Complete the circle
By George Evans
What do we do as we search again to make this a good Lent. Do we pray more? Yes. Do we go to daily Mass? Yes, if possible. Do we give up something? Yes, if its something that’s hard and means a lot to us like cussing, smoking or drinking. Do we treat our spouse, children or grandchildren better. Yes, and now we are getting to the God stuff because of the other stuff.
When we pray more and better in quiet and perhaps with scripture, go to Eucharist daily or at least more frequently, deny ourselves those pleasures we love or are addicted to then the God stuff all of a sudden smacks us in the face.
The reason is simple.  Prayer, sacrament, self denial and discipline purify and open us to allow the God who is always there with his voice calling and arms open to be heard by us and embraced by us. Once we hear him and embrace him then the God stuff automatically follows.
Instead of me, me, me we focus on you, you, you.  Remember Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law though he was tired after a long day and healing the daughter of a foreigner, a Greek woman, Syrophoenician by birth, even though he was trying to go unnoticed when he went to the district of Tyre.  He knew from prayer what his father wanted of him and he responded accordingly and this was his God stuff. And he periodically needed to hear and be touched by his father, just as we do, to keep going in his mission. Should we not do the same and serve and touch the other? Is this not what Lent is meant to be about?
From the first pages in Genesis God’s method is clear. After creating us he gave us a beautiful garden filled with all we needed, nourished and embraced us and gave us the command to take care of this world and the creation he had given us.
He didn’t tell us just to sit back  but rather to “be fertile and multiply,” “to have dominion over all the living creatures.” He used the Cain and Abel story in the best cross examination in Scripture to make it clear that YES, we are “our brother’s keeper.” He repeatedly blessed his covenant people, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Isaiah and the other prophets and after forming them sent them to do the great things in the Hebrew scriptures. It is always His way to love and form his people and then to send them to do the great leads of the Covenant. It always is a matter of coming to him and then going from him to bring him to others, to the world.
Jesus comes from the Godhead itself formed from all eternity in his relationship to his Father and brings to us the very life of that relationship.  Jesus goes from the Father and touches as many people as possible in his relatively short time on earth. But he touches them in such an extraordinary way by his life and Resurrection that the world is forever changed.
Time and dates are based on his short life. His disciples came to him after being called, and formed by him proceeded to bring him to the ends of the earth as commanded in the Great Commission, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.”
Lent then is that special time when  we come again to Jesus and the Father with renewed emphasis on prayer, sacrament, self denial and openness to the Spirit who is the love of the Father and Son, and touched as we will be by their embrace then we go to bring them to all nations starting with every person we meet in day to day life.  We go to spouse, children, grandchildren, co-workers, friends and even enemies. And we take Christ with us to all.  And when we do, the great surprise is that we see Christ in each of them.
We go to the poor, homeless, beggars, widows, orphans, aliens – we go to all and we meet them in our  everyday life, not in some foreign country, and we serve them. We take Jesus with us because we have been formed by him and have been made strong enough by him to serve and we let him act through us as his hands and feet.
And finally our serving brings us  great peace and union with him, maybe for the first time. With the resurrection on Easter as we are touched with a glimpse of eternity arm and arm with our brothers we have served.
(George Evans is a pastoral minister at Jackson St. Richard Parish.)

Word on Fire
By Father Robert Baron
Many atheists and agnostics today insistently argue that it is altogether possible for non-believers to be morally upright.  They resent the implication that the denial of God will lead inevitably to complete ethical relativism or nihilism.  And they are quick to point out examples of non-religious people who are models of kindness, compassion, justice, etc. In point of fact, a recent article has proposed that non-believers are actually, on average, more morally praiseworthy than religious people.
In this context, I recall Christopher Hitchens’ remark that, all things considered, he would be more frightened of a group of people coming from a religious meeting than a group coming from a rock concert or home from a night on the town. God knows (pun intended) that during the last twenty years we’ve seen plenty of evidence from around the world of the godly behaving very badly indeed.
Though I could quarrel with a number of elements within this construal of things, I would actually gladly concede the major point that it is altogether possible for atheists and agnostics to be morally good. The classical Greek and Roman formulators of the theory of the virtues were certainly not believers in the Biblical God, and many of their neo-pagan successors today do indeed exhibit fine moral qualities. What I should like to do, however, is to use this controversy as a springboard to make a larger point, namely that Christianity is not primarily about ethics, about “being a nice person” or, to use Flannery O’Connor’s wry formula, “having a heart of gold.” The moment Christians grant that Christianity’s ultimate purpose is to make us ethically better people, they cannot convincingly defend against the insinuation that, if some other system makes human beings just as good or better, Christianity has lost its raison d’etre.
Much of the confusion on this score can be traced to the influence of Immanuel Kant, especially his seminal text Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. Like so many of his Enlightenment era confreres, Kant was impatient with the claims of the revealed religions. He saw them as unverifiable and finally irrational assertions that could be defended, not through reason, but only through violence. Accordingly, he argued that, at its best, religion is not about dogma or doctrine or liturgy but about ethics. In the measure that the Scriptures, prayer, and belief make one morally good, they are admissible, but in the measure that they lead to moral corruption, they should be dispensed with. As religious people mature, Kant felt, they would naturally let those relatively extrinsic practices and convictions fall to the side and would embrace the ethical core of their belief systems.  Kant’s army of disciples today include such figures as John Shelby Spong, John Dominic Crossan, James Carroll, Bart Ehrman, and the late Marcus Borg, all of whom think that Christianity ought to be de-supernaturalized and re-presented as essentially a program of inclusion and social justice.
The problem with this Kantianism both old and new is that it runs dramatically counter to the witness of the first Christians, who were concerned, above all, not with an ethical program but with the explosive emergence of a new world. The letters of St. Paul, which are the earliest Christian texts we have, are particularly instructive on this score. One can find “ethics” in the writings of Paul, but one would be hard pressed indeed to say that the principal theme of Romans, Galatians, Philippians, or first and second Corinthians is the laying out of a moral vision.
The central motif of all of those letters is in fact Jesus Christ risen from the dead. For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus is the sign that the world as we know it — a world marked by death and the fear of death — is evanescing and that a new order of things is emerging. This is why he tells the Corinthians “the time is running out” and “the world in its present form is passing away;” this is why he tells the Philippians that everything he once held to be of central importance he now considers as so much rubbish; this is why he tells the Romans that they are not justified by their own moral achievements but through the grace of Jesus Christ; and this is why he tells the Galatians that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the “new creation.” The new creation is shorthand for the overturning of the old world and the emergence of a new order through the resurrection of Jesus, the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
The inaugural speech of Jesus, as reported in the Gospel of Mark, commences with the announcement of the kingdom of God and then the exhortation to “repent and believe the good news.” We tend automatically to interpret repentance as a summons to moral conversion, but the Greek word that Mark employs is metanoiete, which means literally, “go beyond the mind you have.”
On Mark’s telling, Jesus is urging his listeners to change their way of thinking so as to see the new world that is coming into existence.  It is indeed the case that Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and agnostics can all be “good people.” In terms of what we privilege today, they can all be tolerant, inclusive, and just.  But only Christians witness to an earthquake that has shaken the foundations of the world and turned every expectation upside down. A key to the new evangelization is the rediscovery of this revolutionary message.
(Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary. He is the creator of the award winning documentary series, “Catholicism”  and “Catholicism:The New Evangelization.” Learn more at www.WordonFire.org.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
A good part of our lives are taken up with daydreams, though few of us admit that and even fewer of us would own-up to the contents of those fantasies. We’re ashamed to admit how much we escape into fantasy and we’re even more ashamed to reveal the content of those fantasies. But, whether we admit it or not, we’re all pathological daydreamers; except this isn’t necessarily a pathology.
Our hearts and minds, chronically frustrated by the limits of our lives, naturally seek solace in daydreaming. It’s an almost irresistible temptation. Indeed the more sensitive you are, perhaps the stronger will be the propensity to escape into daydreams. Sensitivity triggers restlessness and restlessness doesn’t easily find quiet inside ordinary life. Hence, the escape into daydreams.
And what about the contents of those daydreams?
We tend to have two kinds of daydreams: The first kind are triggered more by the immediate hurts and temptations within our lives; for example, a lingering hurt or anger has you fantasizing about revenge and you play out various scenes of retaliation over and over again in your mind. Or an emotional or sexual obsession has you fantasying about various kinds of consummation.
The other kind of daydream we escape into is not so much triggered by the hurts and obsessions of the present moment but takes its root in something deeper, something classically expressed by St. Augustine in the opening lines of his Confessions (a hermeneutical key for his life and our own): You have made us for yourself Lord and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
Simply put, we are over-charged for our lives, given infinite spirits and infinite appetites and put into this world wherein everything is finite. That’s a formula for chronic dissatisfaction. What’s our escape?  Daydreams.
However these second kind of daydreams are somewhat different from the first. They aren’t so much focused on the immediate angers and temptations in our lives but rather are the habitual imaginary lives that we have interiorly fashioned for ourselves, fantasy lives that we play over and over again in our minds the way we might play and replay a favorite movie.
But there’s something interesting and important to note here. In these daydreams we are never petty or small, rather we are always noble and grand, the hero or the heroine, generous, big-hearted, immune from faults, drawing perfect respect, and making perfect love. In these daydreams we, in fact, intuit the vision of Isaiah where he foresees a perfect world, the lamb and the lion lying down together, the sick being healed, the hungry being fed, all restlessness being brought to calm, and God, himself, drying away every tear. Isaiah too fantasied about perfect consummation. His fantasy was a prophecy.  In our earthy fantasies we might not prophesize but we do intuit the Kingdom of God.
With that being said, we still need to ask ourselves: How good or bad is it to escape into daydreams?
At one level, daydreams are not just harmless but can be a positive form of relaxation and a way to steady us inside the frustrations of our lives. Sitting back in an easy chair and sinking into a daydream can be little different than sitting back and turning on your favorite piece of music. It can be an escape that takes the edge off of the frustrations within your life.
But there’s a potential downside to this: Since in our daydreams we are always the hero or the heroine and the center of attention and admiration, our daydreams can easily stoke our natural narcissism. Since we are the center of everything in our daydreams we can easily become over-frustrated with a world within which we are not much the center of anything.
And there’s more: Etty Hillesum, reflecting on her own experience, suggests another negative consequence from habitually escaping into daydreams. She affirms that because we make ourselves the center of the universe inside our daydreams we often end up not being able to give anything or anybody the simple gaze of admiration.
Rather, in her strong words, in our daydreams we take in what we should be admiring. For this reason, among others, daydreams help block us from mindfulness, from being in the present moment. When we are all wrapped-up in fantasy it’s hard to see what’s in front of us.
So where should we go with all of this? Given both the good and bad within our daydreams and given our near-incurable propensity to escape into fantasy, we need to be patient with ourselves. Henri Nouwen suggests that the struggle to turn our fantasies into prayer is one of the great congenital struggles within our spiritual lives. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin shares in his journals that when he was young he struggled a lot with fantasy but, as he grew older, he was able more and more to stand in the present moment without the need to escape into daydreams. That’s the task we need to set before ourselves.
(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX.)

Reflections on Life
By Father Jerome Le Doux
With prayer meeting scheduled for 7:00 Sunday evening, my battery was perhaps only 70 percent recharged from the drain of three Masses and chatter. Three good snoozes only invited a fourth. Furthermore, the acclaimed Schindler’s List was due to show on the All Heroes Channel, and I had not yet seen it.
Encountering me at the wake of Isabell Mesker’s mother, Martin Daley invited me to attend the Sunday evening prayer meeting at the St. Peter Church chapel. “Come if you can!” he pleaded. “Mostly women attend the Thursday meeting, but we men will be at the Sunday evening meeting. We would love to have you.”
He called a couple of days later, then he called again Sunday afternoon to remind me.
This tug of war continued long enough to make me a bit late for the meeting. Upon entering, I laid eyes on a 160-seat chapel brimming with a standing room only crowd of eager, attentive folks keying in on Dan Bradley, a guitar player who sounded for all the world like a somewhat muted James Taylor. Finger work complemented his voice that led a devotional rendering of Alleluia and a medley of sacred compositions.
All was quiet, meditative singing, and, off and on, many hands were raised in thanksgiving and praise, while voices from all around reverently accompanied most of the songs. After a half dozen or so songs, a young lady named Cassie was invited up to sing and then to share a guitar piece. With her strum, strum, strum and at times a thrumpa, thrumpa thrump, she was less polished than Dan, but still good.
Very politely, a handful of folks invited me to move from my standing spot in the rear to a seat somewhere in the nave. I declined until finally I was taken almost by force to the very front right. When Cassie was done, a teen-aged lad next to me was called up to play the guitar and sing. Having accomplished both very well, he returned to his seat and introduced himself as Jim McDonald, grandson of Dan.
Obviously, he came by his musical talents honestly through his grandfather, although his grandfather later told me that he had stopped playing for 20 years until he resumed playing in order to play and sing for his grandchildren. What a loving and pleasant testimony to his grandchildren! Frankly, he sounded professional.
From his up-and-down movement and orchestration of the goings-on, Pat Gorman seemed to be master of ceremonies of the whole prayer meeting. And there I was musing, “I came for a prayer meeting, and here we have a religious concert as an added attraction. As Peter, James and John said on the mountain at the time of the Transfiguration, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here!’”
A mature lady sang “How Great Thou Art” and Pat Gorman sang a couple of songs, one of which he himself had composed. Ted Daley, who had sung delightfully at the wake of Isabell Mesker’s mother, edified us with a baritone selection. Throughout, there were random testimonies and prayers from the congregation about the illness or other problems of relatives or friends of the Irish Travelers.
Though it is understood that all ethnic groups have problems peculiar to their group, the Irish Travelers are people of powerful, expressive faith, of loyalty to their families and friends, and of considerable generosity. It is amazing that I have yet to encounter one person who called or came to beg or borrow. Hitting my bowl of roasted peanuts is the one exception to which everyone – Irish or not – is partial.
Smiling as I say this, I assure you that I have never been enriched by so many calls for confessions, sessions of counseling and impromptu visits as from the Irish Travelers of all ages from teenagers to mature keenagers. It has been an honor to receive visits from a handful to as many as 20 teenagers at a time.
Called to speak toward the end, I noted the close bond between Irish and black music. “’Oh Danny Boy’ is the most famous example,” I told them. Backed by Dan in C, I sang “Danny Boy” a la Jackie Wilson. Then I sang Dottie Rambo’s 1967 soul lyrics to that same Londonderry melody, “Amazing Grace, shall always be my song of praise,” known also as “He Looked Beyond My Fault And Saw My Need.”
All prayer meetings are edifying and inspirational, but, by its sheer size and intensity, this one turned out to be the mother of all the prayer meetings I have attended. Holding hands in conclusion, we formed a power circle that had to be doubled in spots because of the great number. “Lead us in your Our Father!” they asked me expectantly. So, to a sea of smiling faces, we sang the popular “Echo Our Father” that keeps repeating “Hallowed Be Thy Name” after each verse.
“God is love, and all who abide in love abide in God and God in them.”   (1 John 4:16)
(Father Jerome LeDoux, SVD, is pastor of Our Mother of Mercy Parish in Fort Worth, Texas. He has written “Reflections on Life since 1969.)

Millennial Reflections
By Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem
Pope Francis has designated this year as the Year of Consecrated Life. Among other things, it sheds a spotlight on responding to the call to witness and serve those on the margins. In the churches I serve each week we pray for an increase in the number of priests, brothers, sisters, deacons and lay ministers.
Looking back over the years there never has been a lack of dedicated Christians who, by their lifestyle and service, have made an impact on those they reached out to. Sometimes they, and their ministry, go unrecognized. This is understandable since people on the margins are often invisible.
The initial readings for Ordinary Time stress the prophetic tradition. The Holy Spirit calls people to witness and raise the consciousness of people to rededicate themselves and live their lives authentically. The way the readings are paired up we see that John the Baptist and Jesus both come out of this tradition.
From our baptism we receive the Holy Spirit and throughout our lives we may be called to do something significant. For some of us it is religious life, for others it is a focused lifestyle and a specialized service to specific groups. Many religious congregations started out like this. For example, last week we remembered Angela Merici. She may not ring a bell with many of us, but she was an ordinary woman in her day at the end of the 15th century. Moved by the number of street children, especially girls, she got organized and with her companions started to teach these children. She founded a community dedicated to St. Ursula. The Ursuline Sisters made a huge contribution in building up the American Catholic school system. Their  convent in New Orleans is still visited by many in need of a miracle. People know of the Ursulines, but may not know about their founder.
Another example I will cite is Elizabeth Ann Seton, who founded the Sisters of Charity. She was married, raised a family, widowed and wanted to do more. Many, like these two, were ordinary people whose calling evolved into a religious congregation. Not all do.
Dorothy Day is an example. The Catholic Worker Movement, through witnessing a distinct lifestyle, is still a group made up of lay people. The point I am making is that our baptism is the source of our vocation. When you are baptized you become an active member of Christ’s body, and are called to do what he did. The acronym made popular a few years ago, WJJD, (what would Jesus do?) expresses something about our call as Christians, baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ.
Several people close to me died in the last two months, and all were exceptional Christians. Recently I was at the funeral of one whose whole life reflected her Christian faith and passion for social justice. For her, what happened in the community is as important as what happens in the church. She focused her energy on education, and the rights of students in school. She saw the direct link between dropping out of school and going to prison, so she co-founded a local group that affiliated with a national movement to break the cycle of the school-to-prison pipeline. She was particularly focused on policies that pushed kids out rather than kept them in school. She believed that human rights belong to everyone and are rooted in the Gospel.
She was a fighter for children’s rights in school, a parent advocate on Mississippi Families as Allies for Children’s Mental Health Inc. Board and for 12 years she was on the Holmes County School Board. All of this was driven by her Christian faith, her passion for children being treated fairly and her commitment to enacting policies that protected them and improved the schools.
The organizations and coalitions that she founded or cooperated with were strengthened by her unselfish passion for justice. All the money in the world could not make her do what she did. It was a calling, a vocation. She will be sorely missed, but leaves a powerful legacy.
When we look at vocations, how God calls people to do what they do, we need a wide lens. The Holy Spirit is calling people every day, and many answer the call. We need to support, encourage and pray that more hear the call of God and answer it. I will have more to say on this topic as the year progresses.
“The harvest is ripe, pray the Lord to send laborers into the harvest.”
(Father Jeremy Tobin, O.Praem, lives at the Priory of St. Moses the Black, Jackson.)