IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI

A sound theology and a sound science will both recognize that the law of gravity and the Holy Spirit are one in the same principle. There isn’t a different spirit undergirding the physical than the spiritual. There’s one spirit that’s speaking through both the law of gravity and the Sermon on the Mount.

If we recognized that same Spirit is present in everything, in physical creation, in love, in beauty, in human creativity and in human morality; we could hold more things together in a fruitful tension rather than putting them in opposition and having the different gifts of the God’s Spirit fight each other. What does this mean?

We have too many unhealthy dichotomies in our lives. Too often we find ourselves choosing between things that should not be in opposition to each other and are in the unhappy position of having to pick between two things which are both, in themselves, good. We live in a world in which, too often, the spiritual is set against the physical, morality is set against creativity, wisdom is set against education, commitment is set against sex, conscience is set against pleasure, and personal fidelity is set against creative and professional success.

Obviously there’s something wrong here. If one force, God’s Spirit, is the single source that animates all these things then clearly we should not be in a position of having to choose between them. Ideally we should be choosing both because the one, same Spirit undergirds both.

Is this true? Is the Holy Spirit both the source of gravity and the source of love? Yes. At least if the Scriptures are to be believed. They tell us that the Holy Spirit is both a physical and a spiritual force, the source of all physicality and of all spirituality all at the same time.

We first meet the person of the Holy Spirit in the opening line of the Bible: In the beginning there was a formless void and the Spirit of God hovered over the chaos. In the early chapters of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is presented as a physical force, a wind that comes from the very mouth of God and not only shapes and orders physical creation but is also the energy that lies at the base of everything, animate and inanimate alike: Take away your breath, and everything returns to dust.

The ancients believed there was a soul in everything and that soul, God’s breath, held everything together and gave it meaning. They believed this even though they did not understand, as we do today, the workings of the infra-atomic world: how the tiniest particles and energy waves already possess erotic electrical charges, how hydrogen seeks out oxygen, and how at the most elemental level of physical reality energies are already attracting and repelling each other just as people do. They could not explain these things scientifically as we can, but they recognized, just as we do, that there is already some form of “love” inside all things, however inanimate. They attributed all of this to God’s breath, a wind that comes from God’s mouth and ultimately animates rocks, water, animals and human beings.

They understood that the same breath that animates and orders physical creation is also the source of all wisdom, harmony, peace, creativity, morality and fidelity. God’s breath was understood to be as moral as it is physical, as unifying as it is creative, and as wise as it is daring. For them, the breath of God was one force and it did not contradict itself. The physical and the spiritual world were not set against each other. One Spirit was understood to be the source of both.

We need to understand things in the same way. We need to let the Holy Spirit, in all its fullness, animate our lives. What this means concretely is that we must not let ourselves be energized and driven too much by one part of the Spirit to the detriment of other parts of that same Spirit.

Thus, there shouldn’t be creativity in the absence of morality, education in the absence of wisdom, sex in the absence of commitment, pleasure in the absence of conscience, and artistic or professional achievement in the absence of personal fidelity. Not least, there shouldn’t be a good life for some in the absence of justice for everyone. Conversely, however, we need to be suspicious of ourselves when we are moral but not creative, when our wisdom fears critical education, when our spirituality has a problem with pleasure, and when our personal fidelity is over-defensive in the face of art and achievement. One Spirit is the author of all of these. Hence, we must be equally sensitive to each of them.

Someone once quipped that a heresy is something that is nine-tenths true. That’s our problem with the Holy Spirit. We’re forever into partial truth when we don’t allow for a connection between the law of gravity and the Sermon on the Mount.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

On Ordinary Times
By Lucia A. Silecchia

Perhaps this is a luxury I can enjoy because I am not a pilot, a seafarer or a driver on winding country roads. For those such as these, the inability to see in the distance is not a welcome treat.

But, when I wake up in the morning, look out my seventh story window and see a milky dew fill the air, it brings a special peace. This peace lasts even when I leave home if the streets and sidewalks are still shrouded with early morning mist.

I think my fondness for fog comes in the way it hides all that lies in the distance and forces me to pay attention, willingly or not, only to those things that are close at hand.

Perhaps I appreciate this because, sometimes there is a wisdom to living life inspired by foggy mornings.
Typically, when someone describes feeling “in a fog” this is meant in the pejorative, as something to be avoided. Yet, there is also a beauty in taking time to gaze only on that which is nearby. So often, it is tempting to spend the day looking into the distance and into the future, rather than focusing on that which is up front and close by.

How often do we listen to someone across the table from us, while thinking about the texts we want to answer? How often do we hear someone speaking while we are busily planning ahead for how we will respond? How often do we greet small children by asking them what they want to be when they grow up rather than enjoying who they are? How often do we watch a play or listen to a concert while our minds wander to what the workday will hold the following morning?

How often do we gaze at the mountain in the distance without seeing the wildflowers that bloom next to us at the side of the road? How often do we pray for the “big” things in life, without seeking God’s sustenance in the daily bread of everyday life? How often do we spend our attention on the important things we plan to do someday, without noticing the little things we can do today? How often is it easier to appreciate the sights we seek a world away than it is to appreciate the highlights of our own hometowns?

I admire those who live with the grace to see the needs of the person before them, know the need to walk with God in the present moment, and do not fail to miss the opportunity to stretch out a hand to help today, not tomorrow.

When a fog rolls in, we have no choice but to live with the distance hidden for a time. Willingly or not, the beautiful and the frightening, the pleasant and the disturbing things that lie beyond are hidden. When those things lie beyond our line of sight, there is nothing to do except to focus on that which is nearby.
Yes, life cannot be lived entirely this way. Planning and keeping an eye to the future have their place and are important parts of responsible adulthood.

Nevertheless, I would still like to live with a lesson from a foggy morning. Sometimes, it is just as important to surrender the future and the far away. Sometimes, it is a gift to gaze only at the blessings and burdens close at hand. Sometimes, it is worth letting the fog roll in to our ordinary time.

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

FOR THE JOURNEY
By Effie Caldarola

Walking through the park on a brisk winter morning, I glance at the parking lot near the playground and notice a colorful van.

I see big letters on its side panel: “Worry First.”

Wait a minute. I look again. Actually, it says “Worry Free,” the slogan of a utility company’s appliance service. I chuckle. I’ve proven something I know about myself all too well. I am a worrier, and I just let my eyes deceive me. Is that my slogan, I wonder, “worry first?”

We all worry. We worry about the future, about all the things that could go wrong. On the one hand, it’s good to be prepared, but worrying is a spiritual problem. A very human one, but a problem nonetheless.
In Wendell Berry’s poem, “The Peace of Wild Things,” he writes of waking in the night “in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be.” How many of us can identify with that?

Nighttime is the perfect incubator of worry.

Berry tells us that he goes into nature when these fears arise, and I believe he’s speaking metaphorically when he writes, “I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the heron feeds.”

His next line is one I have memorized: “I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.”

How much time do we waste taxing our lives with “forethought of grief?” Of all the species in this world, we humans are the only ones who worry about all the “what ifs.” The birds of the air make nests, and they carefully find a spot to protect their eggs from predators. But they are called to this, and they do it naturally and without worry. They live in each present moment.

Once a spiritual director was encouraging me to trust God more. She mentioned Jesus’ admonition (Mt 10:29-31), “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”

I immediately mentioned the birds that would occasionally crash into my plate glass front window. Was God caring for them? My director smiled. They died without worry, she said. No forethought of grief burdened them.

Turning away from worry does not mean our lives will be without struggle, illness, frustration and certain death. Turning away from worry means that in the moment, in each precious and passing moment, we accept the presence of God with us through it all.

In Jesuit Father James Martin’s book, “Come Forth,” about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, he talks about what some psychologists call “catastrophizing,” always focusing on the negative. He gives examples: “a bumpy airplane ride meant that we were crashing … a mildly critical remark from a friend meant that he hated me.”

This thinking the worst, expecting the worst or worrying about every possibility can dominate our lives.
“There’s a reason,” writes Martin, “that they call Satan ‘the Prince of Lies.’ If Satan can get you to focus on only the negatives, you are living a lie.”

Anxiety, another spiritual director told me, means a lack of trust. I was taken aback by this comment, because I know that some people are plagued by genuine anxiety for which they may need medical help.
But for the anxiety that taxes my life, the worry that exhorts payment in wasted time, wasted opportunities and lost sleep, I know that God is the answer. Making the choice in each present moment to not “worry first” is a step on the spiritual journey.

(Effie Caldarola is a wife, mom and grandmother who received her master’s degree in pastoral ministry from Seattle University.)

Guest Column
By Gretchen R. Crowe
As we flip the calendar to 2024, I must admit the thought of the coming 12 months fill me with a certain amount of dread. Entering into another election year, with all of the related political drama, can feel anxiety-inducing, to say the least.
Thankfully, as people of faith, we know that our hope is found not in political parties or their candidates but in Jesus Christ and his church. So, instead of dreading the first Tuesday in November and the inevitably contentious lead-up, here are five events Catholics can anticipate with joy this calendar year.
–The National Eucharistic Congress and related events
In the unlikely off-chance that you haven’t heard, the first National Eucharistic Congress in the United States in almost 50 years will be held in Indianapolis in July. The event will include nationally-recognized speakers, opportunities for worship and Eucharistic adoration, and plenty of time to deepen one’s understanding and love of the Eucharist. The organizing committee has taken several steps to make the event more affordable for families in recent months, including adding the option of purchasing day passes. Leading up to the national event will be four pilgrimages, starting from different points in the country. And parishes will continue planning and holding events as part of the National Eucharistic Revival’s parish year – events that Catholics should make every effort to participate in.

–Synod on Synodality, Part 2
In October, the second part of the two-part Synod on Synodality will take place in Rome. After round one this past October, we have more of a sense of what to expect this year. We also have a synthesis document that we can continue to digest. And we have more ideas of how we might incorporate synodality in our parish communities and in our lives in general. It’s always a good time to listen to and learn from one another, especially within the context of faith, but doing so in 2024 is particularly timely in the life of the church.
–Reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in December
Five years ago this coming April, the world stopped in its tracks as flames devoured portions of the historic and beloved Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. It was an event that brought nations together in sorrow. On Dec. 8, 2024, the world once again will come together – but this time in joy for the cathedral’s scheduled reopening. “Never has anyone alive seen Notre Dame as we shall see it,” Father Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector-archpriest of the cathedral, told OSV News in a recent interview. It’s enough to make you want to book a flight to the City of Light to celebrate.
–10 years since sainthood
On April 27, the church will mark 10 years since the canonization of Sts. John Paul II and John XXIII. This milestone offers us the chance to pause and reflect on these two monumental figures of the 20th century. “They lived through the tragic events of that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them,” Pope Francis said at the canonization Mass. “For them, God was more powerful; faith was more powerful – faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history; the mercy of God, shown by those five wounds, was more powerful; and more powerful too was the closeness of Mary our Mother.” This year is the perfect time to grow in devotion to these two saints who made such an impact on the church.
–A new jubilee year
Finally, the start of the 2025 ordinary jubilee year, a time of great grace for the church, will begin on Dec. 24, 2024, with the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. Pope Francis has asked that Catholics worldwide prepare for the jubilee year by studying the documents of the Second Vatican Council, especially its four constitutions. The pope has also asked that Catholics enter into a year of preparatory prayer in 2024. To that end, forthcoming from the Dicastery for Evangelization will be an “in-depth series” called “Notes on Prayer” that will promote “the centrality of prayer, personal and communal,” according to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect for the dicastery.
We might be facing a contentious election season this year, but we can never forget how much we have to look forward to. May your 2024 be filled with joy.

(Gretchen R. Crowe is the editor-in-chief of OSV News.)

On Ordinary times
By Lucia A. Silecchia
Many years ago, I stopped at the supermarket for groceries on my way home from work. The gentleman who rang up my order said, “that will be nineteen eighty-nine, miss.” I ran my credit card through the terminal, authorizing the charge of $19.89.
It was then that the cashier said, either to himself, or to me, or to both of us, or perhaps only to God, “1989. That year …” His voice trailed off and he did not finish his thought out loud. If there had not been a lengthy line behind me, I might have stopped to ask him what it was about 1989 that crossed his mind. In retrospect, I regret that I did not – even if that would have roused the ire of other shoppers in a hurry to be on their way.
That cashier has crossed my mind from time to time since that day long ago. I have wondered what was on his mind as he thought back on that one year of his life, a year that obviously made a deep impression on him. The year 1989 may have been a good year, but the look that crossed his face led me to believe, instead, that it was a year that held sorrow in his life. I will never know. That grocery store closed years ago.

Yet, as a new year dawns I have thought of him again. All of us likely look back on certain years that have been pivotal in our own journeys through this life. Perhaps they were years of immense joy when we celebrated the births of loved ones, marriages that expanded our families, accomplishments achieved, and dreams come true. However, it is also possible – perhaps even likely – that some of the most pivotal years in our lives were those that held a measure of sorrow. Perhaps the death of a loved one, the dashing of a hope, the fading of a dream or the limitations brought on by illness made a particular year a turning point.
Now that 2024 has begun, none of us know what it will hold – for us as individuals, for those we love or for the human family. Some of us begin the year anticipating this will be a momentous year. Those whose calendars hold plans for graduations, weddings, ordinations, job changes or moves are likely to look back at 2024 as a year when life changed in a dramatic way.
Yet, at the dawn of a new year it is impossible to predict all of the unanticipated, unplanned and, yes, ordinary moments that will be less dramatic but no less profound pivot points in our lives. It is these that so often are the things that change our lives in ways we cannot yet know.
It may be a seemingly random conversation or chance encounter with a stranger that changes the course of our lives. It may be a decision to forgive another or ask forgiveness that sets a new path for a future. It may be reading a book recommended by a trusted friend or hearing a word spoken in a homily that offers insight into a truth that will shape the rest of a lifetime.
It may be in time “wasted” with the very young or the very old on a random afternoon that gives a glimpse of something we have never noticed before. It may be a glance at an explosive sunset or a sky full of stars that makes us feel small in the best possible way – and in that smallness we get our first true sense of the greatness of God.
It may be an unexpected crisis or loss that we could not foresee – a cross that breaks our heart in a way we never thought possible. And, it may be that same crisis or loss that shows us the strength a broken heart can hold and the deep kindness that dwells in the loving hearts of those who sustain us in sorrow.
When 2024 ends, many of us may look back on it with the same profound reflection as a stranger long ago pondered 1989. I hope, though, that it will not only be the big things that catch our attention this year. Often, it is those things that, at the time, seem most ordinary that leave lasting marks in our lives. So often, I have realized only in retrospect that seemingly little things have changed my life in the most unexpected and important ways.
There is something both exciting and frightening about the start of a new year with all the unknowns that lie ahead. I do not yet know if in the future I will ever say to a stranger, “2024. That year …”
But there is one thing I do know. The start of a new year is the perfect time to repeat a prayer of St. Francis de Sales that I keep in my office, so I see it every day. It pleads “Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day.”
May God bless all that happens in the tomorrows of our ordinary times. Joyous new year!

(Lucia A. Silecchia is a Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Faculty Research at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law. Email her at silecchia@cua.edu.)

IN EXILE
By Father Ron Rolheiser, OMI
When all is said and done, our lives are not all that serene and peaceful. In a manner of speaking, we are always somewhat pathetic. That shouldn’t scare us. Pathetic is not a pejorative term. The word comes from the Greek, pathos, which means pain. To be pathetic is to live in pain, and we all do because of the very way we are made.
You might say that doesn’t sound right. Aren’t we made in the image and likeness of God so that each of us, no matter how messed up our lives might be, carry a special dignity and a certain godliness within us? We do carry that special dignity. However, despite that and largely because of it, our lives tend to be so complex as to be pain filled. Why?

Godliness isn’t easy to carry. The infinite inside us doesn’t easily fit itself into the finite. We carry too much divine fire inside to find much peace in this life.
That struggle begins early in life. To create a self-identity as a very young child, we need to make a series of mental contractions which ultimately limit our awareness. First, we need to differentiate ourselves from others (That’s mom – I’m me); then, we need to differentiate between what is living and what is not (the puppy is alive – my doll isn’t); next, we need to differentiate between what is physical and what is mental (this is my body – but I think with my mind). Finally, and critically, as we are doing all this, we need split off as much of our luminosity we can consciously handle from what is too much to consciously handle. With that we create a self-identity – but we also create a shadow, namely, an area inside us which is split off from our consciousness.
Notice that our shadow is not first of all a looming darkness. Rather, it’s all the light and energy inside us that we cannot consciously handle. Most of us, I suspect, are familiar with the words of Marianne Williamson made famous by Nelson Mandela in his inauguration speech: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
Our light frightens us because it is not easy to carry. It gives us great dignity and infinite depth, but it also makes us pathologically complex and restless. Ruth Burrows, one of the foremost spiritual writers of our time, begins her autobiography with these words: I was born into this world with a tortured sensitivity and my life has not been an easy one. You wouldn’t expect those words from a mystic, from someone who has been a faithful nun for more than seventy-five years. You wouldn’t expect that her struggle in life was as much with the light within herself as with the darkness within and around her. That’s also true for each of us.
There’s a famous passage in the Book of Qoheleth where the sacred writer tells us that God has made everything beautiful in its own time. However, the passage doesn’t end on a peaceful note. It ends by telling us that, while God has made everything beautiful in its own time, God has put timelessness into the human heart so that we are congenitally out of sync with time and the seasons from beginning to end. Both our special dignity and our pathological complexity take their origins in that anomaly in our nature. We are overcharged for life on this planet.
St. Augustine gave this classic expression in his famous line: You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. There is an entire anthropology and spirituality in that single line. Our dignity and our perpetual restlessness have one and the same source.
Thus, you need to give yourself sacred permission for being wild of heart, restless of heart, insatiable of heart, complex of heart and driven of heart. Too often, where both psychology and spirituality have failed you is in giving you the impression that you should be living without chaos and restlessness in your life. Admittedly, these can beset you more acutely because of moral inadequacy, but they will beset you no matter how good a life you are living. Indeed, if you are a deeply sensitive person, you will probably feel your complexity more acutely than if you are less sensitive or are deadening your sensitivity with distractions.
Karl Rahner once wrote to a friend who had written to him complaining that he wasn’t finding the fulfillment he longed for in life. His friend expressed disappointment with himself, his marriage and his job. Rahner gave him this counsel: In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we ultimately learn that in this life there is no finished symphony.
There can be no finished symphony in this life – not because our souls are defective, but because they carry godliness.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher and award-winning author. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

By Joel Stepanek
I have a unique relationship with Mary. Like any mother and son, we’ve gone through ups and downs together. As a child, praying the rosary was often punishment for breaking the rules, usually disobedience against my parents. Not surprisingly, I resented it (though I’ve come to see some humor in that particular punishment for the offense).

As a young adult, the rosary became a comfort as I held it close with shaking hands through some of my life’s darkest and most broken moments. I cherished it.

I also have an image of Mary that was gifted to my wife and me on our wedding day that I meditate on often, yet there are other images of Mary that I find no connection with at all.
Perhaps that is the beauty of Marian imagery – it can speak to many people in many different ways.

One particular image to which I find myself particularly drawn is the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

It might be the story of the image that resonates — a humble farmer encounters Mary and, through his diligence, she offers an image that provides consolation and hope to the Mexican people (and to the world). The preservation of the tilma of St. Juan Diego, upon which that image is imprinted, is miraculous. But what resonates the most is Mary’s appearance, thereon.

She appears in a manner that speaks specifically to the people she is appearing to — not as an outsider, but a mother. The symbols in the image and her complexion are so indigenous to the region to the point that St. Juan Diego initially thought he beheld a native princess. In the initial apparition, Mary even speaks to him in his native language.

This should not surprise. Mary is our mother; by appearing in ways we best comprehend her, she leads us to Jesus.

In this movement of Eucharistic Revival, that can be a profound reflection for us as we gaze upon Our Lady of Guadalupe: Who are we uniquely suited to bring Christ to?

Revival is a grassroots effort; it happens within each one of us. There is no strict formula for revival outside of boldly living our faith and joyfully sharing it with others. And each of us can uniquely point to Christ and speak to specific groups of people. Each of us is a living “inculturation” of Jesus.

Sometimes, I worry that many of us resist publicly leaning into our faith out of fear it will strip away the unique attributes we possess and leave a stale version of what it is to be “Catholic.” But, there is no mold to fit into and no particular icon we need to replicate. There is a deposit of faith upon which we build our lives. Beyond that, we leverage the unique gifts, talents, cultural backgrounds, and experiences that we possess to share that faith with others.

Mary, human and not divine, shows us what the living inculturation of the Gospel looks like by revealing herself as one of the people to whom she appears. Juan Diego doesn’t see an outsider; he sees a mother and trusts her. In the same way, we encounter countless people who might not recognize many expressions of Catholicism – who would find them to seem foreign and “other,” — unless they come from something authentic within us.

We can be a native representation of Christ to others when we live our faith well.

Revival happens in these moments of living inculturation as we fulfill the mission uniquely entrusted to us — and if we all lean into that reality, revival doesn’t become a possibility but an inevitable outcome.

Joel Stepanek is Chief Operating Officer for the National Eucharistic Congress, Inc. and is responsible for guiding the teams that empower and energize the grassroots efforts of the Eucharistic Revival.