Out of the depths

More than watchmen for the morning...

It's been a tough winter, and a tougher Lent so far.  A tincture of agere contra  has been prescribed, so I will refrain from listing what has beset and besieged me (frankly much of this I could not blog, though I keep saying I could put it a novel) and merely say that I'm keeping my eyes fixed on the graces, like the watchman for the morning.  I'm hoping to see hope.  Hope is patience with the lamp lit.  Tertullian.

Graces....

Sitting on the floor last night, with a wide-eyed baby in my lap, talking with her young mother about the longing for an uninterrupted night's sleep I had when The Boy was that age, listening to her worries and hopes.

A smudge of violet crocuses on the hillside next to campus.

A pot of bolognese sauce on the stove.

The letter that said The Boy has a place at college next fall. "Good news is enclosed" it said on the front.

Out of the depths, O Lord, I cry to you.
Lord, hear my voice...

Give Me a Word: Abba Paul and a measure of lentils

When I think of lentils and desert fathers, I always think of poet Marilyn Nelson's Abba Jacob and the Theologian:

…the theologian interrupts her first
spoonful of lentils
to lean forward again
and cut off the flow of God.
Reverend Father, she asks,
what is the highest spiritual virtue? Abba Jacob looks to heaven
and groans.
“Humor,” he says.
“Not seriously, of course.”

This is the third in a series reflecting on the desert fathers and mother and the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving written for CatholicPhilly.com.

This column appeared at CatholicPhilly.com on 17 March 2014 and the picture is not Abba Paul -  points for anyone who knows who it actually is.

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“They used to say of Abba Paul that he lived through Lent on a measure of lentils and a small pot of water.” — from the “Apothegmata Patrum,” the sayings of the desert fathers and mothers

By four in the afternoon on Ash Wednesday, I had a headache. I was crabby. I was distracted. I was fasting and I was hungry.

I was sitting though a 90-minute academic lecture on food insecurity in the United States, and if I were not aware enough of what it was like to be hungry when most of the people around me were not, the people sitting on either side of me were relishing the cookies and chips provided as refreshments.

My mind kept wandering from the numbers and maps on the screen to what I would have for dinner. Time and again I dragged my thoughts back from my own hunger to listen again to how so many of my brothers and sisters go without the food they need.

How did Abba Paul the Great manage to get through all of Lent on just lentils and water? Is it easier in a desert where the reminders of scarcity are all around you? Are the temptations quieter when no one is savoring a cookie two feet away? Probably not. It would seem from the advice they gave, that many of the desert fathers and mothers struggled with fasting, too.

As Catholics we are obliged to fast, metaphorically tied to the Lenten practice of hunger. Yet Evagrius, a fourth century desert father known for his sharply practical advice on prayer and the spiritual life, suggests that fasting is not purely a burden, but can free us.

Hunger, Evagrius says, allows us to enjoy even the simplest of food. It also frees our resources to help those for whom hunger is not an occasional spiritual discipline, but a regular physical reality. These resources are not just monetary, but give us eyes open to the subtle signs of hunger around us.

I tend to think of hunger as a personal practice, as something that sharpens my appetite for God, something that strips away excess. But many people, including almost one quarter of all the children in America, do not have the luxury of electing hunger as a spiritual practice. They are simply hungry.

In the midst of one of the richest nations on earth, children go hungry. Here in Philadelphia, children go hungry. Here, in my neighborhood, people are hungry tonight. Not because they are electing to fast, but because as individuals and communities we are unable to free the physical and spiritual resources to feed them.

We heard in the readings on the first Friday in Lent Isaiah’s full-throated and unsparing call for repentance to the Israelites: do not go about wearing of sackcloth and ashes, but instead God desires we share our bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when we see them, and not turn our backs on our own (Is 58:1-9a).

This Lent, I am fasting not for mortification, but for education, to teach my eyes to recognize the hungry people I encounter, and to see clearly what I might do for my brothers and sisters who hunger and thirst. This is the sacred fast Isaiah calls me to, to lavish my food on the hungry. To not turn my back on God’s people.

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To read from Scripture:

Isaiah’s call to the Israelites to fast by sharing what they have in abundance with the poor, that they might repair the breach and restore what lies in ruins. Isaiah 58:6-12 

To pray:

The Magnificat, Mary’s prayer of humility, in which she recalls the promises made by Isaiah and the prophets that the hungry will be fed. The name of this prayer comes from the first word of the Latin version, Magnificat anima mea Dominum, sometimes translated in English as “My soul magnifies the Lord….”

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.

To listen:

Arvo Pärt’s Magnificat



Arvo Pärt, born in 1935, is an Estonian composer of sacred music. His style, which draws strongly from the Church’s tradition of Gregorian chant, is sometimes called mystical minimalism. It is very spare, but with an underlying richness that reminds me of the vast beauty of a desert night sky.

The visuals for this recording are of Philadelphia in the 1950s, and were a potent reminder to me that my Lenten observance is meant to keep me attentive to my neighbor. The text is the Latin version of the Magnificat.

A Parable of Two Men and a Bagel

It was a bitter cold December day in Washington, DC, a couple of blocks from Union State.  A man strode down the street a bagel in his hand, briefcase swinging and the tails of his black wool coat flying.  As he reached the corner, he glanced up at the traffic light, and without breaking stride, tossed his half-eaten bagel into the trash container and crossed the street.

On a bench a few feet away sat a man in a green canvas coat, his hands pushed deep in pockets, his body hunched against the wind.  As the bagel sailed through the air he stood, took two quick steps toward the trash can, reached in, pulled out the bagel, and bit into it.

The light changed and my taxi sailed through the intersection.

So, this isn't a parable at all, though I wish it were.  Would that the hunger so great it drove some one to fish his meal from the garbage was a larger than life metaphor for spiritual hunger, not a present reality.

I wonder now if he sat there everyday, the man in his pea green coat, waiting for the man in his polished coat and tie, and his half-eaten bagel to come by.  Did the man ever notice what happened to his bagel, did he ever notice the man who was so quick to retrieve it?

It's been two years and I can still see these men, the bagel's trajectory toward the trash can, still remember my shock at that first bite of bagel.  I sat frozen in the taxi for the 20 seconds this scene took to play out, and I still wonder what I might have done differently.

Lent is a season of fasting, which surely sharpens my spiritual appetite, but do I read it as a way to test my limits, a way of mortification - a little way of dying to rise again, or does it open my eyes to those whose hunger is not elected as a spiritual discipline?  How many people am I walking by who are starving?  Do I see them? Will I feed them, not with casually thrown food, but with the lavishness that Isaiah calls us to?

And God said to Abram: (Not quite) a Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent

From Coffee with Jesus

I am preaching this weekend, in the way of the Carthusians, with my hands, not my voice.  My homily for the 2nd Sunday in Lent appears in the collection for Cycle A from Homilists for the Homeless: Naked and You Clothed Me.

The first reading is from Genesis (Gn 12:1-4a), where God promises Abram that he will become a great nation.

But what transfixed my attention was not the promise that birthed the Church, but those seemingly innocuous opening words:  "The Lord said to Abram..."

Here is an excerpt:

The author of this passage in Genesis is terse and matter-of-fact, opening with the bald statement: The Lord said to Abram… It is easy to let the eye and ear slide past these words, to consider them a mere frame for what God actually had to say to Abram. Instead, I invite you to stop for a moment and imagine what the experience summed up in that line might have been like for Abram. God spoke to Abram.

Was it a gentle breathing of God’s Spirit, like the small, still voice Elijah heard at the mouth of the cave in the silence after the whirlwind? The barest prompting wafting under the tent flaps in the cool clarity of a desert night. Or was it more like Peter, James, and John’s experience on the mountaintop? The ordinary became dazzling, time collapsed, prophets from the past appeared, and the voice of God left him trembling and prostrate on the ground.

Savor these few, perfectly ordinary words that hold out to us a dazzling gift: in whatever way he chose, God spoke to Abram; indeed, at any moment, and in many different ways, God may choose to speak to us.

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If you want to read the whole homily, send me an email or leave me a message in the comments and I will send you a copy, or you can buy the book:  Naked and You Clothed Me. All the Homilists for the Homeless donated their work, and all the proceeds from the sale of the book go to the poor.

Walking is an art: Review of Chris Lowney's Pope Francis - why he leads the way he leads

Last March 13th, just past 2:30 in the afternoon, I was (presciently) standing in the entry way of a Jesuit retreat house, fishing for my car keys and phone in the depths of my bag where I'd dropped them when I arrived the night before.  I pulled up my phone to see a message from my oldest son  “We have a Pope!"

A quick check of the webs through the tiny portal of my phone revealed that (1) we indeed had a Pope and (2) no one (aside from his fellow Cardinal Electors) knew who.

I had to be back for office hours at 4pm, so there was no retreating back upstairs and finding a spot to wait for the news, so I got in the car and tuned the radio to Philly’s all news station. This far out from the city, it was more static than news, but it was a thread that tied me to what was happening in St. Peter’s Square. At last, the scratchy voice of the Protodeacon made its way from Rome to my car on the Pennsylvania turnpike.

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum;

habemus Papam:
Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum,

Dominum Georgium Marium
Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Bergoglio
qui
sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum.

Who was this man the Holy Spirit had brought us?

My Italian was stretched to the limit (and the static on the radio was no help!), but I thought I had an inkling of what sort of leader we had been given when the newly elected Pope asked us for a favor: “Before the Bishop blesses the people I ask that you would pray to the Lord to bless me – the prayer of the people for their Bishop. Let us say this prayer — your prayer over me — in silence.” The roaring of the crowd ceased, while for a long 20 seconds, they prayed, I prayed, that he might be blessed in the days and years to come. Blessed, as God told Abraham, to be a blessing.

Chris Lowney — once a Jesuit scholastic, then a director for J.P. Morgan, now the head of a large health care organization — has written a book about Pope Francis, once Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and his leadership style:  Pope Francis, Why He Leads the Way He Leads. Lowney’s time in the Society of Jesus gives him an intimate familiarity with the Jesuit way of working.

In the process of unpacking for us the forces that shaped Pope Francis as an effective leader, Lowney gives one of the best short introductions to Ignatian spirituality and the Exercises that I have read, deftly laying out the dynamic of the First Week and sketching the practice of the Examen in three short paragraphs, all without burdening the reader with much of Ignatian spirituality’s specialized vocabulary.

Lowney peppers the text with illustrative anecdotes from people who know the Pope, including former students, and spiritual directees. The stories illustrate Lowney’s points well, but taken together, draw a more three-dimensional and nuanced portrait of Pope Francis than emerges from most of the articles I have read about him. We come to know a man with an acute awareness of his frailties and his strengths, who is steeped in the Spiritual Exercises. Someone who is comfortable enough with the contemplative to ask the crowd to pray over him in silence, humble enough to bow his head before them. We find, too, a man with a sharp sense of humor. “Father,” said the porter of the then rector’s visitors over the phone, “the Daughters of Jesus are here to see you.” Fr. Bergoglio shot back, “Jesus didn’t have any daughters.”

As he stood on the balcony a year ago today, Pope Francis’ first words were also tinged with humor, teasing the cardinals about how far they’d had to go to find a bishop for Rome. But he continued on to reflect on the journey he was undertaking with us, the journey that he desired would bring the joy of the Gospel to Rome and beyond. Lowney’s frames his analysis of the Pope’s approach to leadership around the Pope’s own journey to share the Gospel, from his early years, through his Jesuit training, to his work as a Jesuit provinical, seminary rector, and finally as bishop of Buenos Aires.

It is probably not surprising then that feet provide an enduring image throughout the book, from the Pope’s washing of the feet of the young men and women in a detention center last Holy Thursday to the dirty shoes that Fr. Bergoglio expected to find on his seminarians after a day spent in the barios. Lowney points out Ignatius’ hope that Jesuits would be men with “one foot raised” at all times, always prepared to take the next step, and describes well the training it takes to be ever ready.

My favorite foot image in the entire book, though, is the Pope’s in his response to a young man who wanted advice on his struggle to live a life of faith. Walking is an art, the Pope told him candidly. One that requires you keep an eye on the horizon, one that may bring you to dark and difficult places, one that can best be walked within a loving community of fellow pilgrims. You may fall, but the art of walking isn’t so much staying on your feet as it is the will to get up again. “Have you understood?” the Pope asks, “You won’t be afraid of the journey?”

I hear clearly in Lowney’s book Pope Francis’ missioning of us all, sending us to share the joy of the Gospel, sending us to be with those at the margins, urging us to get our feet dirty walking with each other, reminding us to be instruments of mercy, not forces of judgement. Lowney’s book emphasizes that call, suggesting that we are all called to lead — to serve — on this journey, and responds by suggesting a uniquely Jesuit approach to leadership, one that is predicated on a strong foundation, one that continually renews itself through the examen, and one that is oriented to service, ad maiorem Dei gloriam — to the greater glory of God.

Walking is an art, says Pope Francis. Like any art it requires our hearts be engaged as well as our heads, but I suspect Pope Francis would tell us that in the end it is our hands and our feet that must follow heart and head to bring the joy of the Gospel to the margins. I hope we will not be afraid of the journey.

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Chris Lowney is walking to the margins along with the Pope, half the profits from the book will go to Jesuit ministries to the poor, see www.chrislowney.com for more details. Readers looking for another book project that directly benefits the poor, might check out the Homilists for the Homeless project, to which I contributed, including the homily for next Sunday -- on Abraham’s blessing from God.

The next stop on the tour is Mary Poust’s Not Strictly Spiritual - be sure to visit!

Disclosure, I received a copy of this book to review from Loyola Press.