A song of salaam, shalom, paz, paix, peace

My range of emotions over the last few weeks in repsonse to world events, especially the last week, has been from anger to outrage to disgust to despair and back to anger more times than I care to admit.  Friday, after listening to reports on NPR and BBC World News about Israel and Gaza and Central African Republic and Ukraine and Syria and the US border (and on and on and on...), my frustration grew, and not just due to traffic.  But a song that has calmed and cheered me for years came to mind, and I couldn't shake it:

This is my song, O God of all the nations,

a song of peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

but other hearts in other lands are beating

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;

but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,

a song of peace for their land and for mine.

Written in 1934 by Lloyd Stone, and set to the music "Finlandia" by Sibelius, my favorite version is by the Indigo Girls.

I realize that I am blessed in so many ways, and while the news each day angers and sickens and frustrates me, I also know that I have the luxury to express that anger and frustration from a place of safety and abundance and a deeper sense of equality and opportunity than many in the world get to experience.  My prayer this Sunday evening is that my rather comfortable life never erases my empathy for those who struggle in the places that frustrate and anger me, and that I remember that I have an obligation to speak up and speak out for a better world, "for their land and for mine."

Habemus Papam Franciscum: An Instrument of Peace?

I watched yesterday the announcement of our new pope, and when it was revealed that it was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, from Argentina, and a Jesuit, and that he was taking the name Francis the First, I wept.  A pope from the "New World", evoking St. Francis of Assisi--could this really mean a new day for the Catholic Church?

His first greeting seemed to suggest at least a new tone:
And now I would like to give the blessing, but first - first I ask a favour of you: before the Bishop blesses his people, I ask you to pray to the Lord that he will bless me: the prayer of the people asking the blessing for their Bishop.  Let us make, in silence, this prayer:  your prayer over me. 

Humility. Simplicity.  I'm guardedly optimistic.  And pessimistically realistic.  I am, after all, a Catholic woman.

Will this pope throw wide the doors of the Vatican?  Maybe not, but if they are nudged open a bit more, I would be pleased.

Will this pope usher in a new era of modern thought and change within the Catholic Church?  Probably not, nor should we expect a "Vatican III" anytime soon.

It is the name Francis that causes my heart to leap a bit, and was probably the chief reason for my tears.  If this pope does nothing else but embody each day the words of the Prayer of St. Francis, there just may be a great deal of hope for his pontificate:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

Habemus Papam.  Let us pray for Francis I, and for the Church.  Amen.

A new Pope, but will it be a new Church?

Once again on Ash Wednesday my thoughts turned to this blog.  Perhaps a seasonal, or just a Lenten blog is all I can manage at this point in my life.  This year, I choose to think of writing here as part of my Lenten reflection.  Perhaps then I won't feel as guilty when it just sits here from the 2nd Sunday after Easter until the next Ash Wednesday.  Ooh, I know!  Maybe it can follow the liturgical year--I'll try to write during Advent, as we approach major holy days...  All things to consider, but for now, let's just stick to Lent 2013.

This Lenten season began with a very stunning announcement, and now we anxiously await the announcement of a new Pope.  The commentary over the last few weeks has been filled with speculation of who the next Pope will be, and analysis of Benedict XVI's decision and what it means for future popes.  One of the more interesting pieces actually referenced the church I attend in Brooklyn, which elicited this response from one of the priests.

I have had many mixed feelings since Pope Benedict announced his resignation.  After watching a beloved pope take us along on the journey of his failing health and his ultimate death, I was disappointed that Benedict wouldn't follow that example, reemphasizing the beauty and fragility of human life.  But as I watched the commentary and speculation, and Benedict's final public appearances as pope, I was struck by the grace it took to say "I am no longer able to be the leader of this Church, and I recognize that the Church is larger than me."

Sure, I'd love to see a more open Church:  one that doesn't demonize and harass our gay sisters and brothers, while protecting that small group of men who have tarnished the priesthood with their crimes against children.  One that looks to women religious for counsel more than it tries to silence them.  One that acknowledges that perhaps the solution to a shrinking number of parishioners in the pews isn't to draw ever more inward but to actually consider the wishes of the laity for more inclusivity.  One that understands that modernizing does not have to mean abandoning tradition wholesale, or the foundations of our faith.

But maybe because it's Lent, I find myself trying for a little more patience in my everyday life, and extending that to my Church, which I continue to love in her fallibility and brokenness as well as in her grace.  If we remember that the first Pope, chosen by Christ, was the very human Peter, who didn't always understand where he was headed or why, but trusted in the Lord to get him there, perhaps we will cut ourselves some slack too.  I'm talking to you, Cardinals--remember Peter as you deliberate, please.

This will be a Lenten season unlike any other in the lifetimes of every living Catholic--we are witnessing a papal transition that hasn't occurred in centuries, and we will have a Pope, and a Pope Emeritus.  I am sure that I am not alone in praying for wisdom and reflection in the choice of the new Pope, and as Catholics have done after every Papal tradition, we will go on, for as I have said many times before, it is we who are the Church.

Happy Lent.  Happy fast.

Pange Lingua Gloriosi

I love Palm/Passion Sunday.  Everything I love about the Church is wrapped up in the celebration on this day: the tradition, the call to reflect on just how the Church came to be, the music (of course, the music!), the sense of joy and pageantry that gives way to recalling sorrow and sacrifice.  Palm Sunday also calls to mind the more challenging parts of the Catholic tradition, as we hear in detail the Passion of Jesus, and the words that have historically separated us from our Jewish heritage and our Jewish sisters and brothers.  It's a day that I can't help but think about why I'm a Catholic, and that has become part of my worship for the day.

Two years ago, I sat in the congregation at The Oratory Church of St. Boniface in Brooklyn, broken and hurting still from leaving my previous church.  The homily that day (click on the March 28 recording) helped me start to heal.  Sitting in the choir loft of that same church this Palm Sunday, now a part of this community in ways I wouldn't have imagined two years ago, I was filled with gratitude that added to my appreciation of this celebration.  For all the things that drive me crazy about the Church and what people assume Catholics do and believe, the priests and the community at Oratory are a huge part of the balance that keeps me coming back.  We are the Church, the people.  The Church is imperfect because we are imperfect, and yet we keep striving to be worthy of God's love, sometimes forgetting that He loves us despite our imperfection.  I love that we as Church keep trying to be better.  I found such a great example of that in the back of our program for Mass this Palm Sunday, in a letter from the Ecumenical and Inter-faith Commission for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, which I'm excerpting here:
The readings for this sacred time, while spiritually inspiring, present us with an important homiletic task.  In the past these readings were often chosen to legitimatize anti-Semitic rhetoric and behavior on behalf of some Christinas which caused suffering for the jewish Community and betrayed the emaning of the mission of Christ.
This was followed by this quote from Nostra Aetate rejecting anti-Semitism and persecution:

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.
Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.


So much food for thought.  Walking home from Mass, with Brooklyn in full bloom, I begin this Holy Week actually a little sad that Lent is coming to a close, but looking forward to another week of reflection, and music.

Pange, lingua, gloriosi

Corporis mysterium,

Sanguinisque pretiosi,

quem in mundi pretium

fructus ventris generosi

Rex effudit Gentium.

Catholics and politics, 1960, 1928, ...

Just wanted to quickly link to a couple of pieces that remind us of the history of Catholics in the US, especially since Kennedy's speech is getting a lot of attention recently:

John F. Kennedy speaking to Protestant ministers in Houston, TX

Reflecting on Al Smith and a time when Catholics were definitely "the other"

And from New-York Historical Society's library blog, this interesting little nugget:

In the mid 18th C New York City convulsed with anti-French and Catholic paranoia. A palisade was built on its northern edge to slow any invading force from Quebec, while dozens of slaves recently imported from Catholic islands in the Caribbean were executed. Irish malcontents were persecuted, and a Latin teacher was burned at the stake. You can see gallows and a fire pit just outside the palisade in David Grim’s map showing the city as it was in the 1740s.  Call number: M2.1.1

If I were a boy: learning how to be female and Catholic

This week's post is something I've been working on for awhile.  It could fit anywhere, but with so much discussion recently about Catholics and what we believe, and the particular focus on women in the church, I'm taking the liberty of posting this now, even though it continues to be a work in progress as I wrestle with being a faithful female Catholic.

Come on, Catholic sisters, think for a moment with me.  When did you first realize that there was a limit to what you would be able to achieve within the church?  Did it strike you as just part of the whole Catholic package:  two fast days, seven sacraments, unmarried clergy, and tradition, tradition, tradition?  Or did it really piss you off?

Guess which option I chose.

I guess I knew, on some level, for some time, that women had a particular role in the hierarchy of the Church, but it didn't become crystal clear until I was preparing for confirmation.  I remember my middle school years fondly, and I learned so much about myself, and life, the universe, and everything.  Yep, read those books during that time.  A lot of the questions I would wrestle with well into adulthood were formed during the year leading up to my confirmation, and the budding Catholic feminist began to emerge as well.

Picture it:  1978, Huntsville, Alabama.  My confirmation class had the opportunity to ask our parish priest questions, and since our church was in the process of prohibiting girls from being altar servers, we figured this was a golden opportunity to ask why.  I will never forget the answer, though I can’t even remember the priest’s name (let’s call him “Fr. Joseph”):

Why can’t we have altar girls?

Well, being an altar server can be a step to the priesthood.

So why can’t women be priests?

Insert appropriate look of pity and condescending tone here.  I truly believe that “Fr. Joseph” felt he was giving us an “enlightened” answer:  “Girls, men are not as morally strong as women.  Seeing a woman on the altar as a priest might cause many men to have impure thoughts, which could lead them to sin.  It’s best not to have that temptation there.”  And I remember him laughing, with a "what are you going to do" gesture; he may have even thrown up his hands in mock surrender.

So this “Fr. Joseph” assumed:

• No man could resist sexual thoughts about a woman, clothed head to toe in a shapeless robe, proclaiming the Gospel, delivering homilies, and consecrating the Eucharist.
• Women NEVER have impure thoughts about male priests, not even the young, hot, sexy ones.  He obviously wasn't reading The Thorn Birds, though some of us girls certainly were.
• This explanation would make us feel BETTER about being women in the church.

I remember that day being a turning point in my thinking about the church.  Even though our confirmation teacher tried to soften what the priest had said (something about tradition and being a man, so what did we expect?), I had made up my mind about my future in the church:

• I would be confirmed because it would make my mother happy.
• Once I was officially an adult in the church, I would make my own decisions about whether or not I would continue to go.  Okay, I stuck it out through high school, but it was totally up to me by college.
• I would never, ever take what a priest said as unquestioned truth ever again.
• Being Catholic was no longer a given for me.

I did go through confirmation, and I have remained a Catholic, but this memory has never left me.  How, and why I stayed:  stay tuned!

This week's fast: fasting from indignation

A recent episode of 30 Rock made me crack up but also hit very close to home.  I realized, to my dismay, that on the New York subway, I am Liz Lemon.  And while I still feel morally justified to call attention to the rudeness and incivility riding the rails, seeing it played for laughs gave me a little pause.

Add to that today, the seven-year-old in the backseat reminding me once again, as my righteous road indignation moved perilously close to rage, that yelling at drivers who cannot hear me only upsets me and my passengers.  And to cement the lesson, she quoted a recent commercial aimed at reducing road rage.  When my seven-year-old daughter is the moral role model, it is past time to carefully consider what type of example I am setting.

So I tried a little experiment after dropping my little role model off at school:  for every trigger that usually sets off my moral indignation alarm, I would take a breath and try to concentrate on examples I see of compassion and decency.  Let me tell you, it was not easy.  On the five minute-walk to the subway, there were pedestrians not paying attention to traffic, drivers leaning on horns out of impatience rather than actual danger, and teenagers being, well, teenagers.   I hadn't even gotten to the train platform, which always invites numerous opportunities to question just how people are raised.

But I was determined, and I concentrated on my late grandmother's voice, my touchstone for gentleness, compassion, and calm.  And I saw things that I ordinarily would have missed:  how many drivers actually do stop and waive pedestrians through unregulated intersections, parents (mostly fathers today) showing great love and patience with their toddlers and babies, the woman who not only remembered her iced coffee cup at her feet on the train, but actually took it off the train with her.  I know, I know, simple things, but I was struck by how differently I felt getting off the train today by focusing on these positive examples rather than the examples of incivility that usually drive me crazy.

And I realized, that at least so far today, that I am behaving more civilly myself.  Hopefully, my daughter will be proud.

Here's hoping your Friday fast gives you moments of calm reflection as well.
Peace