter, where have I been brought?”
She replied: “You are in the house of my father.”
He asked her: “What am I to do here?”
His wife responded: “Did you not say to me that I could take what is most precious to me with me? Well, I have nothing more precious to me than you.”
When Simon ben Jochai heard of this incident, he prayed for the two of them and they were blessed with a child.
Well, to that I can only say: Amen.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 17th, 2020
» The Bones of the King«
Just as every day represents a new challenge and each evening offers the opportunity to pause, look back and reflect on what we have experienced and how we interpret our experiences, it also happens in times that are especially challenging and unusual, like the ones we are living through at the moment.
Since January we are witnessing how the new Corona Virus is gradually spreading over national borders and in the meantime is already dispersed around the entire globe. We had to recognise that the globalisation of the economy, from trade to tourism, also brings with it the globalisation of illnesses. Who could have seriously believed that this is improbable or even impossible?
We have had a further experience during these months. Let yourself take the plunge into a small
story and see for yourself:
The Bones of the King
There was a Spanish king who was very proud of his lineage. He was also known to be cruel to those who were weak. He was walking one day with his senior people through a field in Aragon, where, years before, his father had fallen in battle. They came upon a holy man there, picking through an enormous pile of bones.
» What are you doing there?« , asked the king.
» All honor to Your Majesty «, said the holy man. » When I learned that the king of Spain was coming here, I decided to recover the bones of your father to give them to you. But no matter how hard I look, I cannot find them. They are the same as the bones of the farmers, the poor, the beggars and the slaves. «
(From: Paolo Coelho, Maktub)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 16th 2020
See your possibilites and act!
On Instagram a thought from Claudine Beckley, Her who runs a yoga studio in Belin, touched my heart. There she writes:
»Memory from two years ago, when I injured my knee playing soccer, and was told all the stuff I couldn’t do. But everyday I sought out to find the things I could do. Maybe they looked different, and were different, but they fed joy and strength to my spirit.
I find myself in a very similar place right now mentally, and emotionally. When the limitations are set, what CAN you do. How can you continue to feed and nourish your spirit in these challenging times.«
(»yogasportberlin«, March 24th, 2020, Instagram)
Her reflections have moved for days, because i know one thing very well: to let myself be driven by thoughts of things that are not possible – no more, not yet, not at all – one way or the other. Let’s be honest: everyone knows where leads when we give ourselves over to this way of looking at things and set nothing against it. Then we become passive, look for those to blame for our horrible situation, our speech becomes whining and accusatory, resignation and even depression settle in. In such phases, we feel nothing of the power to fashion or of joy, but rather paralysis and sadness.
Claudine Beckley did not linger there. She changed her way of looking at things and set out on a search two years ago after her knee injury. She looked for opportunity to act and thus for opportunities for life. She discovered, that much was different in comparison to the time and the possibilities of a healthy knee, but she could do many things, and to experience this nurtured her joy and gave strength to her life.
In her remembrance of this she can transfer this experience to herself and her life during the first weeks of the virus induced restrictions. This is the question at hand: Will I choose life?
The answer to this question is existential for each individual as well as for us as a community.
At the end of his life, Moses places a grand perspective and task before the people, a people who had been entrusted to him for decades and whom he will no longer accompany into the Promised Land:
»See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.« (Dtn 30, 15-16. 19)
The task is to choose life – the future is only possible in this way.
Sometimes the possibilities of life lay open before me and I choose and move lightly.
At other times, I have to search out these possibilities and it might be difficult for me to find them. Yet the search itself is the first step and a choice FOR life!
Many of us know and love the song »Fluch und Segen hab ich gegeben in die Wahl deines Herzens«.*
Let us sing it during these months and, above all, take it to heart!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 15th, 2020
* » Curse and blessing I have placed into the choice of your heart«. German Hymn. Musik: Jörg Gattwinkel SAC. Text: Rüdiger Kiefer SAC.
»We have a story for that« V
The Teacher gives Answer
I begin every Narrative Theology course with the attempt to convince my students that every person has insights into biblical stories. A story of faith pierces the heart, a word strikes us. The stories of God awaken life in us. Not in chosen hearts, not in highly educated hearts or privileged heart, but in all hearts. Having a human heart is the only access code required. John Shea calls this the work of the inspired imagination of the Scripture.
»When our eyes are opened and our ears unstopped, our mouth is also loosed. We speak back to what first spoke to us. This is the answering imagination.« (John Shea, The Spirit Master).
Then he goes on to write these words: »We should not be surprised at all to see that friendship flourishes in conversation.« There is a friendship that blossoms in the conversation between the inspired imagination and the answering imagination.
As four of my students saw the need of these days, the inspired imagination awakened in them the word that is also desire: »We have a story for that!«
Their answering imagination touched and moved many readers. Now it is time for the teacher to respond to their inspiration with his answering imagination.
The Inspired Imagination
Again, I tell you truly that if two of you on the earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. For where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them. (Mt 18, 19-20)
The Answering Imagination
In Dublin’s fair city, in the square of Trinity college vis a vis the great library in which is housed the Book of Kells, there sat a man in a large black hat. He is my friend. I keep a watchful eye on him, as with all my friends.
He looks old, I thought. Cares and burdens have left lines on his face. His eyes are tired and smiles do not come as easily to him as they once did. However, since I am a ceaseless reader of hearts, that I know that is but the surface. I also know of the responsibilities and sorrows have drawn furrows through his heart.
And so I waited and watched and listened.
He held a cigar in his right hand. Memories of the last time he had sat on that bench rippled back to him, as the tide returns to the shore. He had sat between two great storytellers, who had been his teachers and had become his friends. Their trinity of friendship, kinship and love reminded me of mine. They had smoked cigars and laughed uproariously. They were celebrating his induction into their guild of storytellers. How they rejoiced in each other. I remember, because I was there as well. It really is true: Where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them. I can’t help myself. Friendship is simply irresistible to me.
Many appointment calendars had been filled since that day and now he sat alone. The friend to his right had passed into the house of my Father and now gladdens the Kingdom with poetry and stories. Even my Father stops to listen when he starts to spin a tale. It is simply irresistible to him. Abba does so love stories.
The man in the big black hat was separated from the friend who had sat to his left by many thousands of kilometers. This friend had grown frail with age and mounting infirmities. One friend lost, one friend far away. It had become a terribly lonely place
He rolled the cigar between his fingers, a token, a sign, a sacrament that spoke of bonds that life forged and death could not break.
And he sighed.
Then he tucked the cigar back into the inside pocket of his jacket. And I heard his heart murmur: »How the guild has shrunk. I need to find a smaller bench.«
He turned to the sheaf of papers laying to his left on the bench. These were the stories of four of his students. He needed to read them and mark them. He picked them up and started to read.
And so I waited and watched and listened.
And then it happened.
Their stories made his eyes shine with pleasure, his heart swell with pride, his lips twitch with amusement. Admiration blossomed and excitement grew at lessons learned and phrases well turned. »Jesus, that is beautiful«. It was not a prayer when it slipped from him, but it felt like one to me. Twice I saw him clandestinely wipe a tear. When he had read the four stories he leaned back and closed his eyes.
I had seen it all before, in the eyes and hearts and on the lips of his two friends as they watched his soul unfurl and his gift unfold.
And I sighed.
Then he reached within his jacket and retrieved his cigar. He lit it, drew on it and let the tip glow red. He glanced down at the pile of four stories. I heard the thoughts of his heart. »Thank you, Lord, for new company on the bench. How the guild has grown. I need to find a bigger bench!«
It really is true, you know. Where two or three gather together in My name, there am I with them. You should see the size of the benches in my Father’s house.
And then it happened.
I saw him smile.
And so did I.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 14th, 2020
»We have a story for that« IV
When the Fog lifts
So Peter went out
with the other disciple,
and they were going toward the tomb.
Both of them were running together,
but the other disciple outran Peter
and reached the tomb first.
And stooping to look in,
he saw the linen cloths lying there,
but he did not go in.
Today I would like to make this small excerpt from a great story the focus. It offers us a help in this difficult time to find orientation for our life.
Under the protective masks we unsettled human beings can occasionally lose our orientation. Thereby it is less a matter of finding a street of city, but far more a matter of navigating our own lives. We sit behind closed doors for fear of the threat of Corona and wait. Sometimes it seems to me that we wait resignedly. Yet, there is another option: To switch from waiting to anticipation. We could take a step into the Easter morning. Peter can assist us thereby. He allowed himself to be called out by Mary Magdalene, out of the enclosed house, and ran to the garden to look at the tomb.
I know such an experience in my life, when I receive important news or have a brilliant idea. Then I want to act immediately, I want to start running right away and to see what I can do with it. Then I stand before it, see, hear and suddenly courage deserts me. Then I do not know how it could work. I have the feeling that I am standing before a mountain and cannot climb it. I suddenly no longer know why I wanted this. Peter probably had a similar experience. There he stood, in the empty tomb. This simply cannot be. Just two days earlier he heard with his own ears and saw from a distance that Jesus had died. And now the corpse is gone.
Peter sees it. The stone before the tomb has been rolled away. He stands in this empty tomb and sees everything, but he could not yet understand it. He was in the fog, confused, uncertain and without orientation.
We have experienced that in the past weeks. A crisis comes and people start to run. People start panic buying and hoarding things they believe they absolutely need. We see the need to leave contacts be and feel closed in, limited and then forget why it is necessary. Then we want to return to normalcy as quickly as possible. We want to know the limitations lifted as quickly as possible and even liturgies should place as they did before Corona. We stare into the tomb, empty indeed… and now? We feel like we are in the fog, uncertain, confused. We have never experienced anything like this. How will we get through it as quickly as possible?
In “The Neverending Story”, Michael Ende lets the hero, Bastian, sail through the sea of mist in a ship. The fog mariners impress him. They are a tight community who ceaselessly perform a communal dance and a wordless song. The fog mariners do not argue, because none of them feel like an individual. Harmony exists between them with total effortlessness. Bastian only notices how problematic this harmony is when a fog crow grabs one of the fog mariners and carries him off. The fog mariners are shocked for a brief moment, but as soon as the bird has disappeared with his prey, they start their dance again. Because they are all the same, they do not miss the abducted one. There is no individuality among the fog mariners. There is no lamentation and there is no place of grieving. No one remembers. The individual does not count. They simply want to return to normalcy as swiftly as possible. One is gone (the tomb is empty). Let’s carry on as usual.
Yet, will that work? Simply returning to normalcy? Will we navigate our lives in such a way that we quickly return to pre-Corona life, or will we learn something from this crisis?
We know this. Sometimes we stray through life as in a fog, especially now, in this time, when we do not know what will happen, when we are annoyed, irritated and uncertain and must navigate our lives through the fog. Fog crows will try to convince us that we slowly return to normalcy and take the risk of losing a person, even in the Church, because we absolutely need to celebrate a liturgy.
The experience of the empty tomb did not lift the fog in which Peter found himself. Only gradually and through other encounters with the Risen Lord did the fog lift. This requires patience. The Easter season lasts for all of 50 days and makes it clear to us that Easter, resurrection and life are a process that require patience and do not work instantaneously.
Through the encounters with the Risen Lord, Peter experiences all that changes within himself. He experienced the Risen One and has risen himself. He began to navigate in the fog. We recall: Peter was the one who denied Jesus three times: I do not know him – and bitterly regrets this betrayal. For him it was not just the death of Jesus, but also his betrayal of his friend and teacher that represents a deep rupture. Peter knows what it means to experience deepest desperation, to be disappoint in oneself, not to be able to bear one’s own company, to torment oneself with self-accusations. For him, everything had come to an end…
Jesus pulls him out and helps him navigate. Later, at the sea, Jesus poses the question three times, “Do you love me?” And three times Jesus draws more life and love than betrayal out of the depths of this man.
Gradualness is the order of the day, not just for Peter, but also for us. Navigating in the fog is not that easy. It is gratifying when people can celebrate liturgy together once again. On the other hand, it speaks of impatience when it should take place at any price. The relationship to God and my faith do not end where Eucharistic Celebrations no longer can take place. This crisis is a challenge where we need to navigate what serves life.
Peter experienced what changed within him through the crisis. Perhaps we will sense what is changing within us. May we weigh in our hearts and preserve that which serves life.
Sr. Andrea OP, Datteln April 2020 published on May 13th, 2020
Sheltered in the Psalms
Since the Ides of March 2020 the psalms have grown even dearer to my heart than before.
Temporary quarantine, increasing limitations – in the meantime we are all more than aware of them!
Yet, even though there has been a recent gradual easing, in some places anger is breaking out, protests are vociferously expressed and I ask myself, what people are raging against. Against a virus? Against »the powers that be«, who placed such rigid restrictions on us? Against their own feeling of powerlessness? Against some perceived enemy?
And I return to the psalms, those ancient songs and prayers, addressed the divine counterpart in all situations of life, known by people 3000 years ago and known by us today. Words of praise and jubilation, words of lamentation in difficult times, words of yearning, words of fear and desperation, and, repeatedly, words of thanksgiving. The one who prays knows himself vis-à-vis the mysterious, eternal creator, who sees the person, trust him, think highly of him and loves him. Nothing is too insignificant or too dark that the human being cannot speak of it to God. Thus, the biblical person of prayer entrusts himself to HIM: For he is filled by this faith:
Lord You searched me and You know, It is You Who know when I sit and I rise, You fathom my thoughts from afar. My path and my lair You winnow, and with all my ways are familiar. For there is no word on my tongue but that you, O Lord, wholly know it. From behind and in front You shaped me, and You set your palm upon me. Knowledge is too wondrous for me, high above – I cannot attain it.
(Ps 139, 1-5)
When I repeat and pray these swords today, I feel a tremendous relief and sense something of the liberating trust of the one who prays in this God, who knows him completely. How often do I suffer as a result of being unable to explain my thoughts in their depths to the people that I love; always there remains a touch of foreignness? So, too, are my ways: I often have to take paths that are mine alone, that familiar to no one else. I want to practice the attitude: » and with all my ways you are familiar «and walk without worry.
Our God is extraordinary. Thus, in another place the Psalmist can almost challengingly ask: Where is a God as great as our God? (Ps 77,14) And he ponders God’s deed, his earlier wonders; he weighs all this and contemplates the history of God with his people.
I can entrust myself to the psalms, because they all speak of abandonment, because they leave nothing out, because in them everything is said to this near and distant God. Here it is brought to expression how the human being walks his path through the ups and downs of life in a living relationship to the Lord of his life.
At the end of Psalm 139 he can also ask God:
Search me, God, and know my heart, probe me and know my mind. And see if a vexing way be in me,
and lead me on the eternal way
What a petition! May I not pray tot eh idols of my own omnipotence, the arrogance that must have everything under control. May I also not turn other people into idols and transfer all responsibility to them. This inevitably leads to what we presently experience on the streets.
No, on the eternal way I would walk and recognise and love ever more clearly what is essential.
Do you have an inkling, why I love the psalms?
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 12th, 2020
»We have a story for that« III
Warm Hearts and Eyes that See
Several weeks ago, in the midst of prespring the Easter feast, we went into crisis, all if us, the Disciples of Christ and the entire people.
It was triggered by a virus that can affect any of us. Since then, we have made a great number if experiences in a very short time.
I have the impression that for some people the positive experiences were surprising. In these days I hear statements such as: “I never knew what wonderful neighbours I have”, as one elderly man living alone said. “You bring meals and care for me”. “I am not forgotten and that does me so good”, someone told me. “I cannot believe what you are doing for me, and how can I ever repay you?”, said an elderly lady. “It is comforting to be seen, that is so good in these times”. And this message reached me as well: “Because of the Corona-Virus I had very special Good Friday experiences and experienced a unique and very moving Easter Vigil”. I had a very fulling Easter and I am very grateful for it”. I hear these and similar joyous and encouraging words repeatedly in this Easter season. They go hand in hand with the painful experiences of loneliness, the fear of the future, the overwhelming demands, the isolation…
We have a biblical story (Lk 24, 13-35), that speaks of this crisis situation and these new experiences: Two friends are on the way to the village of Emmaus. They see no future in Jerusalem any longer after their teacher and friend Jesus das died. Although he said to them that he would die and rise again, although women excitedly reported on the empty tomb, they do not understand; their hearts are full of suffering and pain. And they give up, distance themselves from the place of new life. This, too, we experience during our days.
On the road, they encounter the one whom they so painfully miss, who was torn from their midst. Their hearts overflow with what is within them: disappointment, frustration and grief. They remain blind and cannot recognise him.
However, apparently the closeness of the stranger does them good. They gladly listen to him and feel something they cannot name. It is so powerful in them that they invite him to stay the night.
And then the eyes of their hearts open as he is sitting at table with them and breaks the bread. Now they recognise who it is that journeys with them. And in the very next moment their physical eyes can no longer see him.
Do you know this? This one moment in which the “eyes of your heart” open and recognition falls deep within you?
And then you notice this warm feeling, that has accompanied you over a period of time, and that you always feel with someone else shares a piece of life, a piece of bread, with you?
For us Christians Easter came this year without our being able to communally attend a service and many of us missed it painfully. This, too is part of our new experiences.
At the same time, I feel and experience how many Eucharistic experiences people had in this time: Blessings through shared life, through weekly Sunday letters, through conversations on the telephone, Easter greetings in the form of blessed Palm branches, Easter candles and warm words on the day of the feast…
What touches the heart is the message: “I belong. I am not forgotten, I am seen and treasured. I am of importance to others”.
Afterwards the two disciples perceive that their hearts gradually warmed as Jesus opened to them the meaning of the Scriptures. Jesus opens it up and lets them take part, lets them look deep into the meaning of the Word of God. They have an experience that they will never forget, of which they will always be able to tell when, where and how they encountered Jesus. We know this as well. This Easter will remain in the people’s memory.
Jesus’ words warm the hearts of both disciples. In his action he shares life with them and they recognise the one, whom God has raised back to life.
It is not the ceremoniously sung Alleluia in which we recognise Jesus. In no Easter story does an Alleluia appear; the stories tell of fear and closed doors. It is the breaking of the bread, the sharing of life, wherever it may occur, in which we recognise who and what comes from God.
The two disciples do not recognise Jesus in a synagogue and also not in the Temple of Jerusalem. En route, so to say while fleeing, their hearts begin to warm as Jesus speaks with them. And when they are home, sitting together at table and eating together, there their eyes are opened.
And another thing is of significance in this story: There are only two of the many friends of Jesus journeying here. Not all are present when they have this experience with the Risen One. We would have gladly celebrated the Easter liturgies together with all those from our parish, but it was not possible in this year. Nonetheless, we could experience Jesus, in twos, in threes, in the family, together with the children, as couples, in partnerships and as singles.
Warm hearts and eyes that see give witness to LIFE – give witness to God! In these days of crisis, let us preserve our warm hearts and eyes that see, so that they are not lost to us for the times that are awaiting us after this passes.
Sr. M. Josefa, Datteln, April 25th, 2020 published on May 11th, 2020
5. Sunday of Easter 2020
After all this talk about the house of the father, a place for life and of rooms being prepared, it is easy to overlook what Jesus actual concern is. »Let not your hearts be troubled«. To avoid precisely this troubling, Jesus peaks of the house of his Father.
Ironically, however, it is this house with its many rooms that is often the occasion for the troubled heart. For although Jesus speaks of the house, he does so that we might keep an eye open for the way.
John works here with two great images, namely, the house and the way. The house is the image of our future, for the goal of our lives, the place at the end of days where we will find consolation and home. The way, by contrast, is the image of our lives, here and now.
Jesus wants to talk about this life, our life, for he fears that through an overemphasis on the image of the house of the Father (future and goal), we will be distracted from life here and now. That, in turn will lead to our hearts being troubled.
His language about the house of his Father is supposed to create a two-fold liberation.
- Freedom from the fixation on the goal. This leads either to
- fear or
- paralysing fascination.
- Freedom for the concentration on the path (life). This means, to be free for
- the tasks of life as well as
- the joys of living.
What happens when we are fixated on the goal (the house)? We become so fixated on heaven we have not yet entered that we ignore the earth on which we walk. It is like taking a sudden journey. We set out, have a goal in mind, but have not prepared a reservation for an overnight stay. Because we are uncertain what will happen when we arrive, we are distracted from the journey and the way. For the entire time we are occupied with the concerns about the future. »What happens when we arrive? Will we have to stay outside? Will we be left out in the cold? Will we be left outside in the dark? Will we remain, uncared for, exposed, or without a roof over our heads?«
The message of Jesus is simple. We should not be worrying our heads about this. We will have a home, there is room and space for us in the house of our God. This promise should preserve us from an exaggerated concern about our future, which distracts us from the path (life). Our future life has been prepared.
The task of life is the way. The concerned questions about what we will find at the end of days should not be projected into the future. The questions apply to the way of life. We should be asking these questions and giving answer to them here and now.
»What happens on the path when people want to arrive? Who will have to stay outside? How many will be left out in the cold? How many must remain in the dark? How many will remain uncared for, exposed, or without a roof over their heads?«
That is why Jesus says about the house: »And you know the way to where I am going.« He would have us concentrate on life, on the way. If we do that, we will assuredly come to the house of the Father, because that is where this way leads.
The fixation on the house also leads to a fascination that paralyses. Then we only speak and thing of a future that will surely be better than our present. How lovely, comforting, spacious, liberating, unburdening and quiet it will be when we finally arrive.
Hat distracts us from the way, in this case, from the joy of living and taking pleasure in life. That troubles the heart. That is what Jesus is trying to prevent.
All newspapers, news reports and talk shows are preoccupied with the new future after Corona. It is a preoccupation with rebuilding our house, our wealth and our economy. We are so worried about where we are heading, that we lose sight of where many are right now: in camps, fleeing warzones, in places of starvation, abandoned without protection to pestilence and disease.
On the way, we should be learning. We should be learning to love justice and let it roll like a river. In life we should learn to relish and appreciate everything that has to do with love, to value our relationships higher than the economy, and to discover the comforting joy of mercy. On the way, we should be gathering good and restorative experiences of service and feel the deep satisfaction of consoling others. On the way, we should taste the fullness of the hoy of sharing.
Should none of this be our thing on the way of life, then the arrival in the house of the Father will trouble our hearts. Then the house of the Father will a hell for us. It will be a hell with many rooms, but it will be a hell nonetheless. For these rooms were created spacious and wide in the first place, because they make room for justice, love, relationship, mercy, service, consolation and sharing. If we did not learn to love them all on the path, the house will be our hell.
God is taking care that all this will have plenty of room when we reach our goal. We need only be concerned that they have plenty of room on the way, in our lives. The house was always the responsibility of God. The path is our homework.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 10th, 2020
Biblical vaccination against resignation
Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, “You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.” But Peter began and explained it to them in order: I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me. Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air. And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’ This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven. And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea. And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 1And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter; he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’ As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.” (Acts 11, 1-18)
Peter returns from a trip but has no chance to enjoy the new experience he just had, to celebrate it and to relish it. Right way, the next confrontation takes place, the next task. Then come the accusations.
I experience that at the moment. We are just undergoing the first lightening of the lock down, but the tone is not getting lighter, but harder and more accusatory. Hardly have we begun to feel the first relief that we so longed for, and already people are complaining that it is not enough, not sufficient, that it does not go far enough. We do not take pleasure in what we have attained, but throw ourselves into the next phase of confrontation.
Then as now we should pose the question: Why start with accusations? Why not start by asking questions, by inquiring about what happened and how it went? Why not start with the question as to what this means instead of encountering it right away with the presumption that is was something bad?
Peter’s attitude can be a great help to us. He receives no advance of trust. He stands ready to give an account. He addresses everything, step by step, in order, without skipping anything.
He does not hide the fact of where he was (Joppe), of whom he was with (Cornelius), or what he did (baptise). He speaks openly of his own personal vision, which greatly challenged him, which made him question his own convictions and with which he had to wrestle.
He does this in an atmosphere of aggressive confrontation and accusation. Nevertheless, he does not allow this atmosphere to determine whereof he speaks. He does not allow it to distract him from the concerns of his heart. He speaks of what is his.
That will be a great task for us. At the moment I am dealing with many accusations and complaints about the manner in which I have accompanied the crisis with the Word, stories and reflections. Some complain that it was not enough, other think it was too much and yet others think that it should have been distributed in way other than our website. That is not just happening to me. The question is: Will people like this determine what we speak of? Will the accusations and dissatisfaction of such people distract us from our heart’s purpose and desire? Or will we speak of what is ours, of the renewal, the joy, the wisdom which we have experienced, even in this time of crisis? Like Peter, we could tell the stories of where we were in these days, of the people with whom we went through them, of what we did, of the deepest things we experienced, which challenged us and made us question our previous convictions. We could also tell the tale of what we are wrestling with long beyond the days of the crisis.
I can neither control nor determine the atmosphere of accusation, but I refuse to serve it. The accusers will not determine the stories I tell, how I live or whom and how I will serve. At the end of my reflection offer you one last consideration. In the Acts of the Apostles, we hear the accusations of those who did not take part in any of it. They stayed at home. No journey, hardship, work, adventure or risk for them. How would Cornelius and his whole household tell us their story? To be honest, these stories interest me far more than the eternal accusations of the fence sitters of life.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 9th, 2020
Experiences and Thoughts of a Teacher
May 4th – First Day of School during the Corona Crisis - Back to School
I wake up. The moon is to blame. It catches my face directly. I lay awake. How is this supposed to work? I still do not know. Perhaps the moon is only partially to blame. There they are again, these thoughts not thought through to the end, which wash up during the day, remain unnoted and then become intrusive by night. How is this supposed to work?
In two days there will be instruction for the first time after seven weeks. Obligatory masks and hygiene plans. My English class, numerically too large, is divided in two because of the times of Corona, in neighboring classrooms. How is this supposed to work? To teach the same thing in two rooms simultaneously. “Make sure that they are well aired. You decide whether the students also keep their masks on during the instruction. If you give them permission to eat during class and if someone need to use the bathroom, remember that we now have introduced a washroom supervision.” Alright. But where do I start? How is this supposed to work, the instruction, the resumption of classes?
In March we covered the American dream. At the start of May we trusted our eyes less and less when we hear or see the news from the other side of the Atlantic: there is talk of mass graves in the vicinity of New York, of black people who do not dare to wear protection over mouth and nose, because many white people would then be even more afraid of them. Images flash across the screen of an enraged crowd without masks who demand the lifting of contact prohibitions, the opening of restaurants and the return to their jobs. Long lines of cars develop in front of food banks, the complementary food distribution. Demonstrators are armed, because their president encouraged them to make use of their constitutional right to bear arms. The USA. What was the American dream again?
March was lightyears ago. Utterly indifferent and uninvolved, I recorded in the class register that we apparently discussed at the time that all people are ‘created equal’. - A platitude. – Everyone assiduously records it, just like the accomplishments of the freedom of the press, speech and religion. Anchored in the constitution. – Hardly worth mentioning. Self-evident fact that surround us. –
Thus, how, dear moon, is this supposed to work? Restlessly I roll forth and back with my circling pesky nuisances. Let me sleep. How should I know how things are supposed to work?
Today the moment has arrived. First of all, I pick the students up, as directed, in the schoolyard. All are sitting or standing together there, scattered in small groups. I beckon them and recognise their eyes. Then they follow me in single file, 1.5 meters apart, into the classrooms. The newly plastered one way system of the corridors is still unfamiliar. Two of the youths walk next to each other. I remind them of the commandment of the hour: distance and walking in a row. They obey precisely.
“Masks off or not?”, one of them asks me, having arrived in the classroom. I look around. Each one sits alone at a table. The distance to the desk is great. I barely can breathe under the cloth mask: “Take it off”. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. “Open the windows” – already cool air flows in. Circulation arises, which should diminish the danger of infection.
They also remove the masks in the neighbouring room. And now? How is this supposed to work????
I begin quietly and greet them. It is 3.30 pm. The ninth class period. Who has already been in school since 8 am? - I do not know.
I ask all of them to fill out the questionnaire that I distribute. “How did you experience the crisis? What emotions did you feel for the first time? What helped you during the last weeks? From where did you get support? Were there also positive moments? Some claim that crises can also be educational – did you learn something new?”
They take their pens out. “Take your time and answer the questions in peace and quiet. If you need more space, continue writing on an extra sheet of paper. I will go next door shortly, to the others. They will receive the same questions.”
Then it is very quiet. Concentration lingers. We have all the time in the world. I go through the attendance list in my mind. Remind myself of their names and habits. Rejoice to finally see them again. Think of Hertha, who remains at home because she belongs to a high risk group – with pre-existing illness. My nervousness subsides. It will be alright – even today.
“Are you finished?”. The first pipe up. Tell of their adventures and experiences: - ‘My family helped me to get through it’, one recounts. ‘And because I see my older sister so seldom and she suddenly moved back into house, I was so happy. I bet along well with my family and I know, that it is not so for everyone.’
-‘If I had not been able to be outside for at one hour a day, I do not know what would have happened’, says another.
-‘I was also outside every day with our dogs. We have three. But for homework, to be honest, for homework for school I could not motivate myself. But I helped out at home. Everywhere.’
- ‘I learned, that everyone basically thinks of themselves. When there was the shortage of toilet paper, everyone simply thought of themselves. Before this, I would not have thought it possible.’
- ‘We have relatives in France. In Germany we did not have a crisis. We just need to think about the people in other countries’.
“It was difficult for me. I was so unproductive. I don’t know myself that way”, Sabine remarks quietly. ‘I thought, now you can learn a language or do a lot of sports, learn vocabulary, read – but I did not feel like doing anything. I had no energy. I was a stranger to myself and started to hate myself for it… later it gradually got better. I forced myself. My parents watched me. So much time at home. Normally, being at home is linked to leisure. But suddenly I had school at home. It was horrible. And then I started to write everything down. When I read it afterwards, I was astonished that I had written the text myself…But I thought to myself, keep writing, write everything down, before you forget it.“
Everyone listens. They know, every word is voluntary. We know each other – trust.
When it grows quiet, I inquire further, for whom it was a learning experience. All of them respond. They look around and at each other. The silence does us good. We are together again.
„And why do you think, we begin our instruction today with these questions?”
- “Because of the vocabulary? “
- “So that we think about it?”
I look into the round.
Feli speaks up. „I do not know why we start with this. You are the first to ask me such questions and it was the first time I had the chance to think about it. In the other classes we started directly with the material. Because of the exams that are now coming up. But the questions…somehow that was good right now…”
“We started with the questions, because I would like that we all get something of this time. The Corona Crisis will not be the last crisis that you undergo. That is how life is. And I know that for some of you it was not the first crisis. We are in a maelstrom that is tossing our daily life about.. And we let ourselves be tossed about. We are carried along, whether we want to or not. But we can also take a step aside, look at it from above, so to speak, and pause for a moment. We can try to understand what is happening with us and in us.”
“Do you believe, that we are then better equipped for the next crisis?”, Leon reflectively asks.
“Yes, I hope so.- … - And now out with you. Time to go home. Put the masks back on and please close the windows. See you tomorrow. “
That is how it was.
Tonight I will surely sleep well.
And the moon can quietly watch.
Heartful thanks to Christiane Bals, May 8th, 2020
»We have a story for that« II
»Relational Ways«
“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village.
And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.
And she had a sister called Mary,
who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
But Martha was distracted with much serving.
And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”
But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha,
you are anxious and troubled about many things,
but one thing is necessary.
Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
Do I dare address the Lord in my fragility?
“Lord, do you not care
that my sister has left me to serve alone?
Tell her then to help me.”
This sentence of Martha, who is entirely preoccupied with the care of Jesus while her sister sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to his words,
touches me deeply within my heart.
For she dares to name her crisis.
She does not swallow it, keep it under wraps and she wants help.
She turns to Jesus, whom she has taken into her home, and wants him to help.
In this moment, that which connects her sister to Jesus shows her very clearly,
what she is painfully missing and her heart is nourished by envy and comparison.
I often ask myself, what would have happened if Martha had kept silent.
I believe, that she would have squandered an opportunity, necessary for her, to make a connection again;
squandered the opportunity to merge from her crisis.
Do we not know this when we are fully preoccupied with our own concerns, expectations and ambitious goals. The danger then exists that we lose the connection to reality and project our own weaknesses, worries and our helplessness onto our fellow human beings.
Cross your heart! Who finds loving and suitable words in such moments?
The great chance lays in this moment when Martha seeks out a wise conversational partner,
a friend who she has taken into her home.
One who present always and at every moment and takes a stand for life, come what may.
Jesus is the unifying factor in this story and Martha has recognised this.
Even though she certainly was hoping for another answer, she trusts Jesus.
Thus, Martha can experience healing, for she has dared to hold out her fragility, her crisis, to Jesus, the Son of God, who, like his Father, desires nothing more than salvation and life for his people.
How difficult it is us for us human beings to hold out our fragility to God so that healing might be possible. For God, like Jesus, wants to share the center of life with us, be we often forget it.
Much like Martha, who takes Jesus into her home in a friendly manner, but then remains in her thought-construct about Jesus and, figuratively speaking, leaves him standing in the hall.
But let us not underestimate that he is in the house. Jesus is there.
He is also there in the Corona crisis!
The question for us: How do we dare to bring our fragility to God so that he can commend the truly unifying to us and we can live out of his promise, especially in our crisis?
I believe that it is not enough to know that there is a promise, even though this is already a great deal in our world. Rather, my question is whether we trust ourselves to wager close contact, with and through the stories of God, to really feel how serious God is about us. To this end, we should not leave Jesus standing outside in the halls of our houses.
Thus, I hear Jesus speaking to us in the text of Paul Weismantel,
to Martha, Mary and to us all in the crisis:
I am there
In the darkness of your past and
in the uncertainty of your future,
in the blessing of your helping and
in the misery of your helplessness
I place my promise:
I am there.
In the play of your emotions and
in the seriousness of your thoughts,
in the richness of your silence and
in the poverty of your speech
I place my promise:
I am there.
In the fullness of your tasks and
in the emptiness of your bustle,
in the variety if your abilities and
in the limitations of your gifts
I place my promise:
I am there.
In the success of your conversations and
in the boredom of your praying,
in the joy of your success and
in the pain of your failure,
I place my promise:
I am there.
In the straits of your daily life and
in the breadth of your dreams,
in the weakness of your mind and
in the strengths of your heart
I place my promise:
I am there.
Sylvia Ditt, Koblenz, May 7th, 2020
The Long Path and Wisdom
In the middle of March, as the state of emergency created by the virus was still in its beginnings, we tried to get a picture of the impact, to learn new rules and follow them. Many of us could adapt to the many changes to our daily lives for a manageable period of time. This reminds me of Bilbo Baggins, the »Hobbit«, who gets involved in the adventure with Gandalf and the dwarves, but never gave a thought to how long this would take.
Now we already must, on top of everything else, wear our protective masks for a second week whenever we go shopping. I observe daily how difficult it is for us to deal with this in a wise and relaxed fashion. We do not to drive or take a walk with the mask, we can continue to reduce our shopping to a minimum; even if there are regulations for our conduct that are unpleasant, there is much we can arrange ourselves many free spaces and times are left open to us.
On the adventurous path through life, paths will constantly become small and dangerous and sometimes these stretches are long. Bilbo Baggins shows us step by step how this works: , sometimes, when it grew very difficult, he went along reluctantly and felt like a victim who had been dragged along; yet, increasingly, he fashioned the path within the framework of his possibilities and was even to relish many moments. Only decades later does he see the great connections and the sense in much of it.
No one on earth knows what will grow out of this, our long and difficult time. Whether virologists or economic experts, doctors or politicians – each is working, planning and counseling in their field with that which is available to them. So, we too, in inner freedom, do what is asked, necessary and possible.
Let us take Solomon’s prayer for wisdom to heart. There we read:
»For who can learn the counsel of God?
Or who can discern what the Lord wills?
For the reasoning of mortals is worthless,
and our designs are likely to fail;
for a perishable body weighs down the soul,
and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful[a] mind.
We can hardly guess at what is on earth,
and what is at hand we find with labor;
but who has traced out what is in the heavens?
Who has learned your counsel,
unless you have given wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from on high?
And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,
and people were taught what pleases you,
and were saved by wisdom.« (Wisdom 9, 13-18)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 6th, 2020
»We have a story for that« I
The Search for God’s Word within me
It is God who sees us and wishes to be there for us, even when we may find ourselves in the greatest seclusion and isolation. So that this Good News of the eternal God who loves his people is not lost precisely in this time of the pronation of religious services and of withdrawal from contact, religious services and reflections being supplied through the media. Here and there home services are being encouraged in the family. Yet all that is unfamiliar is difficult. How many trust themselves, and be it only within their own four walls, to read God’s Word aloud, to take it on
During these days, a word of the Old Testament, the Book of Deuteronomy, encouraged me. To this end. The basic storyline is, that Moses is holding his great farewell discourse to the people before he dies, and they, after forty years of wandering the desert, will take the Promised Land without him. He was their leader and the mediator of God’s word. Now he asks them to take to heart, that even if he goes, God himself, his Word and his presence remains. (Dt 30,11-14):
For this commandment that I command you today
is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.
It is not in heaven, that you should say,
‘Who will ascend to heaven for us
and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’
Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say,
‘Who will go over the sea for us
and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’
But the word is very near you.
It is in your mouth and in your heart,
so that you can do it.
On the way to a personal conversation with God, this is an equally comforting and challenging word. It is not unavoidably necessary to have a mediator, an expert who knows more about God and the Bible, and one does not have to set out on long paths. Yet, how much is concealed within this reality, that God’s word is very near when I would like to approach it:
For one thing, I am accustomed that others, with much better existing knowledge, “bring” God’s word. How much instruction and practice do I have, for example, in reading the Sunday Gospels and track down what they have to say to my life today? Before Corona, it was never expected of me to celebrate a religious service at home.
- However: When, if not now, do I have the chance to practice this?
Yet, even if I have the good fortune to meet priests who encourage and animate our own reading of the Scriptures and our own domestic church: Why is it still difficult for me to get up and try? They and God himself obviously trust me to do so! The thought quickly arises: “Others bubble over. In me, the reading of the Bible brings forth – nothing”. Equally swift comes the conclusion: „I suppose there is nothing within me“. Add convenience or lack of time or priority to this and – presto- this attitude is left to stand unchallenged and we prefer to remain with the reflections of others.
- However: Who actually says that this all happens to quickly and simply for “the others”. Do I sit with them at home and see how the “produce” one homily after the other? And even if I did: God is much greater than habits and self-doubt. When he says: “But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart”, then I want to trust it and try to also find it unmediated in myself.
Thus, I read God’s word. But if I take it serious for my life, I am confronted with the places where I have not lived by it so far. And I am confronted with where I must change, let something go or face a conflict, because it stands in the way of faith in him or of following his commands. In regard to being in a personal conversation with God, these are, for example, the aforementioned self-doubts and feelings of inferiority. They can be so familiar and often so “nurtured” that stripping them away can feel like dying. In addition, there is the fear that God might want to punish me and I develop mistrust toward him: ‘Is God perhaps not good after all? Does he not want to save, or even want to kill?!’
That is how it was for the People of Israel and Moses reminds them of it (Dt 1): When God led them to the border to the Promised Land after two years of wandering the desert and said, „Go up, take hold of the land“, they sent men ahead to probe the land. They saw and told the people of the native peoples who were far greater and stronger than they were. The people became desperately afraid. God had liberated them from Egypt, personally spoken the Ten Commandments to them, given them eat and to drink in the desert, that they might live. They, however, slandered him: “In the Lord’s hatred of us He took out of the land of Egypt to give us into the hand of the Amorite to destroy us”.
- However: God is good through and through. He not only revealed this through the liberation from Egypt, but also by the fact that he accompanied the people for so long through the desert until they were ready, after 40 years, to risk the battel for a land in which they could live. He wants that I too, here and now, am freed from all that suppressed or kills life. Regardless how many experiences may have instilled or seemingly confirmed in me self-doubt or fear of a punishing God: I am seen by him, wanted and loved. I am seen, wanted and loved by him as well as freed to take on responsibility for my life. I am no one’s marionette, not even His. That is simultaneous encouragement and challenge. Do I dare to believe that I am loved by God? Do I wish to draw strength and courage from it in order to face paralysing attitudes like self-doubt and fear? Do I trust that his word is very near to me, in my mouth and in my heart, so that it can be done?
As soon as I would like to believe this unconditional love of God more than what others say and I often think, I open myself unto the closeness of God within me. Only then do I experience his reality – nit immediately, but gradually and as certainly as the dawning of the day: “When you first notice them, they have been already going on for some time.” (C.S. Lewis).
If we are temporarily cut off from communal religious services, priests or even from the Wifi connections necessary for on-line reflections: Nothing can separate us from the love of God. He renders his service unto us regardless of such external circumstances. He is greater than our knowledge, our habits, thoughts and fears. Above all, he means us well. Only my attitude, when I do not trust him because of self-doubt or fear, can block or distort my gaze of his goodness.
If you seek the meaning of God’s word in your life: Have courage! Dare more trust – in yourself as well as in God. For “the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.”
Anne Szczodrowski, Neuwirtheim, May 5th, 2020
»We have a story for that«
Several weeks ago I gave an assignment to my students. Since we cannot meet under the given circumstances, I asked each of them to write a reflection with a view to the need of these days. That which we are experiencing and living through together in these days is the true test of the storyteller. A crisis is the time in which good stories are needed more than ever before.
We are experiencing the exact opposite almost daily. When we hand the word over to the bad storytellers, it creates a panic that is nurtured and fed daily. The superficiality grows steadily worse and orientation is utterly neglected.
However, since I am not in the business of forming poor storytellers, I gave my students the following assignment.
- Select a reaction, question or need that you are presently experience in the people around you.
- Choose a biblical story that you would like to give as a response to his under the motto: »We have a story for that«.
- Then work on the text applying the narrative Method.
- Take a part of your interpretation and transform it into a reflection for people in crisis. Show them how the biblical stories open undiscovered horizons, untrodden paths and untried possibilities to them.
In the coming two weeks you will have the pleasure of readiing their reflections, two this week and two in the following week. They will be published under the title: »We have a story for that«.
Although this assignment is an exercise of narrative theology, we can all basically do it. Each of us experiences a broad spectrum of reactions, questions and needs in the people around us. If we take these reactions, questions and needs seriously and face them, then we can surely give a response from to them from the biblical stories that speak to us, that led us to undiscovered horizons, showed us untrodden paths and opened us up to untried possibilities. That is not a technical narrative interpretation of the text, but a valuable existential interpretation of my personal faith experience with the story. Each of us can say: »I know your story, because I have a similar, if not identical, one of my own. And I have experienced a biblical story that helped and strengthened me. If it touched and moved me, why not you?« It is simply another way of saying, »We have a story for that«.
To do that, however, we need to learn to love the biblical stories as my students have. Gabriela Mistral shows us what such a love looks like. I wish all of us this love, for the love of the biblical stories is at the same time of the Teller of the First Tale, who spoke all creation into being and wove the worlds with his words.
Bible, my noble Bible, magnificent panorama,
where my eyes lingered for a long time,
you have in the Psalms the most burning of lavas
and in its river of fire I lit my heart!
You sustained my people with your strong wine
and you made them stand strong among men,
and just saying your name gives me strength;
because I come from you I have broken destiny
After you, only the scream of the great Florentine*
went through my bones.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 4th, 2020
*"el sumo florentino," refers to Dante.
4. Sunday of Easter 2020
Thirty-one years ago today I was ordained a priest. It was not the most defining day of my life. That was the day of my Profession as a Pallottine. Yet, it was certainly an important day in my life. On the final day of the retreat to prepare me for the ordination, the retreat director gave me a card. It was made by her own hand and written in lovely calligraphy. On it was one line by the poet Hafez: »Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.«
That is not so far from Vincent Pallotti’s famous adage
»Seek God and you will find God.
Seek God in all things and you will find God in all things.
Seek God always and you will always find God.«
It is a counsel I have kept religiously in my life. It is one of the things that has occupied me since that day. What are the sounds that makes me particularly glad to be alive? How do I stay close to the sounds that make me glad to be alive? If we take Vincent Pallotti seriously, that we can find God always and everywhere, then any story, song or voice could make us glad to be alive.
The sound that has made me glad to be alive, is the voice of the storyteller. Daily I pray, »Lord Jesus Christ, storyteller of God. Teach me to listen for the stories of God within all things; in myself, in the other, in the whole of creation and in the whole of Scripture, that I might hear and heed every story God wishes to tell.« It is my way of staying close to the sounds that make me glad to be alive.
The voice of Jesus in John’s Gospel is one of the sounds that makes me glad to be alive. Nearly everyone knows the line of his Gospel, »I came that they may have life, and have it super-abundantly«. But we often ignore the fact that this line flows from a previous claim: »I am the door.« Here is one who holds access to the fullness of life.
Doors are control instances. And what they control is a jealously guarded treasure: access. We assiduously guard access to our lives, because we know precisely what that means. Access to our lives means access to our time. We carefully watch our time, shield it, and safeguard it. It is far easier to give someone from my wealth than from my time.
The door is the great image of access. You can shut the door and thereby deny access. You can decide who comes in and out and thereby limited access. You can keep the door wide open, thereby granting unlimited access. You can lock the door, for fear of those who might gain access. You can keep a door unlocked, because you are willing to let anyone have access.
There are so many meanings to this picture, when Jesus says that he is the door in John’s Gospel. He not only says he can grant access to the fullness of life, but that he wants to grant access. What is ability without willingness? To say I can help you is not the same as to say I will or want to help you. There is life enough that is withheld by people who have more than enough capability of sharing it.
But the line, »I am the door« is a story that sounds everywhere, a sound that makes me glad to be alive every time I hear it. If we are like Christ, then we too can say: »I am the door.« If we are sisters and brothers to Jesus, then we can say: »I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.« Every person who is willing and able to grant access to their lives makes me glad to be alive. Every person who can say, »I am able and willing to open the door of my heart« makes me glad to be alive.
»Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.« That is why I have stayed close to the storytellers, be they Gospel writers, literary giants, peasant women in the markets of Belize, a leper in India, or the survivors of wars, violence or any of the forms which human cruelty can assume. As Oscar Wilde tells us in »The Happy Prince«. » ‘Dear little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and of women. There is no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.’«
These men and women were the swallows who flew over the city of God and told me what they saw there. From them I learned how any and all of us can became a door unto the fullness of life. In the thousands of ways they have translated Jesus’ word »I am the door« into life and grace, there has been one defining element: you cannot simply spend a lifetime demanding access to life. You must be the access to life for others.
Jesus said »I am the door« and granted us access:
to his time: For even when he had no time to eat, he had pity on the crowd that needed him (Mk 6,31-32);
to his bread and his table: When in the last hours of his life he chose to spend it sharing a meal with his friends. (Last super);
to his person: He did not let pushy disciples push away children (Mt 19,14), who let himself be touched by a hemorrhaging women (Mk 5,31), who protected the woman who anointed him (Mt 14, 6-7);
to his wisdom: »What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him!« (Mk 1, 27);
to his relationship to God: »Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak from myself; but the Father dwelling in Me does His works.« (Jn 14, 10);
to his relationship to us: »Now this is the will of the One having sent Me, that all that He has given Me, I should lose none of it, but will raise it up in the last day.« (Jn 6, 39);
to his resources: When he helps Peter pay the temple (Mt 17,27);
to his yearning: When he openly admits how he eagerly desires to eat the Passover with his friends. (Lk 22, 15);
to his disappointment: When he does not deny his sadness at the unwillingness of Jerusalem to come into his embrace (Mt 23,37);
to his stories: in the myriads of parables he shared;
to his balms for the body: »Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes, and at once they received their sight and followed Him.« (Mt 20, 34);
to his salves for the soul: When he refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery but send her forth into the freedom to try life anew. (Jn 8, 11);
to his country: for a leprous Samaritan who had no business being on the wrong side of the border (Lk 17, 11-19);
to his restorative power: for a persistent mother who was no child of Israel, but most assuredly a child of God. (Mt 15:21-28);
to his body (this is my body which will be given up for you);
and to his blood (this my blood poured out for you).
We too possess all of that: our time, bread, tables, our person and wisdom, our relationships to God and to one another, our resources, our yearnings and disappointments, our stories, our balms for the body and salves for the soul, our home and native lands, and our power to restore. And we have our body and blood, our flesh and bone. Behind all of that lies a fullness of life for others. With Jesus we too are the door. That makes me glad to be alive.
Together let us stay close to any sounds that make us glad that we are alive. In the end, it is nothing other than the way in which we remain close to God.
Erik Riechers SAC, May 3rd, 2020
We have (another) poem for that, or: Regarding true fullness
It could be that we are much shaken today.
It could be that fear and uncertainty narrow our view to tunnel vision.
In point of fact, since things started looking up 70 years ago, we as a society have not experienced such a shock and so much uncertainty.
Yet, is this life, then and now, and for all times, not more than this?
What do we block out when irritation, fear and outsized anxiety cloud our vision? And are we honest: Were we not often blind in easy times for the other side, that which was difficult in the world, or for that which we never had under control?
100 years ago, in the post-war period of the First World War, which had left a mark on practically every family, a critical author set his gaze anew on the reality and was astonished: »already - there - still « he calls out, although he had only perceived blossoming lilacs for the first time:
Lilacs
Now I know it is spring again.
I saw it not against so much night
and long I had not thought it possible.
Only now I take note, the lilacs are already blossoming.
How did I find the mystery again?
They are had taken it from me.
What did the world make of us?
I turn about and there blossoms the lilacs.
And thank God, he created me anew
in creating the splendour anew.
To look at it awakened,
thus I stood still. Still the lilacs blossom.
Karl Kraus, 1874-1936
In our spring of 2020 the entire fullness of life is offered to us.
I want to take note, to turn about and to stand still on sunny days, amidst birdsong and before floral splendour, and I want to soak up children’s laughter and warmth of the heart into myself.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 2nd, 2020
»at home outside« III
Today give yourself over to the last part of the poem, to its images and to the tasks it names: do not judge – be song – comfort!
And feel how this could mean today – concretely – in the circumstances of your life.
III
judge not
the lovers
their togetherness
shatters
where birds of sorrow
build their nests
in the mouths
of the weeping
be song
comfort
from Wilhelm Bruners, »ZUHAUSE IN ZWEI ZELTEN«, S. 42
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, May 1st, 2020
Vive la résistance!
At the moment, we are telling many stories of fear: the fear of being infected, the fear of infecting another; fear of isolation and fear of merging from it; fear of the present situation and fear of the future. We suffer, because these deep fears do not let go of us, and therefore carry with us so much unlived life, because we cannot forgive ourselves for being afraid. The crisis of these days did not create this, but merely unveiled it. These fears were there before. In everyplace where we were unwilling to risk life, the unlived life was a topic before Corona came.
Here we need to renew an ancient practice of the faith. Practice inner resistance. If you do not have the power to change the circumstances of life, then make sure that the circumstance of life do not change you. This is the life attitude of Jesus vis-à-vis violence, hatred, intrigue and every attempt to limit him as a free child of God. He exercised inner resistance. External powers could not determine his inner life. He does not resort to their tactics, but he sets words and signs against them.
Practice inner resistance. We must set a clear sign against these fears that are the breeding ground of the unlived life. Be a resistance fighter. Tell the tales, sing the songs, recite the poems that show, that despite every freedom that is curtailed, fear will not determine who we are or how we live.
Dawna Markova us a testimony of testimony to strengthen inner resistance.
»I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible;
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.«
Dawna Markova
Vive la résistance!
Erik Riechers SAC, April 30th, 2020
»at home outside« II
In his poem, Wilhelm Bruners takes up the missionary mandate of Jesus 2000 years ago and places it into the present. Then as now, Jesus says to those who are sent with what they will be equipped and, furthermore, whereto they will be sent. Every generation enters into this conversation anew. Bruners found a language for himself and for us. When we encounter his words again in these weeks, they unleash a different story in us than at our first encounter.
Thus, let us allow the second part of the poem to have a new effect on us:
Where are the voiceless? What do I hear and what do they need?...
Who are the children of pain? What words are necessary? Can I find any?
. . . . . .
at home outside
II
build an ark
from the dirges
of the voiceless
until the pain
flushes his children
into words
unto the knifes edge
into the critical
from Wilhelm Bruners, »ZUHAUSE IN ZWEI ZELTEN«, P. 42
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 29th, 2020
Life is not broken
Yesterday Rosemarie wrote about listen to old stories with new ears. That is the challenge and the chance of every crisis. T.S. Eliot describes the experience this way:
»We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.«
Can we take the stories we know and read them in manner that we rediscover them, perceive them differently, discover more richness or even know them for the very first time?
Meg Wheatley offers us a helpful example. She takes a prose passage from Rachel Naomi Remen’s »Blessings of my Grandfather« (p. 147) and presents it in poetic form. I share it with you for two reasons. First, the content itself speak to comfort to us as we try to remember that life is not broken. Secondly, the change of the form helps me to discover that translating this wisdom teaching into life is always a thing of lyrical beauty.
Everything Has a Deep Dream
by Rachel Naomi Remen
I’ve spent many years learning
how to fix life, only to discover at the end of the day
that life is not broken.
There is a hidden seed of greater wholeness
in everyone and everything.
We serve life best
when we water it
and befriend it.
When we listen before we act.
In befriending life,
we do not make things happen
according to our own design.
We uncover something that is already happening
in us and around us
and create conditions that enable it.
Everything is moving toward its place of wholeness
always struggling against odds.
Everything has a deep dream of itself and its fulfillment.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 28th, 2020
»at home outside«
More than two years ago, in February 2018, we published a poem by Wilhelm Bruners under »L’Chaim«. It reminds us how and that we are sent. Now I read it again and hear these serious, clear words in myself. They are the same words, but other things are now resound for me. Many experiences between then and now. The world is not the same, interiorly or exteriorly. That is how it always is when we approach a story or a poem anew after some time has passed.
We all experience this year together as something altogether different than what came before.
This week I invite you to enter into relationship with the three verses of this poem, one after the other, and to seize the chance to read it anew, with everything that is presently preoccupying and also harassing us.
at home outside
the community of Good News Heralds
I
don’t conform
dare to go
if you
go
take nothing along
save for one
piece of bread
one sip
of wine
and
a handful
of reconciliation
from Wilhelm Bruners, »ZUHAUSE IN ZWEI ZELTEN«, P. 42
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 27th, 2020
»Age-old Light in which we stand« - On the Way of the Via Lucis
During the14 days after Easter we took the path of light with each other. It traces its roots back to Giovanni Don Bosco and was given new life several decades ago by the San Egidio community. This path leads us to the Paschal stories and reveals, step by step, the »age-old light in which we stand«.
14. Station: The Sending of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2,1-6)
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
During this time of crisis, many people are seeing spiritual direction over the telephone. I often hear tales of soul-deep deeps about losing the things that are precious, valuable and important to these people. One woman asked me, if I also had a story for this. But, of course. That is the story of the people in the upper room of Pentecost.
The over-romanticised and often sanitised version of this story overlooks something essential. These people felt threatened. They lost a beloved person in Jesus. That means, they lost a sense of security which they felt in his presence. Gone is the vitality and joy of life that they enjoyed with him. The creativity and the possibility of employing it are paralysed, for even if they pray together, they do so secluded from a world that took all this from them. This paralysing experience has cost them the chance of fashioning the life of the world.
This danger exists to this day. Our questions testify to it. What should be do now? How can we go on? We could stand paralysed by fear. We could wait with resignation for the virus to strike us. Or, we could take on the Pentecost attitude on the path of light. We could allow ourselves to be set in motion by the Spirit of God, who loves and treasures everything that means home to us. For the first gift of the Spirit is motion: tongues are unfettered, courage unleashed, physical bodies leave the house and human heart and flesh risks encounter and conversation precisely with those whom if previously avoided. The Spirit of God moves us into the heart of a world filled with fear.
The world outside the upper room of Pentecost is not less threatening after the coming of the Spirit that it was before. With words taken from Psalm 104, 30 we pray »Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of the earth«. The Pentecost story teaches us, that the Spirit of God will certainly renew the face of the earth, but not without us. God is not offering to send forth his spirit to renew the face of the earth in advance so that we can afterward crawl out of our hiding places. The Spirit of God renews the face of the earth by transforming the people who walk upon it. The world outside the upper room of Pentecost remains the same, before and after the coming of the Spirit. It is the people whom he changes.
The days of Corona will come to an end. We will still be together. And we will be afraid. We will be afraid of the world from which we were isolated. We will be afraid of contact, touch and encounter. Fears which we have fostered will not simply be stripped away. Just because we receive permission to emerge from the cocoons of isolation, does not mean we will want to do so.
The Spirit of God frees every generation of believers from paralysing fear. For the days beyond the crisis make a wonderful pledge according to the Pentecost recipe for life. We could courageously volunteer to renew the face of His earth. This will be my pledge. I offer it to you in the hope that there will be many companions on this adventurous journey.
Age-old Light in which we stand!
We go out to the place from where the threat comes,
where the danger is always greater than behind our walls,
and we defy the fears,
animated by a Spirit of love.
That beloved people may not be lost, because they cannot reach us
behind our walls of fear.
That security might not be confused with suffocating narrowness.
That our vitality and our joy of life may be set free
by unleashing in other people amazement and enthusiasm.
That our creativity and the possibility of employing it
does not pitifully drown in our timidity, because we fashion our lives
as if we were in a bunker and no longer risk or attempt anything.
That the opportunity to fashion life does not remain a dream for the day
on which no danger or risk threatens us.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 26th, 2020
13. Station:Together with one accord in prayer (Acts 1, 12-14)
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were residing, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. These all were persevering with one accord in prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Three verses between the Ascension and Pentecost – nothing spectacular, merely a listing of people,12 of them by name, little action… we often quickly skim over these verses an move onto greater events in the story.
It is worthwhile to take a closer look. It is the eleven apostles who, after the last words of Jesus and his Ascension – we read it yesterday - take the short path from the Mount of Olives into the city and gather in the upper room. It was a good 40 days ago that they took precisely the opposite route with Jesus – from the Last Supper in the upper room to the Mount of Olives, where the Passion of Jesus began and finally scattered them all.
Now, however, they do not scatter. They remain here and each of them is mentioned by name, just as once before when Jesus chose them (cf. Lk 6). Thus, here there is witness: All those whom Jesus had chosen are here together (except Judas Iscariot).
They »resided« here. How difficult perseverance is for us – we experience it at the moment to a great extent. Keeping the limitations, guidelines and behavioural regulations on and off or for a short period of time would not be a challenge: but we modern people can hard stand having to live like this for the long haul. Yet, not just that! The way in which they spend their time is even more foreign to modern men and women. They were persevering with one accord in prayer. Thereby, the circle is much larger than it at first seemed. The women are in the room, nominally Mary, the mother of Jesus, who were last mentioned in the hour of Jesus death, as well as the brothers. Here the disciples join with the family of Jesus. It is not recounted who was present first or who called whom- no, all who belonged to Jesus, starting with his mother, are united.
These all were persevering with one accord in prayer. They have sufficient breath, perseverance and patience. They place time and space at the disposal of that which is important to them. They are of one mind, they do it amicably, and consensus has been achieved – in prayer! Bound together as brothers and sisters, they pray to the Father of us all, deepen the relationship and the trust, open themselves ever more to him, and live in him – that is what it means to pray. The companions of Jesus learned it from him.
20 years ago, Wilhelm Bruners gave warning to us modern men and women:
Warning
Do not initially expect
that your prayers
will be heard
rather, listen
to what they
expect of you.
»These all were persevering with one accord in prayer «. At the moment we miss and lament, more than we suspected, that this is not possible for us. Yet, let us look honestly and constitutively what is possible for us now and what we perhaps have not practiced heretofore:
- Perseverance: persistently and patiently dedicated time and space to payer
- In accord with our sisters and brothers: we can assure each other in many ways and bring our prayer together. Then we know, while we are praying, that we are unite dot them.
- Practicing prayer: To bring everything that moves us to God and to listen in silence.
Then we, too, will listen to what our prayers expect of us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 25th, 2020
12. Station: Ascension Opportunities (Acts 1:6-11)
So when they had come together, they asked him, »Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?« He said to them, »It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.« And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, »Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.«
In spiritual direction it occasionally happens, that a person asks me for help at the beginning of the conversation, but in the course of the conversation something altogether different takes place. Regardless of what I say, suggest or offer, it is rejected. The rejection is always announced with the phrase I have come to hate the most, »yes, but«. At the latest, that is the point when I am clear that if I do not say what the person wants to hear, there can be no »yes«. They ask for help in their crisis, but actually are only seeking the affirmation and confirmation of their perceptions and expectations.
That happens often when we are in crisis. People cling stubbornly to their perception, their expectation. Everything should remain as it was or as they would wish it to be. Even when all the facts and realties have changed radically, they resist, because for them it simply cannot be so. Then they refuse to open themselves to that which is to come, even when genuine opportunities are knocking at the door.
That is the experience of crisis of the disciples in this story. They cling to their old perceptions: Jesus is gone and we are helpless, abandoned and without leadership. They cling to their expectations: Only Jesus can do the works that bring salvation and life to the world. Our strength does not suffice for that.
We are accustomed to the idea, that things will run as we expect them to. Often, we cannot imagine any other possibility. Then we refuse to open ourselves to the opportunities of salvation. We close ourselves off to the real alternatives and chances being offered. But what if the things that come to us in these days of crisis would like to bring us some salvation? For there are also offers of grace in this hour: to have time, to forge community, to feel solidarity, to widen our hearts for people who have to experience every day what we must endure but for a time; an opening for the truly essential, the discovery that all which we painfully miss can be the chance to no longer take it for granted in the future; the rediscovery of the gift-contours of the world and of life itself.
The Talmud speaks wisdom: We do not see the world as it is, but as we are. However, if we are close, stuck and narrow, then we will see the world and its possibilities in that manner. The way we are seeing always tells us something about what we have become.
»And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?’«
Sometimes we cling to our perceptions and expectations so stubbornly, that we refuse to open ourselves, even when life and kindness are knocking at our door. Thus, I give you a story:
In ancient days, there lived a man in a village who had a son.
One day he left the village to pursue his business interests.
After he departed, pirates came to the village, for it lay close to the water. The pirates destroyed the village, burned it to the ground, and killed every resident, every man, every woman, every child. But the son of this man, they took with them.
The man returned home and entered his village. Everything was burned and charred. He search the entire village and found what he believed to be the corpse of his son.
He immediately began to mourn and to weep. He arranged the funeral, spoke all the prayers for his son and allowed what remained of him to be cremated.
Then the man took the ashes and placed them into a bag made of the finest cloth. This bag he carried around his neck. He always carried the ashes of his beloved son with him.
He withdrew, seldom left his house and mourned and mourned.
Many months later, his son was able to escape the pirates and returned with haste to his village. He knocked on the door of his father’s house and called out »Father, open the door for me. It is I, your son!«
The father replied, »Go away! Go away! What kind of a person are you to do such a thing to an old man? Are you some hooligan from the village, send to afflict me? I carry my son as ashes in a bag around my neck. Who are you, that you do such a thing to me?«
»No, father«, said the voice. »It is I, your son. Open up to me. Open the door for me!«
But the man in his house called out, »I carry my son as ashes in a bag around my neck. I cannot open the door to you. Go away! Go away!«
And so, the son went forth.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 24th, 2020
11. Station: Jesus sends his own into the world (Mt 28, 16-20)
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, »All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.«
A woman disciple of today in conversation with a male disciple from back then
Is it true, you were among the doubters back then on the mountain in Galilee?
Yes, that is correct. There was reason enough for the many questions that were within me. You may hardly be able to imagine it, but remember: alongside all the attempted safeguards on the part of the powerful and the rumours that were making the rounds, the women had told us of their encounter with Jesus and had sent us back to Galilee on his behalf. We went there, went up the mountain – the purported mountain that you so often quote until this day – and suddenly He stood there before us. Everything was confusing, nothing was clear!
If I am correctly informed, you posed no questions. What helped you in this extraordinary situation?
He, Jesus, simply accepted my uncertain eyes, my questioning look, and my doubting heart. No inquiries, no criticism, no explanations. He addressed us all, as we were. And as we were, he had a mission for us.
You mean, it would have been conceivable that he had only entrusted the mission to the certain and strong among you?
You and I – we would do it that way, or not? But not him. As I felt that, my heart started to warm. I felt the truth as he spoke of his authority - » in heaven and on earth «. I recalled the beginnings, as he spoke to so many people on this mountain, for hours, for days! Back then most of them were poor, sick and frail. At the time he proclaimed to all of us that blessedness was within us, regardless of how we are living. Back then he interpreted the treasure and the depth of the ancient 10 Words for us all.
Nevertheless: Was not his mission to all nations a great deal too much for you?
Yes and no. At that moment I could not really ponder it. Yet, he spoke of baptism and I recalled what we knew of his baptism. He spoke of the Father – had he not taught us up here how we should pray to the Father of us all? He spoke of the Son and I recalled how often he had spoken of himself as the Son of Man. And the Spirit who filled him has increasing attracted, challenged, indeed often overwhelmed us. That is how he taught us true life and he had followed him. We are to pass that on in his name now.
Like the others, you accepted the mission – I am a witness to that today.
Indeed, I grew into it with my friends and we drew from everything that was within us, what had grown through him. You know, when he left us and I weighed this hour on the mountain in my heart over and over, how he was there, how he had spoken to us: that was when I recognised deep within me: Nothing will ever be lost.
At the conclusion, I still have one request: What message can you give us today?
Keep an eye on what is essential, for that is always what serves life. And if many things make you fearful and uncertain, then go up to the »mountain«, to the place where you can encounter HIM. Recall your baptism, that you are beloved children of humanity. And accept the pledge that allowed us to set forth back then: » I am with you always, to the end of the age «.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 23rd, 2020
10. Station: The Risen Lord heals Peter’s heart (John 21:15-17)
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, »Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?« He said to him, »Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.« He said to him, »Feed my lambs.«. He said to him a second time, »Simon, son of John, do you love me?« He said to him, »Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.« He said to him, »Tend my sheep.« He said to him the third time, »Simon, son of John, do you love me?« Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, »Do you love me?« and he said to him, »Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.« Jesus said to him, »Feed my sheep.«
In the preceding story of John 21 there’s a scene in which Jesus shows people how to deal with their emptiness. The disciples return after an unsuccessful night of fishing with empty nets. Jesus has a straightforward, if not simple piece of advice for them. »Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some«. This counsel is in fact straightforward. But putting it into action is not simple, because it calls us to act beyond the familiar, accustomed places of life. The right side of the boat represents the unknown and the unfamiliar. Jesus knows how we human beings can overcome the emptiness we experience, namely, in that we go to the other side of our lives to attempt something. We will need a great deal of strength to go to the other side of the boat. And we will need even more strength to stay on that side of the boat. Habit is hard to break. A lifelong practice cannot simply be shake off. If this time of crisis painfully has shown us anything, then it is this truth.
Now Peter is sitting with Jesus around a charcoal fire. This moment reminds him of a charcoal fire of denial, of a charcoal fire over which he warmed his hands. Jesus pulls him out of this moment to a charcoal fire in which bread and fish (nourishment) await him, and not accusation, admonishment and suspicion. Only John tells this story of the two charcoal fires, precisely because he wants us to note that there is a second side to life, to our boat.
Peter does not feel comfortable here, because the charcoal fire was the place of his weakness, of his inability. He knows this side of life. He knows the side where he was too weak to be faithful. He knows the side where he was so filled with fear that he denied the deepest love. Jesus draws him out to charcoal fire where he can discover unsuspected depths of love in himself.
Three times Jesus casts of the net of his question out: Do you love me? And three times he draws from the depths of this man more life than the surface of his threefold denial would suggest.
Indeed, sisters and brothers, Jesus is following his own advice not only with Peter, but also with us. If the net cannot capture any life on the one side of the boat of our lives, then Jesus casts his net out on the other side of our boat. And lo and behold: an indescribable fullness which is within us and needs to be discovered. This time of isolation and social distancing leaves an emptiness behind. At the same time, here is a chance to strengthen the other side of our lives, which suffers from a bit of atrophy. And this fullness exists in us, often hidden in the depths, but still present.
During these days, some are discovering an interiority in themselves that they did not suspect, or a patience that surprises them. Others find a kindliness in themselves they would not have held to be possible. Many experience a breadth of heart that looks beyond the narrow confines of their own need and takes the hunger, suffering and misery of others seriously. Repeatedly people report, that the falling away of so much that they deemed to be a necessity of life has led to a change in their values.
In this story, Peter is not the fisher of mortals, but one of the fish which the love of God has caught. Perhaps it is also true of us, that we can only authentically lead, accompany and guide others after we ourselves have been drawn out of the Sea of Tiberius. The age-old light in which we stand awaits us there in the flames of a charcoal fire and the questions that lead us to the other side of the boat. If we do not avoid this station during the days of Corona, then we too will hear the voice that speaks to us: »Feed my sheep.«
Erik Riechers SAC, April 22nd, 2020
9. Station: The Disciples encounter the Lord at the Sea of Tiberias (Jn 21, 1-13)
After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter said to them, »I am going fishing.« They said to him, »We will go with you.« They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, »Children, do you have any fish?« They answered him, »No.« He said to them, »Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.« So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, »It is the Lord!« When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.
When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, »Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.« So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, »Come and have breakfast.« Now none of the disciples dared ask him, »Who are you?« They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish.
»again« - so discretely does it appear in the first sentence of the 21rst chapter of John’s Gospel. Yet in the life of the disciples, as in our own lives, it is tremendously significant and comforting to experience, that repetition is not our enemy, but our blessing.
Twice Jesus had appeared in the midst of his disciples behind closed doors – now they are back to their lake, at home, at their old place. Here the boats lay on the shore and what suggests itself more than to do that, which they always did before: to go fishing.
Do we know the experience? We experienced the extraordinary. Occasionally we bowed out for a certain length of time. Perhaps upheavals pulled the rug out from under our feet for a time. When it was all over, we returned to our »old« world to carry on as once before.
Thus, six disciples join Peter, but the efforts of an entire night remain without success. They »caught nothing«.
Do we know the experience? We act as if nothing happened and superficially work through it with the aid of old patterns and techniques. Is it really surprising that we find nothing nourishing there, no »fish«? These days the question is already massively being raised as to how we will live after Corona. Will we simply return to our accustomed ways of life as if nothing had happened?
After this futile night the disciples, at any rate, admit to the stranger on the shore that they have attained nothing, no fish, and no nourishment, nothing to eat or to share.
Yet, they (still) have the heart of an adventurer. At an unusual hour, in the bright morning, they take the plunge and let out their nets in a new manner, on the »right side of the boat«. During the day, the fish dive into the depths. Thus, that which can nourish is only to be found in the depths. And, indeed, there they find superabundance.
Do we know the experience? We disengage from that was always done and practiced in like manner and then discover a source within us, feel a wealth, which we did not suspect. For this we need to go deep. Will this virus-threatened time lead us there? Will we take its counsel to heart and cast our nets »on the right side of the boat«, in a new manner that leads us to our depths and the depths of life, to the essential, to that which truly nourishes us?
Then we might come to the experience that the disciples had, foremost the disciple whom Jesus loved: Here is the Risen One! »It is the Lord!« He has already prepared a meal and everything that we bring along from out of our depths, will be added unto it.
The revelation of the Risen One, given »again« applies to us today as it did to the friends back then.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 21rst, 2020
8. Station: The Lord Confirms the Faith of Thomas (John 20:24-29)
Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, »We have seen the Lord.« But he said to them, »Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.«
Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, »Peace be with you.« Then he said to Thomas, »Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.« Thomas answered him, »My Lord and my God!« Jesus said to him, »Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.«
My grandmother lay on her bed and was dying. It was peaceful. It was graceful. It was terrible.
I sat with her through those days and my diligence was rewarded with my grandmother’s greatest gift: she told me stories.
We are followers of the Way, and so we had called the elders and they had come. Grandmother let them pray over her, but when it came time to lay hands on her, she waved them away. »No need! No need!« She was gracious, but firm.
When they left, somewhat chagrinned, I asked her why she had dismissed the elders out of hand: »Child, brightness of my life, they don’t know how to lay on hands.«
»Don’t be absurd. They are the elders. They know better than any of us«, I replied, in words harsher in tone than in intention.
»Child, gladness of my old age, that is not true. Let me tell you the story, behind this story. It was in the days after the Great Rising, the spirit drenched Twelve took up the travels of the Master again. When they stopped in our village, our people came to greet them. During the course of their stay, we were able to go to one of them and pour out our need, our sorrow and our questions. There were long lines before all of them, but one. He was the one whom we still call the Doubter, even if we whisper it under our breaths.
I went to him, moved by impatience with the waiting and a touched by a small pity for him, sitting alone there by himself.
He was a surprisingly easy man to talk to, comfortable in his skin, at ease in the company of women. And those eyes, child, those eyes! They never left my face, not in the possessive way of staring, but in the gentle way of gazing. No matter what I told, regardless of the doubt I harboured or the fear I nurtured, those eyes, child, those eyes. His refusal to avert his gaze was the first way he laid hands on me.
Then he took my hands in his own, gently, so gently. His words breathed peace upon me. ‘My hands touched what they did not believe could be real. So will yours. Doubt is like fruit. Bite into it too early, and it is bitter. You need to let it ripen to the fullest embrace of life in Jesus.’ It was the second way he laid hands on me.
Then he placed my hands on his side. And he spoke words to me that tasted of freshly baked bread, of fish fired over a charcoal fire, of honey from the comb. ‘Little one, I once touched his side and found a wound that healed mine. Your hands will do the same. Doubt was never my enemy, my child. It need not be yours. Doubt is a question and if your questions lead you to search, your hands will touch what I have touched, and your eyes will see what I have seen. Those who doubt, question. Those who question, seek. Those who seek, find. Those who find, have mystery opened unto themselves.’ It was the third way he laid hands on me.
So you see, my child, precious jewel of my heart, I could not let the elders fumble their way through a ritual. The laying on of hands is the way the Master touches us all. It is not the possession given to a precious few, but it is an art form. It must always come from the deep heart! And only those who have been touched by the deep heart of the Master will find their own from which to touch others.«
I stroked my grandmother’s shrivelled hand. »That was the work of the Doubter? The Doubter did all that for you?«
My grandmother turned her eyes toward me and held me in her gaze. Those eyes, my friends, those eyes! Then she spoke to me in words harsher in tone than in intention. »Stop it. Don’t call him that.«
Then she closed her eyes and let out a long, delicious sigh, filled with the memories of contentment and healing.
»His name was Thomas.«
Erik Riechers SAC, April 20th, 2020
7. Station: Jesus bestows the power to forgive sins (John 20, 19-23)
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
The gift of reconciliation, the gathering around a center-
how our world yearns for this!
We live isolated and separately, not just since Corona.
When we came to each other, we spoke about our accomplishments,
of that , which we could of which we could afford.
Showing weakness, even scars? Never!
Rather clichés upon the lips which
kept the others at bay
and our inner life hidden.
Fear!
How much emptiness in so many circles
in which we met year in, year out!
Please? Inner peace? Shalom?
Yet, at one time people came together
in all their fear, locked into the terror of their failure
and their grief,
yet the center was open
for HIM, around who all their thinking and feeling circled.
He overcame all barriers and showed himself
as he was, completely, scarred and reconciled,
and brought peace.
Fear could change into joy
and peace was given fruitful ground.
Closeness was possible, and mission was expected,
Breathing in the Spirit as in the ancient times of creation,
in order to serve forgiveness and the new beginning with him –
unto this day, for us.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 19th, 2020
6. Station: The Risen Lord Appears to His Disciples (Luke 24:36-43)
»‘Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch Me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have,' And as He said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.« (Luke 24: 38-40).
When Jesus shows his hands and feet it is a way to prove that he is real. The disciples touch and see what is real, the flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. Yet, the minute they touch and see what is real, they have no choice but to see and touch the scars left by wounds. This is the reality of the way of light. You cannot erase scars from authentic tales of Gospel living.
Here lies a lesson for us in this time of crisis. We must show the scars, which the wounds have left behind. We often hear the encouraging word: »We will get through this.« I believe it will be so for the vast majority of us, if certainly not for all of us. But one thing is certain. But no one, absolutely no one, is coming through this troubled time untouched, unmarked and unscathed. Scars are not wounds, but reminders of them. They remind us where we have fought and been hurt. They remind us that we are not invincible, that we can be cut and pierced and made to bleed. But they also remind us that we heal, that we carry on. They remind us that life is possible where wounds are touched and tended. With time and healing they do not bleed forever. Scars are not wounds, but reminders of them. A scar is the place where the bleeding out of life has been stopped and sealed.
In Henry V, Shakespeare spins a speech of the king before the Battle of Agincourt.
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'…
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
This is Shakespeare’s version of this Gospel lesson. He calls upon us to stand together freely, to fight with one another, to suffer wounds together. »That he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart.« Those who would not stand with their fellow human beings in the time of crisis will not be forced: »His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse.« The hours of crisis teach us who are true companions are and which company is worth keeping: »We would not die in that man's company that fears his fellowship to die with us.«
And he calls upon us to show the scars the wounds have left, like the soldiers who stood and fought with King Henry: »Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars and say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'…« And those who show one another the scars that the wounds of old battle have left behind and share the stories behind them, will be a few, a happy few, a band of brothers (and sisters) . Those who refuse to stand together, fight together, fall together, suffer wounds together shall remain unscarred. But they shall bear the burden of deepest regret: »And gentlemen in England now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.«
On the way of light, we should often roll up our sleeves and show the scars our wounds have left behind. It is what Jesus did in that room with his friends. And if we do it, people will know why. It is because of the company that we keep, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 18th, 2020
5. Station:As he broke the bread (Lk 24, 28-35)
So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
When we have authentic Emmaus conversation with one another, then closeness and trust develop. Then, when evening draws nigh, the wish arises that we stay together.
Jesus leaves the disciples when they recognise him, and that happens at the meal, at the breaking of the bread.
He leaves when once they know: He is here, already along the whole path he had gradually warmed their hearts.
With this clarity they can set out anew –in the dark, through the darkness – they do not even notice, because for them it is bright and the path seems to rise up to meet them.
Telling stories, they had followed his path.
In the breaking of the bread their eyes opened. Setting out for Jerusalem, the place of the tomb turns into a place of life, of companions, of sharing life, of joy.
Willi Bruners puts it this way:
paschally
secured tombs
but he leaves behind
traces in the dust
that show the path
into the open
the broken bread
tastes like
decampment
even when his appearance
remains in check
(W.Bruners 2011)
And we?
Are we willing to entrust the burdensome to one another and to let be interpreted anew?
Are we willing to break what truly nourish life and to share with one another?
We could feel the increasing warmth of our hearts!
We could encounter the Risen One!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 17th, 2020
4. Station: The Risen Lord Appears to Two Disciples on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-27)
That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, »What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?« And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, »Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?« And he said to them, »What things?« And they said to him, »Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.« And he said to them, »O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?« And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
When we walk together through a time of crisis, and sometimes in the wrong direction at that (like the disciples who are moving away from the place of resurrection), we consider many things as vital and important: crisis management, planning, competence, decision-making ability, and solutions. I do not doubt that they are necessary for a pandemic, but I severely doubt whether they alone will suffice. Here we have two disciples, shaken by crisis, and they have none of these things. That describes the vast majority of us at the moment. We are not all doctors, virologists, nurses or politicians. Those who would walk a path of light must learn something that is of particular importance in these days, but hardly ever is mentioned on the list of crisis management: the art and craft of mutual storytelling.
This art is important and necessary for life. »They were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.« Here we encounter the conversation which we need when life has gone awry, when everything is shrouded in darkness, when all hope seems lost, when nothing works and we do not know how to gone on. Yet, on we must go nonetheless.
Jesus gladly joins in. Regardless how bad, dark, hard and depressing the experiences were, mutual storytelling is important. Otherwise, no resurrection to new life can occur. Jesus gladly joins in, but he joins in as a new listener, so that the conversation is not merely a regurgitation of the past, a constant recounting of the old. As a man with fresh ears we wants to prevent us from stifling the life that is left within us.
Mutually tell one another about the state of your hearts. This conversation is the place where we cry, scream, and tell the stories of everything that constitutes our lives, in order that we might find the death that holds us prisoner today.
Jesus listens to everything that his people want to tell him. Not once does he interrupt them. Nor does he contradict them, not even once. He corrects no word. Only when they are finished does he begin.
Only then does he open new perspectives. This is no correction but a broadening expansion. Jesus takes the experience of the disciples, their very personal experience of these days, seriously. Through Moses and the prophets he supplies that which they did not perceive within their own story. Here Jesus awakens new life in the disciples. Out of the experiences and encounters that seemed to signify only death, he draws new life.
Two dangers lurk here for us in this hour of crisis.
- This Emmaus conversation never takes place. We suppress our experiences, pain, doubt and stories, either out of shame or out of suffering. Remember, it is not what we tell that makes us ill, but what we do not tell. Every therapy in the world begins with the sentence: »Tell me what is going on!« We try to restore the flow of storytelling. It would be even better if we followed the lead of the disciples and keep mutual storytelling alive. Jesu must do a great deal for them, but he does not have to enflame the conversation anew. He comes upon a conversation into which he can join in. Mutual storytelling is not only a gift to one another, but to God.
- Only this Emmaus conversation takes place. We need new listeners and fresh ears. At the moment, the danger is great that we will circle like vultures over the graves of our crisis. Recently, a man told me that one of these reflection a day was too much for him. Yet, he daily, almost hourly, consumes the same warnings, prognoses and bad news. He can recite Corona statistics like I can quote the Sacred Scriptures. He passes on every rumor he hears with feverish urgency. Where are the new perspectives, horizons and ways?
A way of light needs the art and craft of mutual storytelling, for by it we shall rediscover the »age-old light in which we stand«.
Erik Riechers SAC, April 16th, 2020
3. Station: The Risen Lord Appears to Mary Magdalene
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, » I have seen the Lord «, and that he had said these things to her. (John 20, 11-18)
The way of light is not an artificially lit boulevard, but a path on which we human beings, from the start, tentatively move from light to light. There is hardly a more beautiful testimony to this fumbling and finding than this tale of Mary’s encounter with Jesus in the garden. Repeatedly it touches us anew, because we repeatedly rediscover ourselves in it.
Today let us meditate upon it with two poems from Wilhelm Bruners and savour it:
At the Tomb
My pain
nowhere safer
than at the tomb
And pondering
What could have been
In hindsight
the gardener and
the memory of
the time of singing
immortal beloved
flowers
Mirjam
Instead
with dark eyes
rolling aside
the stone
baffled men
even more
confused
leading
a conversation of grief
with the Unknown
having sussed out
the gardener
surprised afterward
about so much
life
from: Wilhelm Bruners, Verabschiede die Nacht, 1999
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 15th, 2020
2. Station: The Women discover an empty tomb (Mk 16, 1-8 )
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
A letter from a not so secret admirer.
Dear Mary Magalene,
Sear Mary, mother of James,
Dear Salome.
Esteemed witnesses and beloved sisters,
In this time of pandemic and panic, I admit that I enjoy reading your story most of all.
This is where the Gospel of Mark originally ended. He dedicated his last story to you.
In my opinion, we should have left it that way, for it a wonderful ending to the Gospel.
You were afraid of the truth of this moment.
And you said nothing to anyone, for you were afraid.
According to Mark, fear is the last experience of the Gospel.
And if we know anything, it is the fear that silences us.
However, thanks to your story, we know that your fear was not as powerful as you thought and that you overcame it.
For, if you really said nothing to anyone, we would know this story.
Yet, I tell it,
and it was told to me,
and we all will tell it to others.
That means that at some juncture in your personal stories of maturity and growth,
you overcame the fear that held you back from telling your story,
the terror and astonishment that shook and distressed you.
Your fear did not last.
Something broke through it
That is why I love your story, because it teaches us that fear is not definitive. We men are also afraid, but we lack the courage to admit it. That is why I am so grateful to you. It is hard to deal with fear if we spend all our time denying it.
You taught us the way of things for Gospel living. Sometimes we are strong, then we stumble again.
Fear and love will always be mixed together.
But fear does not have the last word. You are the witnesses to this.
Fear was not definitive for you at the tomb.
It will need not be definitive for us in the hour of our crisis.
Thus, I thank you, beloved sisters, for your courageous witness. The men, with their macho swagger, were nowhere to be seen during the decisive hours. You were always present. You were the eyewitnesses to the whole story, not the bystanders of selective moments. You experienced how Jesus was arrested, intimidated, threatened, manipulated, nailed fast, killed and then buried and sealed behind a stone.
If we admit to the whole of your story, then all of that plays a role for us at the moment as well. Our story is neither as clean nor as smooth as we like to present it.
Please accept my sincere thanks for your courage and your willingness not to suppress or deny anything that awaits us on this Via lucis, this path of light. And if I may make a request: Put in a good word for us with Jesus, so that we might live our hours of fear as honesty and courageously as you did.
Sincerely yours,
Erik bar Elisheva (son of Elisabeth)
1. Station: Jesus rises from the dead.
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. (Mt 28, 1-8)
The women went »to see the tomb«. Many of us know this. After the burial of a beloved person we are often drawn back to the grave, to the place where we last accompanied them. It may be an almost childlike yearning, a homesickness, as if we wanted to see them one more time. Or we require the clarity that it really is as it is: death.
Thus, what do the women await on this morning? The confirmation of the death of Jesus, a place for their tears, their grief over this painful loss – we know this experience.
What they then encounter is an experience that is contrary to all their expectations. The await silence and an earthquake comes instead. They expect a sealed tomb and see how the stone is rolled away. They await the breaking of the dawn and instead an angel appears like lightning, with apparel as white as snow. We also know irritating experiences such as these, which contradict all for which we were prepared, even the saddest of things. They make us afraid, because they throw up questions for which we know no answers. The known, and be it the tomb, is familiar to us. Now we are at a loss for words and our sense of orientation abandons us.
At the same time, these women are taken seriously in all that they experience. For the angel addresses their fear and names precisely what they seek. Yet, something entirely new is announced and for this, the stone must be rolled away so that they might truly see: no one lays here. Jesus is not here. No life takes place here.
That is why the angel becomes urgent: The message of the resurrection of Jesus should reach the disciples quickly!
Do the two women understand the message? At any rate, they act swiftly, turn their backs on the tomb and run in order to tell the story. And in the running and the desire to tell the story, great joy already accompanies their fear.
They came to the tomb to see - and now they run in order to tell of the living. What a turnabout!
Perhaps we experience Easter this year in a similar manner. We constantly grieved all that was not possible this year as if we were standing at the tomb of our beloved liturgy of this feast. Yet now we tell – sometimes very hesitantly – of great depth and liveliness discovered in the ways in which we spent the holy hours – where alone or in pairs, in small communities or via Skype. In our lives, such as they are, we experience:
HE goes ahead to the place where we are. He lives. Everything essential is here.
For later:
»Hundredweight burden remains burden,
immeasurable suffering remains suffering,
and death remains in the world.
Yet burden and suffering and death no not have the last word.
The last word is reserved to another, and he responds
to death’s force of gravity
with the explosive force of life.« (Ursula Schauber)
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 13, 2020
Easter Sunday
But a few weeks ago few of us could have imagined that we would be celebrating Easter this year in such a manner. For the time being, life has radically been altered. The pandemic has changed our daily schedules, turned out cherished expectations of life on their head and redrawn the proven maps for the navigation of life.
One of the consequences of the limitations to our freedom of movement and to our freedom of association is that it makes us aware of things that usually go unheeded. That includes our perceptions of the spaces of our lives, the physical, mental and emotional spaces in which we live and move, as well previous assumptions of these spaces, such as human touch and our interactions.
Until now, the crisis has only changed our liturgical praxis of Easter. However, it also has the potential to change our deepest innermost perceptions of the Feast of the Resurrection.
»We imagined this day would be utterly different.« Every woman, every man of the resurrection stories could have spoken that sentence. All of these stories tell of a conflict, namely, between our expectations as to how God should deal with the endangered spaces of our lives and the actual praxis of our God. Normally, we can overplay this conflict, partially even through the liturgy. However, in this year we experience Easter like the first disciples, namely, out of the perspective of the tomb.
The tomb stands for all confining spaces that hold life bound to death, that cut us off from warmth and light, encounter and touch. The tomb is a primordial metaphor for the enclosed space that imprisons life. It is our expectation that God should come in order to liberate us from the spaces of this death, in order to lead us out. The first impulse of God is different.
Mark, Luke and John tell us, that the stone was already rolled away from the tomb before the women arrived. Matthew gives us a slightly altered version of the story.
Now after the Sabbath,
toward the dawn of the first day of the week,
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
And behold, there was a great earthquake,
for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven
and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning,
and his clothing white as snow.
By doing this, Matthew makes us aware of an important aspect of the disturbance of space which held the body of Jesus.
When the women of his version appear, the stone is still firmly in its place. This cold awaken the impression that Jesus not yet risen. Yet, what happens after their arrival puts a rapid end to that speculation. There is an earthquake and an angel rolls away the stone before their eyes. It is an occurrence that leads the guards to faint. »And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. «
We could not expect that after this dramatic moment the appearance of the risen Jesus would quickly follow. But no. The words of the angel make it abundantly clear that Jesus has already gone. »He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. «
The tomb with its rolled away stone is one of the most vivid images of the Easter story the centerpiece of every Easter garden. Our automatic assumption is that the stone is rolled away so that Jesus can come out. By our human reasoning that is simply logical. We happily imagine it this way, that the confining space of the grave is shattered and disturbed by the resurrection. But Matthew’s storytelling suggest that we think of it the other way around. The disturbance does not come from within the space, but from outside of it. The stone is not rolled away in order to let Jesus out, but in order to let the witnesses in. The women, and later the men, see the empty grave and gradually begin to understand. This pattern is repeated in varied fashion throughout the Gospels. For the first Christians it was especially important and effective to enter into the spaces of confinement (the tomb) and to discover that they are different than their assumptions.
During situations of conflict, like this crisis, we are irritated by the fact, that the spaces of our life are confined and limited like a tomb. We feel cut off from life, held apart from it. What is easily forgotten is the fact, that we often consciously and willingly create such spaces, when it is to our advantage.
The closure of borders, the building of walls, the exclusion through discrimination,
Systemic racism and the coldblooded egoism of a consumer society see such measures a building or creating their secure zones. Yet, the resurrection of Jesus unveils them as tombs. They confine us into a merciless self-absorption while we should be practicing the expansiveness of the heart. They limit us to defence and rejection, where we should be practicing welcome and acceptance. They teach us to pluck the raisins out of the bread for ourselves instead of sharing the whole loaf. They transform our hearts to places of hoarding instead of stretching them unto healing and helpfulness. Such spaces keep us away from life, because life consists of life shared and outpoured for the life of the world.
The stone is rolled away so that the witnesses can enter and see what tomb spaces are really lie. Violence, injustice, the willingness to sacrifice people for our own purposes, envy, greed, power games and a lack of civic courage smoothed the path to the tomb of Jesus. They do so to this day. If we do not enter the tomb spaces which they prepare, we will never know how truly horrific they are.
The disturbance of our tombs is especially important here. Until this day, it is extraordinarily effective to enter into the spaces of confinement (the tomb) in order to discover that they are decidedly different than what we imagined. We could reflect on the nature of some of our practices and habits and ask, whether they contribute to the resolution of conflict and injustice. When our spaces become narrow and closed off like tombs, we should ask how we can disturb these confined spaces. We call the self-created, closed spaces of our lives safety zones. When the stone is rolled away we learn to call them what they are: tombs. We should open such spaces for the life of the world. The Risen One should disturb them so that a change of the way in which we think and act can take place.
There is one experience in particular that we can take away once we enter and contemplate this tomb spaces: »He is not here. « Tomb spaces are not the place where God dwells. They can no more hold God fast than the instruments of death can nail him in place.
That is why the Risen Lord will always appear where rooms are closed and confined: behind locked doors, for they do not protect us from the world, but merely keep us apart from it; on the flight to Emmaus, because it leads us away for the place of the resurrection back into old, habitual narrowness; on the shore, where we awaits his people with bread and fish, after they wrap themselves in night and do anything to keep busy, merely to avoid the painful parts of life.
Dear Friends, it is painful for us to have to celebrate Easter in our involuntary, closed spaces. As soon as these days pass, we can take the lessons of this crisis to heart and disrupt and disturb all the former voluntary, chosen confined spaces of our lives with the panache of the Risen One. When we gather next year under the light of the Paschal Candle, may it be as people who were changed and broadened by this primordial experience of Easter.
ERIK RIECHERS SAC
Vallendar, April 12th, 2020
Dominus flevit. The Lord wept over Jerusalem
Reflection on Lk 19, 41-46
It had begun so promisingly – in Galilee –
in that landscape in which even nature seemed to have the ambition of uniting the contrasts with one another in a confined space.
»The Kingdom of God is already here«, he had said.
Despite all prophecies of doom and contractions. – »Believe me, it is already here«.
And they had followed him.
At first.
But then?! – He himself, let alone those who had followed him, had doubts. – En route!
He had to remind himself whose beloved child he was,
of the roots from which he lived.
He needed support from Moses and Elijah.
He eventually had to clench his teeth hard (cf. Lk 9, 51) when he considered Jerusalem. –
Already as a youth, when he went up with is parents, this city had exercised a profound effect on him. Back then, when he had been allowed to discuss Zachariah with the scribes. Indeed, already then it had caused his soul to shudder:
It has struck him like a beam of light and this Zachariah passage had penetrated into his heart like a nearly unquenchable longing. He knew it by heart. He knew every word by heart. He would never forget them.
For there it was written: »And it shall happen that all who remain of the nations coming up against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to bow to the King, the Lord of Armies, and to celebrate the Festival of Booths. … On that day there shall be on the bells of the horses “Holy to the Lord” and the pails in the house of the Lord shall be like basins before the altar. And every pail in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be “Holy to the Lord of Armies”. And all those offering sacrifice shall come and take from them and cook in them, and there shall no longer be a merchant in the house of the Lord of Armies on that day« (Zech 14, 16ff)
Indeed, one day everything would be declared pure, the cooking pot in the house would be as pure as the holy vessels in the temple. And the day will come, when there will be no more enemies. All peoples will have access to the Lord.
Yes, one day it will be like that…
How far off he was from this vision during the past days in Jerusalem, - as a twelve year old boy he had run back to the temple with glowing passion.
Yet, in these days he was always glad when he was outdoors and could consider the city and the temple from the outside; best of all from here, the Mount of Olives.
A few days ago it hard nearly broken his heart as he saw as he saw how a poor widow had offered her last mite.
So much deep faith in God and in the temple!
That had touched him deeply.
And yet:
Wherefore had she brought this offering?
Certainly not for the temple. (cf. Lk 21,1-4)
He was certain: This temple was ill, ill like a withered fig tree whose best years were behind it. It had become barren. The time of it harvest – a thing of the past. (cf. Mk 11, 12ff)
Neither the servant of religion there, nor the cult of the temple had a future! No, in this moment he found nothing good and longer in the temple. –
Has all of Israel perhaps become like a barren fig tree, noting but foliage?
Yesterday, several people had called out to him on the way to the temple:
»Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!« (Lk 19, 38)
But upon a closer look it was clear: Exceedingly few had understood his vision.
The stones would sooner shout out that the great crowd. . (Lk 19, 40)
No, there was no peace here
and no place for the glory of God. …
There lay the city before him, in all its beauty, but it was hollow on the inside, it had no future…
And he could no longer contain himself. He let his tears flow freely. (Lk 19, 41)
»Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!
But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.« (Lk 19, 42-44).
And he made his way, deeply agitated, down toward the temple.
(Arthur Pfeifer, Jerusalem 2020)
How can we love in the time of Corona?
Station 1: Jesus is condemned to death.
This is a story of judgement and when human beings exercise such judgment, they often are looking for something or someone to blame. All God’s judgments seek our possibilities, not our shaming. It could have been so here. Pilate had a choice. He could have simply refused to pass judgement, for not every moment of life requires accusation, judgement and condemnation.
We know this station. Shaken by the Corona crisis, many are deeply immersed in the cycles of accusation, judgement and condemnation: they search for scapegoats: politicians, the Chinese, the Italians, the tourists who brought back the infection, the people who should have stayed home and didn’t.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Could we seek the possibilities of the given hour, rather than the shaming of others?
God of the accused
and the accusing,
who made the mouths, the ears and hearts
of all in conflict.
May we turn ourselves towards that which must be heard,
because there we will hear your voice. Amen. (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 2: Jesus carries his cross.
This is the moment of bearing a burden we did not choose. There are heavy burdens we carry because we make a conscious decision to do so. But there are also unexpected and unwanted burdens, which others lay upon us. The fear, anxiety, prejudice and inability of others often leads them to lay their burden upon shoulders other than theirs.
We know this station. At the moment we are all carrying burdens of isolation, restriction and intensive precaution. Not everyone deals well with this, and there is increasing outbursts of irritation, anger and even violence in families, among friends or waiting in line at the grocery stores.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Since prayer is as viable an option as protest, could we not rediscover the art of blessing in which we speak gentle words of prayer for and over each other, asking for the guts and goodness that could keep us together?
Burdened God,
who bore the weight of wood
on torn shoulders,
We pray for the torn and the burdened,
that they may be held together by
guts and goodness.
Because you were held together
by guts and goodness. Amen. (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 3: Jesus falls for the first time.
The burden placed on us can become so oppressively burdensome that collapse as we walk, are forced to our knees and fall to the ground. We cannot go on. We cannot bear the great concern for people we love, carry the infirm partner through the day, live with my own handicap.
How difficult it is in these weeks to carry on through the long march under the burdens of isolation and the great uncertainty as to how, in many regards, will go on. Repeatedly people collapse and fall down inwardly under the burden of loneliness and fear.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we love ourselves even in times when we fall? Can we accept ourselves even when lie flat on the floor?
God of the ground,
whose body was — like ours — from earth,
and who fell — like we fall — to the ground.
May we find you on the ground
when we fall.
Oh, our falling fallen brother, may we find you,
so that we may inhabit
our stories,
our selves. Amen. (Prayer by Padraig O Tuama)
Station 4: Jesus meets his mother.
A deep bond connects mother and son. We also know other deep relationships of love and responsibility for one another. How great is the suffering, the desperation, when we can do nothing more for the beloved child, the beloved person, when they have failed, are at an end and we feel the same way?
Perhaps we are undergoing this harrowing experience at this time. The behaviour of distancing and isolation, of being unable to be with each other as we would wish, is forced upon us and worsens our helplessness.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we simply be present and note that love can lived beyond failure and defeat?
Mary, Mother of Failure,
You met your son at the end,
in a place beyond words,
and must have felt faithless
and empty and alone.
We pray that we may have the grace
to live with our own stories of failure,
knowing that love can continue
even when things end. Amen. (Prayer by Padraig O Tuama)
Station 5: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the cross.
There are moments in which we are called to stand by others, who are strangers to us, because it is existentially important to them. We are summoned to make their burden our own and to carry it with them. In such a moment, hesitation can already mean a no.
For weeks people everywhere allow themselves to be a called upon to help in this crisis: reservists leave their work behind and report to help in the field of medicine; people without work experience report to help in supermarkets in order to stock the shelves. A network of young people provide the necessities of life for the elderly.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we also see and do the inconspicuous that is kind and helpful to others?
Simon of Cyrene,
stranger from afar.
You were a help
to an unknown man.
We pray for all who help:
that their help may be helpful;
that their kindness may be kind.
Because yours was,
even though you knew
you couldn’t do
enough. Amen. (Prayer by Padraig O Tuama)
Station 6: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
The Gospels do not tell us this story. Yet, the People of God kept it in their hearts and gave it pride of place in their storytelling. It is a story about touch. It is a story about wiping away sweat, without the power to shield the person from sweat inducing strain. It is a story about wiping away tears, without being able to alleviate the suffering that causes them. It is story about placing yourself in harm’s way, because Veronica need not ever encounter or see the face she tends.
We know this station. It is the story of myriads of Veronicas throughout history, of fathers and mothers doing this for their children, doctors and nurses doing it for their patients, beloved men and women doing it for their loved ones. And while the pandemic could shut down so much of our lives, it could not shut down this.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we place ourselves deliberately in the way of a suffering person we could avoid and do the little that is possible for us, even if it is not everything?
Veronica,
your story is doubted,
but valuable.
You did what you could
even though it was very little.
May we do the same
Even when we doubt. Amen. (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 7: Jesus' second fall
Two days ago I fell and hit the ground very hard. I got up, but I got up bruised, my wrist slightly sprained and my muscles stiffening with a jarring ache. The greater shock was that my body failed me. My knee that has carried me for 56 years refused to serve. It knocked the air out of my lungs, leaving me to painful draw in breath, a thing I normally do with a casual ease. Although I carried no cross, I hit the ground like Jesus. Or perhaps it is better said the other way around. Jesus hit the ground like we do.
We know this station. Hard times like these lay heavy on our shoulders and weigh us down. And sometimes we fall. It always hurts, to know that a former strength has failed us. Things we mastered so lightly before the crisis somehow have now become painful difficult to do. We rise again, like Jesus, but it takes a toll and leaves a mark. Our confidence is bruised and we ache from the effort of carrying on. We hit the ground like Jesus does.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we tell the story of our falling without denying the pain of it and at the same time not forget that our falling did not determine the courage of our rising again?
God of the Fall,
You felt the fall
when your body fell to the ground
a second time.
Gather all who fall.
Gather all our fallings.
Gather the voices.
Gather the breath that’s
forced from our bodies.
Because falling, too,
has a story. Amen. (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 8: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.
Only Luke, with his deep appreciation of women and their gifts, tells us this story of the women of Jerusalem (Lk 23, 27-31). They show up, they show their grief, they show their courage and refuse to hide from this hour. And Jesus sees them. The wounded encounter the wounded, the grief-stricken encounter those who mourn.
We know this station. We are very fixated with success. We want to be bold, strong, and confident. Therefore, we do not want to show our weakness, our grief and our tears. It takes the courage of the women of Jerusalem to show up, show grief and show tears. In this time of pandemic and crisis, we often hope for someone stronger than ourselves to show up and fix the situation. But often we are blessing to each other when we show ourselves to each other as equally burdened, equally grieving, equally weak. This story teaches us, that God sees us in such moments.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we help each other to lower our masks and show one another that we are seen, even when we feel unseen?
Women of Jerusalem,
while you mourned,
Jesus saw you
And spoke to you –
He in his sorrow seeing you in yours.
May we see each other,
Even when we feel unseen.
Because when we see each other,
We are seen ourselves. Amen. (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 9: Jesus’ third fall
When we repeatedly fall on our journey, lay on the ground once more, and feel weaker with each fall we take, then we are in danger of giving up. Knowing full well, that this is our very own path, discouragement and despair start to take hold. How often have we physical or psychologically been down and out and thought or cried out, »I can’t go on! « - only to rise again with our last strength of take the next step.
Many sick people feel precisely this way at the moment. All those who have to stand by ever more people in the intensive care units of the world, people fighting for breathe, have ever more moments in which they feel physically and spiritually feeble and down on the ground.
How can we love in times of Corona? Can we remain on our path even when we fall repeatedly? Can we help one another to remain faithful to what is being demanded us now?
Jesus of the dirt,
you were led to death
because of how you lived.
Help us live like this;
walking and falling, and walking
and falling,
like you,
in the ways of the living
and the dead. Amen. (Prayer by Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 10: Jesus is stripped.
To be stripped before the eyes of others is a very uncomfortable experience: helpless as a baby we cannot defend ourselves from being exposed to the gaze of others, naked and bare. How often do prisoners feel utterly demeaned when they are downright tortured by this method? We likewise feel exposed when people publically give us a »dressing down«. We stand their without protection and wish we could sink into the ground.
For weeks many people have been nervous and tending toward panic. Some tend to deal with others, their neighbour, not only inattentively, but also turn swiftly to degrading them.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we live out of our God-given dignity in such a way, that even being expose cannot take it from us and we, thereby, set a sign?
Jesus of the flesh,
Naked you came from the womb
and naked you were made for the cross.
What was designed
for indignity and exposure
you held
with dignity and defiance.
May we do the same
Because you needed it.
Because we need it. Amen. (Prayer by Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 11: Jesus is nailed to the cross.
The path of Jesus, to which he is firmly committed in the deep aware of his being loved by the father, leads him here: inescapably nailed firmly to an instrument of death. . He had seen it coming, but he did not avoid it. He gave nothing and no one up. Every he stands for is nailed to this wood with him.
Our crisis shows us, as all crises do, where we truly stand: We fall into panic, we sway forth and back like a reed amidst the varied opinions and everything that (seemingly) offered us sure footing is falling away. Where are the people who firmly walks on their path of faith and trust, who do not doubt their belovedness even when illness and death threaten them?
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we, with Jesus and like him, approach the crosses of our lives.
Jesus of Nazareth,
This cross was a torture.
It only gives life
because you made it hollow.
Bring life to us, Jesus,
especially when we
are in the places
of the dead.
Because you brought life
even to the instruments of death. Amen. (Prayer by Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 12: Jesus dies on the cross.
The death of Jesus is not a stereotype. He is not an old man with a long fulfilled and satisfied life to look back upon. He did not achieve all his goals or fulfil all his plans. He does not die in the comfort of his own bed surrounded by love ones or in the luxury of a hospital room surrounded by caring medical staff. His pain is not alleviated by painkillers nor his isolation with company.
We know this station. The statistics about the number of dead, which we slavishly follow every day on the news, do not tell a true story. Every one of those deaths was like the death of Jesus, filled with regrets, unfulfilled dreams, and longings cut short. These deaths were a sudden rupture of life through pain and isolation, cut off from loved ones, who are unable to be present at the hour of death. The numbers are sickeningly anonymous. Death is deeply personal, for the dying and for those who stand by their cross.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Perhaps we could remember that the days of Corona are not a newspaper story, a joke, a conspiracy theory, a statistic or an inconvenience for the people who have died and those who are bereaved. If we wish to pray for them at the saddest station of every love story, we should ask ourselves: How close to that cross are we willing to get?
Jesus of the imagination,
you never grew old, always a young man,
and most of us grow older
than you did.
When lives are cut short
the living question the meaning of living.
May we live with meaning
even when the meaning fades,
making meaning
so that we have something to live for. Amen (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 13: Jesus is placed in the arms of his mother.
This is a story about facing our worst fears. Mary no more wishes to face this hour than any of the fathers and mothers I have known. This is not how the story is supposed to end. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. The woman who cradled her baby in her arms not rocks his lifeless corpse in her arms. Yet, as lovers do, she embraces him in good times and in bad, in life and in death. This is not a love story because it has a happy ending. It is a love story, because she shows up for her beloved son in the end.
We know this station. We are facing some of our own worst fears in these days. Parents are worried about their children. Children are concerned about the safety of their parents and grandparents. Some fear dying of the virus, in pain and alone. Others dread the thought that they could infect others, bringing illness and death into their homes and to their loved ones. This is not how life is supposed to be. Here we are faced with one of the hardest questions of love: How will we face our fears or one another now that the bad times have arrived?
How can we love in the time of Corona? We can show up and hold the lives placed in our arms and love them in these sad days as we loved them in the glory days.
Mary, Mother of Death,
You held the corpse of your young son
- the worst of your fears -
in your arms,
as he went where we have not yet gone.
We mark this
with Silence and Art.
May we also learn from fear,
because fear
won’t save us from anything. Amen. (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Station 14: Jesus is placed in the tomb.
This is the station where we take leave of those whom we have loved and lost. It is the place where the people who loved Jesus stop to honour their loss. For them the loss of Jesus is the loss of love, of dreams, of relationship, of confidence and of so many hopes. A life that meant so much to them must be honoured. They have to pause and say what he meant to them, that they know what they had in him and can tell others the cost of having lost him. It is the way they say: He was precious.
We know this station. We have lost many things in these days, be it the certainty of our future, the naiveté of believing we are invincible, or some of the bonds that used to hold us together. Many have lost financial security. Many, far, far too many, have lost loved ones. We need to honour what these losses mean to us. The end of the love story is not the end of our storytelling, but the beginning. If we have loved and lost, we have a story to tell. This is the place to tell it.
How can we love in the time of Corona? Can we pause to tell the stories of our losses, openly, authentically and without shame, as the last great act of love which honours all our losses? Conflict and crisis are the birthplace of all storytelling. What stories will we tell beyond the days of Corona?
Jesus of the unexpected,
for at least some of your life
this was not how you imagined its end.
Yet, even at the end,
you kept steady in your conviction.
Jesus, keep us steady.
Jesus, keep us steady.
Because, Jesus, keep us steady. Amen (Pádraig Ó Tuama)
Palm Sunday
Prayer
Humble Jesus,
You arrived into a city like a peasant and a king
and lit a fuse that you knew was waiting for a light.
And it didn’t save you from anything.
When we walk into conflict,
help us find the approach that’s true.
Not because it’ll give surety
but because it has integrity.
just like you.
Amen.
Pádraig Ó Tuama
Text: The Passion According to Matthew (Mt 26, 14 - 27, 66)
The Passion Narratives of the Gospels suffer severely from the problem of their inherited interpretation. Hardly do we begin to hear them and already we have categorized and compartmentalised them as stories of suffering. We are accustomed to this emphasis on the suffering of Jesus: how severe it was, how long it was, what inflicted it, what it did to Jesus. Usually, it is then linked to guilt and shaming. He loved us so much and this is how we reward him.
Yet, a passion narrative is deeper, richer and more complex than that. At its very core, it is a love story. It is within the word »passion« itself. Passion means a strong emotional devotion in love, as well as the suffering it can entail. When we ask a person what his or her passion in life is, we are asking what they love enough that they would also be willing to suffer for it.
The Passion of Jesus is a love story, but not a romance story. John Shea once asked a group of people whether they would be willing to do anything to protect love from anything that threatens it. Every person in the room said yes. Then he insisted that they must be willing to defend love against all romanticizing, because it is an assault on love. It takes neither love nor the lover seriously.
The Passion according to Matthew is a love story, not a romance story, because it takes love and the lover seriously. Unlike romance stories, it does not shy away from a critical and pervasive question of all love. What does love do in the times of crisis?
»I have loved you with an everlasting love« (Jer 31,3) is a statement that cannot be spoken authentically if it does not ask and answer the question: How will I love you in times of crisis? No wedding vow is complete without »In good times and in bad«. I have never officiated at a wedding where I, and everyone present, did not wholeheartedly wish the couple good times. But love is there for all the times. The passion is part of the play.
The Passion Narrative of this Palm Sunday raises this same question in us during this time of the pandemic. How does love work in times of crisis? How does love work in times of Corona? We know how love works in the good times. We hug, touch, share bread, space and time with each other. Just like that, it all came to an end. All the simple and proven ways are taken from us in the days of containment and isolation. We have come to the bad days. We have arrived at our Passion Narrative.
Every station of this story is a place where love is confronted by suffering. And that is the test of all love. Will I struggle for that which I love? If love is genuine, then it seeks a path through and beyond the crisis. I will mention only two such stations of love in the time of suffering.
The Passover meal is prepared, but this feast of joy is overshadowed by sadness and worry. Fearful questions of the future dominate the conversation.
What does love demand and Jesus do? He addresses the issues in the room, and then changes the meal to adapt to the reality they are undergoing, speaking of the future, of what he is willing to give of himself in order to ensure a future for the people he loves. But he does not cancel the meal or skip over Passover. If not the traditional way, then a meaningful way.
Easter is not cancelled this year. We cannot do it in the traditional manner, but we can do it in a meaningful manner. We cannot gather in our usual places, in our usual numbers, but we can be connected and share our concerns openly with each other. Bread delivered to the shut-ins is break broken and shared. Love still works in the times of Corona.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, good will and weakness are interwoven in the friends of Jesus. The disciples want to do more than they are able. They would watch and pray, but can only manage sleep. Three times Jesus returns to them, asks for a little more the first time, lets them sleep the second time and wakes them up the third time. It can be painful to experience the inability of others to give us what we would like in the hour of need and crisis. Yet, as unsatisfying as this is, what does love demand? The disciples may not be able to be as watchful and attentive to Jesus’ need as they and he would wish, but none of them leave him behind either. None of them walk away. Their love might not be able to do everything, but it can certainly do that. Nor does Jesus send them away. He might have wanted and even needed a little more, but their presence counts with him. Better flawed presence than perfect absence.
In our quarantines, self-isolation and our social distancing we are experiencing painful moments. We are not all we might and perhaps should be for one another. We might want to do more for the others and find ourselves too exhausted to do so. But we can stick with each other. We can refuse to use the excuse of our weakness and inability in order to walk away. Our love might not be able to do everything, but it can certainly do that. That is how love works in the times of Corona.
I have mentioned two stations, but there are so many others. There are moments of abandonment: »Then all the disciples deserted him and fled«. There are moments when good friends disappoint us: »I do not know the man!« There are times when our value and worth is questioned by those we helped, healed and loved so much: »Which of the two do you want me to release for you? And they said, Barabbas.« There is the pain of watching others being pulled into our story of pain and being unable to prevent this from happening: »As they went out, they came upon a man from Cyrene named Simon, they completed this man to carry his cross.« In these unsettling days, we know them all. Each asks us to tell a passion story: How does love work in the time of Corona?
In Holy Week, Rosemarie and I would walk with you through the Stations of the Cross, for they are always the moments when love confronts suffering and seeks a path through and beyond it. Fourteen times we will pause with Jesus. Each time we will seek the places in our lives where we know this station, where our love is now confronted by a similar suffering in this time of the pandemic. Each time we will share a question that might help us live our love for God, for one another, for his creation and for ourselves through and beyond the suffering we presently endure. In our Passion Narrative we will do what Jesus does in his, because that is how we open with him the horizons of hope. And we will share a prayer from the ever eloquent Pádraig Ó Tuama, a poet of prayer.
This is how we can move through the love story of the Passion Narrative and treat it with the earnestness and intensity it deserves. This is how we can move through Holy Week.
May it be a procession of thoughtful hope for us all. Perhaps it will help us live as people of his Spirit: living our prayer and praying our lives until love and suffering have embraced and a wondrous love teaches us how to kiss our wounds.
For Suffering
May you be blessed in the holy names of those
Who, without you knowing it,
Help to carry and lighten your pain.
May you know serenity
When you are called
To enter the house of suffering.
May a window of light always surprise you.
May you be granted the wisdom
To avoid false resistance;
When suffering knocks on the door of your life,
May you glimpse its eventual gifts.
May you be able to receive the fruits of suffering.
May memory bless and protect you
With the hard-earned light of past travail;
To remind you that you have survived before
And though the darkness now is deep,
You will soon see the approaching light.
May the grace of time heal your wounds.
May you know that though the storm might rage,
Not a hair of your head will be harmed.
John O'Donohue
Erik Riechers SAC, Vallendar, April 5th, 2020
A Lecture of the Mountains
We encounter mountains frequently in the Bible as special places for the encounter with God and for clarification. For example, on Sinai, where Moses encounters God receives the 10 Words, or on the mountain where Jesus is transfigured, or when Jesus withdraws to the mountain in order to pray.
Reinhold Stecher, the bishop of Innsbruck for many years, loved to unfold the relationship between the mountains and human beings, because he was convinced, that they can be helpful to us I becoming human. In 2009 he wrote in his book »Botschaft der Berge« (Message of the Mountains):
»The mountains teach their lesson about the smallness of the human being. And the knowledge of this smallness is and remains the beginning of all wisdom.
The message of the rocky slopes, landslides and waterfalls is a devastating lesson against the hubris of an era, in which creation was partially confused with a grand laboratory or with a machine shop, with an area of unlimited viability.
It is an impressive corrective to all those ideologies that have made the human being the absolute focus of all thinking and the measure of all things. It is that basic attitude tis fascinated by the ancient voice, from the beginning through all the ages, which repeatedly whispers the watchword: ‘You shall be like God…’
This message of the almighty mountains is like a quiet smile over all those programs and messages of salvation that assume that the human beings can redeem and free themselves from their agonising questions and problems.,…
The mute standing and wonder of the ancient power and enormous forms of the mountains is a healing lesson, an adjustment of reality, a revelation of truth: the truth about my smallness, my tininess, my temporality, my limitations, my dependency vis-à-vis the Powerful One, who stands and lives behind this creation.«
Times such as these lay long-practiced basic attitudes bare . They irritate and shake us, because these attitudes no longer work. However, they can become mountain experiences for us. And people like Reinhold Stecher can become trustworthy and good mountain guides.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 4th, 2020
Prayer as the Core of Life
Several days ago a radio broadcast spoke of how hard the present crisis is affecting our children; not only is their daily life severely restricted, they often experience existentially, if not consciously, the uncertainty of the adults and need our help in their fears and distress. The broadcast mentioned taking time for them, listening, and speaking with them, as well as finding and practicing rituals. And then it mentioned prayer, entrusting oneself to something higher, formulating prayers together. Who would have expected even a few weeks ago to hear such advice on the radio in our secularised world?
This filled me with a quiet joy and a thought of Mahatma Gandhi’s came to mind: »Prayer is the very soul and essence of religion, and, therefore, prayer must be the very core of the life of the human being, for no human being can live without religion.«
For decades ever more people live with the egocentric, arrogant and very secular concept that they can live without religion. Perhaps it will become he blessing of this year, that we humans retrieve a sense of »that, which truly concerns us« (Paul Tillich) and let ourselves be grasped by it. More than ever we recognise the inter-weaving with one another and are rediscovering this inter-weaving with God, the grounds and goal of all life. We are remembering praying to this God and are beginning (again) to nurture the relationship to HIM, who bears and holds all things.
We do not know what comes tomorrow or after the summer holidays – yet we have never know it!
If prayer becomes the core of our life, then we can place our distress before the heart of God, as well as our thanks for all that has been given us and is daily renewed. Today, too, we can pray with the words of Psalm 36:
LORD, in the heavens Your kindness, and Your faithfulness to the skies.
Your justice like the unending mountains, Your judgement like the great abyss,
mortals and beast the Lord rescues.
How dear is Your kindness, O God, and the children of mortals in Your wings’ shadow shelter.
They take their fill from the fare of Your house; and from Your stream of delights You give them drink.
For with You is the fountain of life. In Your Light, we shall see light.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 3rd, 2020
The Heart of the Adventurer IV
This time of crisis during the pandemic does what all times of crisis do. They show us the true heart that beats within us. Do we have the heart of the adventurer that wants to take on responsibility for life? Or does the heart of the tourist beat within us, which needs others to take over responsibility for life?
Lk 18, 9-14 introduces us to a Pharisee and a tax collector. Interestingly, it is the tax collector how has the heart of an adventurer, because in his plea for mercy he wants to take on responsibility for his life. The Pharisee, on the other hand, has the classic heart of the tourist. He needs others in order to make himself big and strong, and thereby they take on the responsibility for how he feels and how he lives.
How does this work? In the Pharisee we have a person who is deeply convinced of his own righteousness.
He places his confidence in what he has accomplished. Yet, he only becomes truly dangerous when he combines this conviction with his contempt for others.
On the surface of things, it seems that both the Pharisee and the tax collector are talking to God. On the surface of things, it seems to be a story about prayer. But only if you stay on the surface. In fact, the Pharisee is never contending with God. God is only the listener, the audience. His task is simply to listen as to how much better the Pharisee is compared to the tax collector.
The Pharisee employs an ancient trick that is known to the heart of the tourist. If I I don’t really want to be better, stronger, or greater than I am, then I simply present myself as better, stronger and greater. In order to make that happen, I simply choose a week opponent. I simply set the bar a lot lower
With whom does the Pharisee contend? He compares himself to thieves, rogues, adulterers and the tax collector. They are easy pickings. The heart of the tourist needs the other in order to avoid authentic responsibility for life. That occurs under the mott0, »I may not be perfect, but I am certainly better than these others«.
By contrast, the tax collector contend with God. He does not raise his eyes, but he raises the conversation to a higher level. »God, have mercy on me!« You, Lord, show me mercy. There is an I and a thou, and the tax collector takes a hard look at what is transpiring between him and God. The tax collector choses a stronger opponent in order to grow stronger himself. This is the heart of the adventurer. It is as in sports. If an athlete wishes to grow stronger, he or she much seek out a stronger training partner, who challenges them, to forces them to dig deeper and to become better. For all who humble themselves will be exalted.
Yet, if I always choose a weaker opponent, then I can always win, but I cannot get better. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled.
That is what this story is about, contending with God, making him our training partner. Gotthard Fuchs visited us several years ago and spoke to us about the desert fathers. These desert fathers were always concerned not to deal with the sins of others (with those as weak as they were), but to look at their own relationship to God.
This time of crisis does this for us. It opens us up for an important if awkward question: What is going on with me? Instead of bragging with the claim »I fast twice a week!«, the question could be raised, »Even after that, could it be that I still have too much?«
What about the other 5 days of the week? Do I then stuff everything into myself that I renounced for two days? If I fast on two days, do I give it to the poor or do I heard it for myself for a alter day? Let us remember the masks, the medicine and the toilet paper.
Does fasting empty me for the truly important or does it fill me with a boastful self-complacency that take sup more room I me that 6 meals ever could? If I already have to renounce many things in these days of isolation, does it make me great-hearted or does the horizon of my concern shrink to the width of my shoulder blades?
These are the questions that will arise when we contend with God and seek to take on responsibility for our lives.
»I give a tenth of all my income«. But what do I do with the 90% that I keep? 90% of abundance is still too much! Can I give up something beyond the prescribed 10%? Will I strictly adhere to the regulations of these days or am I willing to do more, to give more than what is demanded? Not even in a time in which so many of our fellow citizens are ill or dying have we managed to place human life above economic considerations. These are the questions that will arise when we contend with God and seek to take on responsibility for our lives.
Anyone can win a wrestling match with a child. We should follow Jacob’s lead and wrestle with God through long dark hours until the light returns. That is a struggle well worth the effort, which makes us stronger and brings us wisdom.
We can hold with the tax collector and take the adventurous path to the multiplication of life. Then we can pray: Lord, make me more generous. Lord, make me more just. Lord, make me more loving. This is the language of the heart of the adventurer who seeks to take on responsibility for life.
Every comparison is diabolical. Comparing Germany to Italy or our health system to those of other countries can lead precisely to the attitude we see in the Pharisee. We are privileged to live through this hour in our countries with their many resources. Yet, privilege does not have to lead to condescension. We could also ask what responsibilities for the life of the world these privileges bring with them. Migrants, refugees, victims of war, women suffering from increased domestic violence in times of Corona, the homeless who have no place in which to live in quarantine, African brothers and sisters waiting on coming of the virus without the most basic of medical care: they all are sitting at the back of the temple. This time of crisis cannot force us to heed them or help them. Hover, this time of crisis can also not force us to take on the attitude that says, »God, I thank you that I am not like other people«.
This time of crisis will merely show us what kind of heart beats within us.
Erik Riechers SAC
Vallendar, April 2nd, 2020
You are what I am, and I am what you are
In these challenging times, so challenging and unusual for us, are we only occupied with caring for ourselves, to get the most out of them, as far as possible and without consideration? Are we people who assiduously and often coldly seek to fill their own cupboards?
Or can we constrain ourselves, precisely because the other needs it? The other who is exactly as I am, a human being full of value and dignity. The other, who is perhaps weak, old, or infirm. Can I forgo in order that he or she might live? Can I maintain the distance in order to protect others?
I invite you to see life anew through the eyes of a man, who struggled and suffered a great deal in the short span of his life: Vincent van Gogh. Here are his words:
So let us go forward quietly,
each on his own path,
forever making for the light, »sursum corda«,
and in the knowledge that we are as others are,
and that others are as we are
and that it is right to love one another.
»Lift up your hearts! « is his challenge, »sursum corda«, for the light is here, it rises and gives us orientation. All can go towards it on their own deeply personal path, calmly, without panic, authentically and not as a copy driven by comparisons, and, above all, with a radiant perspective for all, and not unto ruin.
Together we go as a people who know, that they are cut from the same cloth, a human family that sojourns well when it sojourns in love. Cain is asked, »Where is your brother? «. Let us practice to lovingly heed the others who walk the paths beside us and to accept them as that, which we are.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, April 1rst, 2020
The Heart of the Adventurer III
For a crisis that is just a few weeks old, I am increasingly irritated all those who seem to know what this hour will mean for our future. There are newspaper article about this to no end. In meetings the strategy of the future is already being prescribed: for the Church, the liturgy, the society, the economy. And after each diagnosis there is an immediate recipe for everything we are supposed to change afterwards. Fortune-telling is a booming industry.
I maintain a healthy and deep skepticism toward all such prognostications. Therein I see the conflict between the heart of the adventurer and the heart of the tourist.
The heart of the adventure is the heart that desires to explore new territory.
The heart of the tourist is the heart that only desires to be freed from the burden of daily living.
I openly admit that I do not know what the future will demand of us. I have no patented solutions for all that will confront us during and after the crisis. But I am happy to set out and explore the possibilities.
In Mk 10, 32-45 there is an interesting line spoken by two disciples. »Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.« The apprentices in this story are James and John. If we ask why they pose this request to Jesus, we quickly conclude, that they only have their self-interest in mind.
The answer is not wrong. In fact, they believe that they are serving their self-interest and that they are doing themselves a favour if they can get Jesus to do what they want. Here beats the heart of the tourist, a heart that only desires to be freed from the burden of daily living. Then we already define the solutions that occur to us before we have looked at or lived through the depths of the given hour.
How do you know the solutions to an adventure you never set out on?
To apprentice ourselves to Jesus always requires one fundamental exercise: You need yourself: Do you have the heart of an adventurer, the heart that desires to explore new territory?
How do all vocation stories begin? People are fascinated by the lifestyle of Jesus, because it is totally different from that which they know. They feel drawn by his power that is so different from that to which they are accustomed. In Jesus they experience a well-spring of power and life that makes a life even possible. These are well-springs to which they would love to have access and from which they would love to draw.
The prerequisite for this is the heart of an adventurer, the heart that desires to explore new territory. To apprentice ourselves to Jesus with the heart of an adventurer means:
- We remember the fascinating encounters with him, the places and times that stirred the original fascination in us.
- We think it over. We reflect on what has happened with Jesus, what it awakens in us, what it is doing with us and what it could demand of us in the present hour.
- We talk about it. Those who do not talk about it are not fascinated in the sense of yearning. Do not have to have the solutions right away, to complete reform programs and conclude the renewal of all things.
- We test out the wisdom and potential of the fascinating attitude, viewpoint of action of Jesus. We practice, gather experiences, risk new life and venture on new paths. We do not practice what we already know, but what we would like to get to know.
- In a general way, we try to make the lifestyle of Jesus a part of our own. We take the time to integrate the new experiences we have with him into our own lives.
- We also accept the critique that is contained within the lifestyle of Jesus. It is a critique about the way we are presently behaving, the way we look at things and the way we act. A critique is awakened in us, because the very things that fascinate us about Jesus are not what we know in our attitudes, viewpoints, and actions. That is why we do not rush to a reform of the future, because here we make the painful experience that we are also a part of the problem. If we do not hear and heed this, then we will be convinced that it is other powers and other people who are the problem.
- We accept the offer of Jesus to try something new, to explore it and risk it, beyond the old, familiar and well known.
»Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.« In a crisis this request presupposes that we are already masters and have the insight as to what the situation means and how it can be resolved. Should we actually believe that, then we do not need a master who can lead, accompany and teach us. But is it true? Starting with Mk 4, 35-41, Pope Francis writes warning, deep words about this attitude during the crisis of the pandemic.
The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities. The tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly »save« us, but instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.
In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.
»Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?« Lord, your word this evening strikes us and regards us, all of us. In this world, that you love more than we do, we have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in things, and lured away by haste. We did not stop at your reproach to us, we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We carried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick. Now that we are in a stormy sea, we implore you: »Wake up, Lord!«.
I, for my part, will not heed the prophets of the future. With the heart of an adventurer I follow the Lord, who first of all lives through the storm with us and speaks of what this hour demands of us before he says a word about the hours of the future might yet demand of us.
Erik Riechers SAC
Vallendar, March 31rst, 2020
A Word of Counsel, more relevant than ever
Many years ago, an acquaintance tipped me off to an evening presentation on Israel. She knew that I was fascinated by this country, especially since I had just previously been there.
A reverent hush lay over the hall as the speaker arrived. After kind and appreciative words of greeting from the host, his presentation began. Yet, this was no presentation about the beauty and characteristics of the country. Here a man spoke, who had lived at the heart of Jerusalem for more than 10 years, of experiences and movements of his soul – with a lyricism that increasingly captivated me: Willi Bruners. I never again forgot his poem »Counsel. I often quoted it. I would not have withstood difficult times of my life so well without it. Good times receive from it a grateful depth. Precisely today I lay his wisdom upon your heart:
Counsel
Bid the night farewell
with the hymn of the sun
even during fog
gather the first
pieces of information from
the Songs of David
then listen to
the news and read
the newspaper
heed the sequence
if you wish to maintain
the strength
to change the circumstances
pray against the
five star nothingness
that blares forth at you
from every channel.
Wilhelm Bruners
May we daily first pray ourselves into the foundation on which we stand – then we can stand against all that approaches us from without - »heed the sequence«!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 30, 2020
5. Sunday of Lent: » Hither, outside!«
Prayer
God of all time,
We ask, we weep, we wait, we die, we hope, we live, we carry on, we pick ourselves up, we try to understand, we misunderstand, we learn, we ask again, we wait for understanding.
In all of these, may prayer be a companion, not a torment.
May we find in prayer the consolation that sustains us through all things,
Knowing that some things change,
and some things remain the same.
Amen.
Pádraig Ó Tuama
Gospel: John 1, 1-45
Our impatience and our yearning drives us to repeatedly ask when this crisis will be over. The great storyteller, John, hides within his Gospel a piece of wisdom that deals with a question that goes further. How will we live when the crisis is over?
In John 11, Jesus the stone rolled away from the grace of his friend Lazarus. Yet, then we must listen very carefully how he speaks to his Father.
»Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.«
Note his words precisely! I thank you that you have heard me. That is the past tense! That means, if God has already heard Jesus, then Lazarus is already awake. He is alive! Yet, although the stone has been rolled away, he does not come forth from his grave.
Thus, Jesus must say, almost word for word, what God once had to say to Noah in the Ark. In Noah’s case this happens after he spends two months in the ark even though the earth is already dry and he should be out and about on his mission to repopulate the world and fashion it. For what is Noah waiting? He is afraid to leave the place of safety (the ark) and to give it up. God has to say to him, »Get up and out!« (cf. Gen 8).
Jesus needs to confront this fear in Lazarus. »Lazarus, deuro (hither) exo (outside)!«
He has to command him to come hither. It is striking, because how would a dead man hear and heed the command of Jesus? Jesus knows that Lazarus has received his life back (»I thank you that you have heard me«), but he also knows that Lazarus does not trust himself to enter back into life. For this he will need a twofold assistance.
First, he needs a voice that calls him back into life. He needs the divine voice of encouragement. Otherwise he will remain in his grave like Noah in his ark.
Secondly, he needs a liberation from the old experiences that still hold him back from entering into life. »The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unbind him, and let him go.«
We, too, know the fears of Lazarus. When something gives us a sense of security and protection, if it lets us feel comforted and safe, then we do not want to let go of it again. Be it a relationship, be it a good experience or be it a certain lifestyle: if they have served us well and we have grown accustomed to them, then we will not simply let them go. We hole up and settle down.
The problem for Lazarus and for us is that a temporary solution must not become a permanent one. We must not turn a grave into our dwelling place. We must transform the separation, isolation and social distancing in these times of Corona into a lifestyle. What e presently are doing in order to protect life and land is a transitional solution. It is designed to protect life from danger and the demise of our fellow human beings. But it is not a substitute for that which we will have to life afterwards, for that which we will need to fill with life once we move beyond the grave. No sanctuaries of life are given so that we might hide in them. Lazarus hides in the grave due to fear of the life that awaits him and for fear of what it will await from him. We have our own fears of a life beyond Corona, of the changes and responsibilities that will connected with it. At times we will be tempted to continue forms of withdrawal and isolation in order to feel more secure.
Yet, the mission of a life does not reside within a grave. It awaits us outside in the world. All the life which Jesus saves and calls forth is given for the life of the world, for it too awaits ne life, a rebirth and a new beginning.
That is why we, too, need the twofold assistance of our God. We need the voice of God that is greater than our own voice. We need the voice of God that is greater than our fears, that is ready to tell us what we do not necessarily want to hear. For the voice of God is never a mere echo of our small hearts. This divine voice never mirrors our panic or our fears. It speaks with authority, with the voice of the author of life and the world. »Hither, outside!« (deuro exo) is a command, not a suggestion. God takes our fears seriously, but he is not a servant of our fears.
And we need a liberation. Old habits tend to leave nothing untired in order to catch up to us, hold fast to us and drag us back. Just ask the people of Israel. Pharaoh had hardly allowed the people to depart when he changes his mind. He sends his army to catch up with his former slaves, hold them fast and drag them back. Old ways never simply let their people go.
John tells this story as well. Lazarus not only leaves the grave reluctantly, but bound by the old.
»The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unbind him, and let him go.«
The hands are the metaphor for our ability to act. They are still bound and our ability to act cannot yet be set into motion. We need a God who can undo fetters, for without the ability to act we cannot form and fashion a world.
The feet are the metaphor for the directions we take in life. Feet translate orientation into movement. Here, too, we need the help of our God, because in the quarantine we dream about all that we want to do afterwards, but the minute we come forth we will be responsible for turning these resolutions into tangible life.
The cloth shrouds his face and does not allow his eyes to see. The eyes are the metaphor for our way of seeing, the way we look upon the world and perceive it. Here, too, we will need a liberation from God, for crises obscure our sight. Just because they over does not mean that we can see clearly again. To the contrary, crises often cause us to see the new opportunities through the filter of our old fears. We cannot fill a new time with life and salvation in that manner.
We need the voice of God, through his word and his messengers. Yet, this voice, which calls Lazarus forth, also poses a question to us. Will we listen to and heed it? Jesus calls us all forth from the grave, but he does not drag anyone out of them. God will ensure that we are called into life. Whether and how we will live after the crisis lays in our hands.
Deuro exo (hither, outside!)
Lazarus, hither, outside!
Your life awaits you.
It cannot be fashioned in chambers of death.
Lazarus, hither, outside!
Martha and Maria, sisters are waiting for you.
Their tears need you gentle fingers.
That is why I unbind your hands.
Lazarus, hither, outside!
The people who mourned you when they thought you dead are waiting for you.
They yearn that you would again come toward them.
That is why I unfettered your feet.
Lazarus, hither, outside!
The world is waiting for you.
With your death, something of the glory of God was lost to it.
Be a person of lived life, for that is how the glory of God returns to the world.
I had the shroud removed from your face. Show your face.
Lazarus, hither, outside!
I dwell neither before nor in graves.
I visit them to call forth life.
I am waiting for you.
I wept before your grave.
Your willingness to live will now be my consolation.
ERIK RIECHERS SAC
Vallendar, March 29th, 2020
»Working tools of the soul«
The Early Christian Desert Fathers had withdrawn individually or as hermits or in small groups into the deserts of Egypt and Syria in order to practice prayer and asceticism. Based on their undistracted, clear view into the depths, they were already during their lifetimes sought after and compelling counselors and many of their words remain not only preserved, but significant to this day.
Thus, this thought has been passed on from Abba Poemen:
» Being on the alert, paying attention to oneself, and the gift of discernment: These three virtues are the working tools of the soul. «
At the moment, all of us are yearning to be guided through all that is transpiring on our way.
Abba Poemen names the three working tools of the soul. » Being on the alert « presupposes that I am aware of myself, of my inner life, in the first place. To be truly present to myself and not constantly in the externals – I allow myself to be guided there, in order that I might not lose myself, but be on the alert.
» paying attention to oneself «, the second tool of the soul, wants to make us attentive to that, which moves within us. It does this not that we might be torn forth and back by emotions, but to perceive them, reflect on them and interpret them.
Finally, the » the gift of discernment « helps us to distinguish impulses that might promise us a great deal, but do not lead to salvation and life, from those that hold more depth and living fullness in readiness. Only these come from God.
Virtues are not cheap goods; they demand exercises – every day and especially right now!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn, March 28th, 2020
The Heart of the Adventurer II
I am often asked whether I have a story for a difficult situation. Thereafter, I am asked why the story did not work. Naturally people assume that the problem lies with the story: it is too difficult, complicated or convoluted.
That is when I have to quote a basic lesson about the interpretation of a story. The text is silent until the reader appears.
This rule applies for all the stories which we encounter, be it the stories we read or hear, or be it the stories which we live and fashion ourselves. For the Stories of God and the Stories of Life always presuppose one thing: the heart of the adventurer must appear to interpret and live them.
Thus we come to the second characteristic which separates the adventurer from the tourist. The heart of the adventurer is the heart that seek ways through the undiscovered country. The heart of the tourist is the heart that only goes on predetermined, habitual paths.
The present new, unaccustomed and unexpected story of illness, social separation and the chaotic change of our lifestyle tests our hearts. We can complain that it is a difficult, complex and convoluted story, like students before a biblical tale: then we possess the heart of a tourist. We want to go the prescribed way. That means we want someone to offer us an explanation of this moment, to make it understandable and succinctly summarise it for us. We can sit back and need only note what they have told us.
All stories, including our Corona story, never assume that they owe us an explanation. The always presume that the listener, reader or recipient has come to ask for guidance and accompaniment. That is why they presuppose the heart of the adventurer. Tourists only come to the story expecting entertainment. Adventurers come to the story to seek the path to life.
This tale of Corona, quarantine, social distancing and fear, through which we are presently living, has a deeper meaning, but its contents and significance are still hidden. As with every biblical story, this story will one begin to offer us orientation when it has received dedicated attentiveness from us. There are reports everywhere about the effect that emergency measure and social limitations are having on people. But this present tale will only begin to having a salvific effect when we interpret what these effects mean. Interpretation is the art form. And interpretation is the art and craft of the adventurer. The heart of the adventurer is the heart that seek ways through the undiscovered country. The tourist does not interpret, but awaits solutions and explanations. The heart of the tourist is the heart that only goes on predetermined, habitual paths.
The relationship between the Corona story and how we will fashion and live through it is a complicated one. In reality, a story only speaks when a hearer appears. A story comes alive and starts to speak only from that moment when we are prepared to listen. How much this Corona story will tell is in direct proportion to how well we listen. For thirty years I have told students that their actions in reading and interpreting are essential if the story is to unfold its effect. We need to heed a story, take it into ourselves, and take it with us. The rule applies in this hour as well. We need to hear and heed the realities and changes, interpret them in order to understand what this hour is asking of us and connect it all to our lives, our behaviour and our actions.
Interpretation is the art, and it remains the art and craft of the adventurer. What we are presently living and suffering through is not an entertaining story, but it could open to us new, unseen horizons, untrodden paths and untried possibilities. For that we need the heart of the adventurer, for it seeks ways through the undiscovered country.
Erik Riechers SAC, March 27th, 2020
In Trust
Nowadays in Germany, bells ring everywhere in the evening and invite us to place a candle in the window. Beyond denominational boundaries we are called to join with one another in prayer. Those who get involved can feel the community of people at prayer in the common anchoring in God, who carries and hold all things in himself and to whose presence we can entrust ourselves.
»God, you are near to us, now, here, in this moment and at all times.
God, we wish to go with you, give the impulse.
We want to rest with you, give us breath.
With you there are provisions, accompany us.
Remain familiar to us, and become new to us.« *
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
March 26th, 2020
*Manfred Büsing from: Lectio divina, Bd. 22, 2020
Silence - not curse, but blessing
In these days and weeks of very secluded living that all of us are leading in order to protect one another from the further spread of the virus, I pause repeatedly and become aware of the silence. The air space is quiet and on the street there is no traffic to the school or sporting events. Nothing disturbs me when I take a walk. This stillness does not make me restless or nervous, no, I cherish it as a gift and even relish it.
And I pause with what Roger Willemsen wrote about stillness:
»When all raucous movements, all superimpositions of noise over feelings, perceptions, impulses yields, then the stillness of contemplation sets in.
Nature is often experienced this way, the city seldom. The silence of the forest, the peace over the lake, the hush of the night, they all create associations with peace, the discontinuance of the high-speed, the bustling, the fleeting, even the trivial. Contemplation sets in, pure being-with-oneself. In social life as well, silence does not merely occur, it fills its own functions: In the »minute of silence«, in silent grief, the thoughtful pause, in the contemplation of the firmament, in the still spaces of churches, crypts, temples, in the vow of silence of the Carthusians, the hermits, the Tibetan monks of silence, in the »quiet time« between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Where modesty or even humility set in, there is a becoming-small and often piety, faith, which is reserved to introspection. There also dwells in the still moments of daily life a magic of its own, such as the silence before the kiss, the silence of common understanding in a glance, the silence of prayer …
It is often said of the lasting moments of a life, that they were »breathless«, that all motion came to a standstill in them, that they occurred in utter silence..« *
Can we appreciate and value what this time gives to us? An unaccustomed stillness whose vitality we can now »unpack« and discover.
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
March 25th, 2020
*from: Roger Willemsen, Musik! Über ein Lebensgefühl, 2018
The Heart of the Adventurer I
In Hamlet William Shakespeare poses an interesting question. Who would choose to grunt and sweat through an exhausting life, unless they were afraid of something of the future beyond death? For this future, which still lies in God’s hands, is the undiscovered country. And the undiscovered country of the future makes us stick to the evils we know rather than rush off to seek the ones we don’t.
Times of crisis, like the one we are experiencing, test our character and our hearts. And what is quickly determined is whether are bringing the heart of an adventurer or the heart of a tourist to the undertaking of life.
These two attitudes toward life will determine the way we approach the Stories of God. They are the two ways we can listen to the Gospel, as adventurers or tourists. More importantly, they are the two ways of approaching life: a spirituality of the adventurer or the spirituality of the tourist.
Today we will look at the first of nine characteristics that distinguish adventurers from tourists. The heart of the adventurer goes where life can be discovered. The heart of the tourist is the heart that goes where others have fashioned the contours of life.
Let us dare two biblical stories. The first story is in the book of Numbers 13-14. The people of Israel stand at the border of the Promised Land and hear the report of the explorers. Now they notice, that it is too much bother and too much effort to enter the land and make it their own. So they turn their back on the undiscovered land of their future and go back to aimlessly wandering the desert for another 38 years. The heart of the tourist is the heart that goes where others have fashioned the contours of life.
The second story is in Joshua 1. 38 years later the succeeding generation stands before the border of the Promised Land. They know it will not be easy and are repeatedly told to be courageous and steadfast. But this time they enter into the Promised Land, the undiscovered country of their future. They need to fight for it. The heart of the adventurer goes where life can be discovered.
Both groups need to face the questions we now face on the border to the undiscovered country of our future. What is a future worth to us?
In both stories the people must carry and forge the decision. Like them, we are confronted with difficult questions in the days of uncertainty.
Will we work for a promising future for us all, even if it demands a clear price from us? Even it entails difficulties? Even if it includes effort, struggle and conflict? The heart of the adventurer says yes to all this, because it is the heart that goes where life can be discovered.
Or are we only willing to speak of a promising future if the path has been prepared and smoothed for us? Or if the problems have been resolved in advance? Or only if the hindrances and obstacles have been removed? This is the heart of the tourist. The heart of the tourist is the heart that goes where others have fashioned the contours of life.
This pandemic has brought us to the border. We are faced with the foundational decision of thoe who stand before the undiscovered country of their future.
How much is new life worth to us? How much strength is it worth to us? How much effort is it worth to us? How much investment is it worth to us?
This crisis is an hour of decision and decisions should be fashioned. Yet, if a future for all should arise out of this time, then we will need adventurers. Tourists have no business here.
ERIK RIECHERS SAC
Vallendar, March 24th, 2020
Practicing, what we cannot yet do.
Last week a letter made me aware of what the great exercise of this crisis is for us Christians. It requires of us, namely, an entering into the »exercise of trust in God«.
Practice is called for, practicing trust in our God!
Yet, we always practice that, which we already know: we need to do everything (properly), to perform, organise, fulfil requirements, plan and carry, keep things in check… everything depends upon us!
Now, however, we are experiencing how little we can do and how little we have control over. That which is not required of us is restraint, waiting, staying at home, caring for our relationships with more distance, to endure silence, to let go. In truth, we must practice this properly. Yet, we do not practice in a vacuum. Our gaze becomes free and sees the One, who has always carried our lives. We were never the Lords of our lives – but we lived as if we were!
If we now enter into the »exercise of trust in God«, then we practice surrendering life to God in all that we can fashion in this time. He has trust in us and trust that we can, every situation, do the right thing – let us trust him, as the God who loves his people, as the one who always carries out lives! Naturally, we must consider and do what is ours in order to develop and protect life, but we do not hold the big picture in our hands.
At the moment, we are living more or less in quarantine mode. The term quarantine is derived from the Latin quadraginta, the number 40. In Italian the 40 days are called quaranta giorni.
Liturgically we are living in the time of Lent. An old word for Lent is Quadragesima. From of old, it always stood for 40 days of preparation, conversion, renunciation and practice.
For me, entering into an »exercise of trust in God« means to consider and nurture my relationship to God anew in its interweaving with all others. I can anchor myself anew in him, from whose hand no one falls. I exercise listening, a prayerful listening. I exercise the lamentation and articulation of all that weighs upon me. I exercise the seeing of all that is good and alive. I exercise thanksgiving.
The psalmist prays »Sate us in the morn with Your kindness, let us sing and rejoice all our days« (Ps. 90). »And I will lead the blind on a way they did not know, on paths they did not know I will guide them« proclaims the prophet (Is 42, 16).
We are not alone in this time of exercise. Let us exercise with all those who went before us and who walk next to us! Let us fill the time of quarantine with the deep meaning of Lent: to anchor ourselves deeply in the love of our God!
Rosemarie Monnerjahn
March 23rd, 2020
Opened eyes do not mean we live as those who see
A very frustrated man said to me in these days, »Through this crisis will open all of our eyes!« My question to him was, »And then what?« Is it really enough to have our eyes opened? Just because we can see the problems, the possibilities and the realities does not mean that we will act in such a way that we come to life. Just ask the man laying by the roadside between Jerusalem and Jericho. Twice he was seen in his need, once by a priest and a second time by a Levite. And twice lets the shocking line ring out, »he saw him and passed by.«
Today we have the story of a person who learns what he has to do after Jesus opened his eyes. And the first thing he must learn is to say »I«. Not the self-absorbed style of the egotist, but as an expression his human dignity. Without the ability to say »I«, we will deny our value, worth and significance, even after God has esteemed and restored it.
At the beginning of the story the disciples speak with Jesus about who is at fault for the blindness of this man. While discussing this highly personal question, the disciples talk about the blind man even while he is sitting before them. But they do not speak with him, they never directly address him.
Only Jesus does that. Only then does the man born blind become healed, only then does he see. Here Jesus recognises the perpetual danger to his people, namely, the tendency to speak about others, but not with them. All healing, all solutions to our problems and hr chance of winning back perspective and insight begins with the willingness to speak with people, address them personally and to start a dialogue. No one is healed in anonymity.
Talk to one another! That is not so easy, especially when we are accustomed to talking about the others. John makes it clear in the very next scene. After the man is healed of his blindness, the neighbours start to talk about him. No one talks to him.
The ensuing conversation deals with the architect of his healing and where he is to be found, but it does not deal with the man or his experience. No one asks him how he is, was he is feeling, what this means to him. And no one congratulates him upon his healing. And this among religious people for whom gratitude for life and healing is a given. Furthermore, there is no one in the story who praises or thanks God for this healing.
While the neighbours have an intense discussion about him, he must speak up for himself: It is I! For the first time he needs to find his voice and raise it up. He needs to speak up. He must interpret his own experience and stand by it. We, too, must stand up for our experience and for who we are before God, frequently before the superficiality of those around us. If our eyes are being opened in this time of the Corona Crisis, it will be of no use to us if we simply become bystanders in the midst of the panicked crowd. While others gossip in panic we are called to say what we have known, experienced, undergone and felt.
Then they bring the formerly blind man to the Pharisees. Again we not the same tendency. Either they speak about him (»this man«) or about the topic (the healing). But they never speak to or with the man standing right before them. The danger is clear: We talk about the topic and then leave off. The danger is that we do not speak with the people affected by the topic. At the moment, we are talking about a virus, the rates of infection, the curve, quarantines, and toilet paper. Yet, we hear few stories about the people who are deeply affected, the people behind these numbers, statistics and facts. We need to hear of the nurses who work 48 hour shifts and then cannot buy vegetables or fruit, because the healthy are hoarding them. We hear little of the people who cannot bury their loved ones and have no place to grieve. He hear next to nothing about the people who can only dream of the enforced pause the rest of us complain about, because they must work without pause to keep us safe, protected and supplied.
The next step of the story is when the man’s parents on called. The refuse to speak of their formerly blind son. »He is old enough, ask him yourself.« They may well be motivated by fear, but they are nonetheless right. The son must be an adult and that means speaking for himself. And he does so, with increasing strength, with increasing confidence, until at the end of the story he is able to say, »Lord, I believe«. It is the story of a man who discovers his own voice. He ceases to be the topic of the conversation of others and become the speaker who addresses the others. This is now his story.
In this worldwide crisis of the pandemic it is telling how often our talk has become generalised and condescending. We hear what »the people« are thinking or feeling. It is our task to find our own voice in this eye-opening time. As free and mature people we are capable of speaking for ourselves about what God, life and the crisis have awakened in us. My own personal story consists of decidedly more than the fear of this moment. There are stories of God and experiences of faith in me. In me there are stories of healing and of freedom. Community and mission are still a part of my story in these times of social distancing. Gabriel Garcia Márquez wrote a grand novel with the title »Love in the Time of Cholera«. Which stories will we tell after the time of the Corona virus?
Like the man healed of blindness, we discover our true, deepest conviction in confrontations. Only when we are confronted with other people, other opinions and other convictions to the questions of our convictions arise. Will I speak up? What is important enough, indeed, holy enough, to me that I will speak my mind instead of sheltering in silence? Such encounters and conversations undergo times of confusion and resistance, as we discover that others do not share or accept our points of view and convictions. That, however, is the task if we want to become »someone«.
Jesus opens our eyes. But we must find and raise our voices ourselves. Yet, it will not automatically be so. Hopefully, it will not one day be written of us that »they saw, but they passed by«.
ERIK RIECHERS SAC
Vallendar, March 22nd, 2020, 4. Sunday of Lent