The first recollection that I am in touch with goes back to when I was about 3. We were living in a flat at 77th and Stewart, more on the Southeast Side of the city than the southwest. I was lying down either on the bed or the floor and two men in uniforms were attending to me. My mother said that they were from Santa Claus to find out what I wanted for Christmas which was coming soon. Actually they were firemen: my mother had called the fire department because of my difficulty breathing with the terrible asthma that I had as a child. She was trying to lessen my fear and calm me down as they administered some treatment to me. My mother was always a source of comfort and assurance.

Another early memory focuses on when I was 5 or 6. It was a Saturday morning, and my brother who is a year and a half older than I was making his first Communion. I was having another episode of severe asthma. Those were days when doctors still visited patients in their homes. The pediatrician came to the house, and said that I had to be hospitalized. A neighbor drove me to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, where I was placed in an oxygen tent for four or five days. Back then oxygen was not administered through a little tube that was placed in your nose; rather, you had to spend time in a plastic tent into which oxygen was administered. It troubled me that my mother and family did not visit me when I was in the hospital those days. I asked her why she did not come to see me, and she said she did every day — but I was always sleeping. After that hospitalization my mother took me downtown for allergy and asthma shots, at times twice a week, usually once a week. At that time we did not have a car; so we had to take buses. One bus was from 79th and California to 77th and Western. Then we got on the Western Avenue bus and took it to Archer. We took the Archer Express all the way downtown. My mother always insisted on getting off the bus first to ensure the safety of my brother and me.

We moved to St. Thomas More in 1951. Before builders began putting up houses, the area was largely farmland. In fact the people in the house two doors down from us actually had a horse that they kept in their garage; they rode the horse around the emerging neighborhood. If we looked out our kitchen windows we could see lights from Western Avenue; if we looked out the front window we could see lights from Kedzie Avenue. My father frequently worked afternoons and nights; when he worked nights my mother was alone overnight with two young boys. When we were young, she would take several cushions off the couch, put them on the floor between my bed and my brother’ s bed, and sleep on the floor. She was trying to calm our fears about being in this little house on the prairie without my father being present.

My mother was a wonderful cook, and over the years cooked thousands of dinners. Late Sunday afternoon dinner was always a sacred time for her and my family. I always noticed that when we ate together, my mother took a very small portion. I sensed that this was not just because she was a small woman; rather she wanted ample food for her husband and sons. Over the years she did the laundry for three males in her life. When my brother and I went to high school, she returned to the work world and became an accountant and a receptionist at various places. Money was always very tight in those days. Before she went to work, I remember that she walked from 79th and Fairfield to 79th and Halsted to pawn her watch for cash. She took the bus back home.

My mother was a disciplinarian. She did not use physical punishment, but could be verbally very challenging. She was always very honest and truthful, and at times those two attributes could really sting. At the same time, she always communicated acceptance toward me. I was not a typical boy: I was not a great athlete. The asthma kept me from running or getting excited. I began to publish a newspaper that I sent to my aunt Kate, my uncle John, my second cousin Mamie Lynch, and my aunt and uncle Pat and Ann Lynch in Davenport, Iowa. My mother always supported and encouraged me in my love of reading and writing.

My mother loved dogs. We had an Irish setter during those asthma years that they had to give away because of my allergies. His name was Bingo. Beginning in the 1970s I bought either my parents or my mother, after my dad died, a series of schnauzers, all of whom were named Bingo. When her third schnauzer died in the summer of 2002, I immediately went out and bought her another Bingo. She loved him from July 2002 to February 2003.

On Feb. 9, 2003, I went to my mother’s home in Tinley Park, for dinner, as I did most Sunday afternoons. She was having difficulty breathing, and I thought she was going into congestive heart failure, a syndrome she suffered from for years, along with arthritis, multiple falls and a broken/replaced hip. As the evening progressed she began to be in more distress; so I called the Tinley Park fire department. They were able to discern that she was very short on oxygen; so we took her to Palos Hospital. As the hospital staff studied her condition, they told my brother and me that she did not have fluid from congestive heart failure but rather a huge mass occupied her chest cavity. Though they would not biopsy it at her advanced age of 95, they said that most likely it was cancer. On Wednesday she went into a coma from which she never awakened. On Valentine’s Day, that Friday, the head nurse told me that she was close to the end. I sat with her and held her hand; and I prayed my mantra prayer — “Father, into your hands I hand over Ma; into your hands, I hand over her life.” I told my mother to go to her parents, to my father, to her deceased sisters. She began to breathe in cadence with my prayer, which I repeated over and over again: “Father, into your hands I hand over Ma.” At 6 p.m., she stopped breathing, and I felt something I did not think I would ever feel regarding her death; I felt great peace — that she was liberated from suffering, and with God who loved her/loves her more than I ever could.

The story of my mother parallels the stories of so many mothers living and deceased. Mothers are examples to the male world and their children of unconditional, self sacrificial love. Mothers teach us the basics: faith, hope, and love. On Mother’s Day, I have always said that this is a day to celebrate all women and the great contribution women make to society, culture and our Church. So whether you have been a mother or not, I am sure that you have had a generative impact on the people in your life. To all women, Happy Mother’s Day! Happy Women’s Day!

We celebrate Mother’s/Women’s Day on the feast of the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. This feast always speaks several messages to me. First, Jesus knew when to leave, when to let go, when to relinquish control. He knew that it would not help his movement if he were to stay around and be the center of attention. Rather, he gave his mission to his followers then and now centuries later. His movement is much more expansive because he gave it away. Jesus modeled the kind of love that mothers display for the children. Jesus and mothers know that love involves not controlling other people, but rather letting go of people that they might become the people God intends them to be.

The feast of the Ascension also celebrates what we believe happened to some of our mothers already and will happen for all of us hopefully — that at the end of our time here on earth, we will go home to be with God and our deceased loved ones in heaven. The feast of the Ascension is about going home to heaven.

This feast reminds us of another truth. As the apostles exhibit confusion and grief in Luke’s account of the Ascension In the Acts of the Apostles, so also when someone physically departs us in death, we experience the multilayered emotions of grief — shock, disorientation, fear, anger, sadness, longing and many other feelings. This past week I communicated with a mother who recently lost her young son. I told her that I pray for her son daily and that I pray for her and her family in their grief. Let us make a part of our daily prayer praying for those who are grieving. If any of us are grieving, we ought not to be too proud to say ouch! And seek the help of God and others.

The group Boyz II Men have a beautiful song entitled Song to Mama. In it they sing,”Mama, you are the queen of my heart. Loving you is food for my soul. You will always be the girl in my life.” Let us make sure that we say such loving words to the significant women in our lives today and everyday.

The Rev. Pat Brennan, a longtime priest, has earned doctorates in pastoral ministry and psychology, and teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola and at the College of DuPage. He is the author of 15 books and co-host of the radio program Horizons for 31 years, now on 560 AM at 6:30 a.m. and 1160 AM at 11 a.m. on Sunday mornings.

Contact: pbrennan@theclareatwatertower.com

Let’s see.

* Praying for peace is a good idea, but for an “end to violence” or even the specific “end to violence in Chicago”? Really? Who is kidding whom?

Praying for that is praying for the end of the world, which will be a wonderful thing, to be sure, what with Jesus returning in glory. His earliest followers prayed for that. But we might add an Augustinian “not yet.”

How about “less violence”? Or “a few less killings on our mean streets”? Something we can take seriously without calling for an end to life as we know it.

* Among social-justice issues, why do we never hear about vote-stealing? Never stole one myself or saw one stolen, at least not since the class-president election at Loyola U. in 1949, when I was sorely tempted. But I read about it and at times work up some blue-ribbon indignation.

Point is, why not expand social-justice discussion to troubles behind the obvious troubles — poverty and the like — into matters like political corruption, which does poor people no good and like everything else affects them most of all. Vast idea there.

* Another vast idea, here barely outlined of course, is whether to reform church language. For instance, we are urged to pray for the deceased who “rests in the loving embrace” of God.

That’s soft language, romance-novel stuff. “May he (or she or they) rest in peace” works nicely — for the Latin “Requiescat in pace,” R.I.P. Do we need this loving-embrace talk? One cringes.

* Finally, something not half-baked, a book from the prolific Russell Shaw, #22 from him — the ambitiously, alarmingly titled American Church: The Remarkable Rise, Meteoric Fall, and Uncertain Future of Catholicism in America (Ignatius Press), in which he makes an extended argument for a church that does not fit in.

He traces a hundred-plus-year-old conflict between Americanizers and difference-cherishers. Orestes Brownson, a lay convert, in 1857 urged extreme caution, declaring “the American character . . . hostile to Catholicity.” His friend Isaac Hecker, a priest and convert, on the other hand considered the nation ripe for mass conversion and founded the Paulists for that purpose.

The trouble with Americans, said Brownson, was their “spirit of independence, aversion to authority, pride, overwhelming conceit,” and anti-Catholic prejudice. Hecker didn’t think so and remained convinced of the benefits the church might gain from American democracy and freedom.

The conflict was won by Americanizers over the next 50 years — very much through the leadership of James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore. But it has persisted. Vatican 2 says something, its “spirit” says another, depending on which camp you’re in, Shaw says. The “spirit” camp predominates, he says, citing widespread embracing by Catholics of the American worldview.

For today’s Americanizers, he says, what matters is less what the council said than the saying itself. It’s a view of the council-as-event that heralds a “new day” of Catholic life and belief.

Shaw is clearly not in that camp. Instead, he wants “an infusion of new thinking and new spirit” — nothing organizational, mind you — urging Catholics to adopt a beseiged if not seige mentality as regards the America around them.

Everybody has a vocation, he proclaims, lay people especially. Each is to imitate Jesus “by the crucifixion of the flesh . . . daily acts of mortification” and by these and other actions is to abandon oneself “into the hands of a God whose love is a living flame.”

How many buyers he gets for that package is anybody’s guess. But there it is, for him or her to take if he or she can take it.

By Jim Bowman

He was religion editor for The Chicago Daily News, 1968 to its closing in 1978, and since then has written many books and articles, including his Bending the Rules: What American Priests Tell American Catholics (Crossroad, 1994). He blogs at http://blithespirit.wordpress.com/ and elsewhere. www.jimbowman.com has the links. Jim Bowman’s Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968, is available at www.lulu.com.

Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com

It is wrong, therefore, for me to claim that Augustine did not hold this, as Barron proves with one quotation from Augustine: “The bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the Word of God, is the Body of Christ.” That is produced as proof of what Barron (and Thomas Aquinas) mean by the words. He does not allow Augustine to say what he meant. That is made clear from many passages I quote, beginning with this address to his community: “It is your symbol that lies on the Lord’s altar – what you receive is a symbol of yourselves.” (Sermon 272) For him the key Eucharistic passage from Scripture is Paul’s: “We are one bread, one body, many as we are” (I Corinthians 10.17).

The bread is a visible symbol (“what you see”) of the body it nourishes, the church. The symbol is eaten, not the substance – not Christ, not even the Church. The church is subsuming the symbol, not subsumed by it: “The visible is received, eaten, and digested. But can the body of Christ be digested? Can the Church of Christ be digested? Can Christ’s limbs be digested? Of course not.” (Sermon 227). Augustine goes to great lengths explaining the symbol of the church as bread – how it is gathered from many grains, kneaded, moistened, baked, all symbols of Christ’s members being gathered, baptized, fired by the spirit (Sermon 227).

That the bread was a symbol, not a body, was clear when Christ offered it to the disciples at the Last Supper. If what he gave them was his substance under the accidents of bread, what was under the accidents of his body as he offered it – bread? Was bread under the accidents of Jesus’ body offering his real substance to them under the accidents of bread? Was it, then, bread that was crucified under the accidents of Jesus? The idea is so far-fetched it took centuries for people to cook it up, with help from pseudo-Aristotelian definitions of substance and accidents.

The words of Augustine are plain. This is not my view. It is the view of the most respected Augustine scholar of our time, Peter Brown of Princeton, who wrote me that he agrees Augustine did not recognize any “real presence” in the bread (he also tells me he taught his most recent course on Augustine’s Confessions from my translation of the book). So Peter Brown must also be “preposterous.” We are not allowed to read the actual words in their actual context. We must read history backward, the method that trumps all earlier evidence.

As with transubstantiation, so with the priesthood. We now have priests, and bishops, and popes, so they must always have been there, though there is no evidence for them in apostolic times. If they seem lacking, we just supply them from our end of a magic backward-telescope that not only magnifies distant things, but creates them. There are no Christian priests in the Gospels or Paul’s letters, no mention of a hiereus to offer a sacrifice. Paul mentions over a dozen ministries of the Spirit in the communities he addresses (readers, healers, prophets, exorcists, etc.) but none is a priest, a sacrificer, or a governor. In fact, Jesus told the disciples not to hold rank over one another (Mark 9.33-37), and not to be governors (“Do not be called father, you have one Father in heaven,” Matthew 23.9).

It is true that he specially commends one disciple, Peter, but for one quality, because he loves more (John 2115.17). It is the reason he singles out the prostitute of Luke 7.47: “her sins, many as they are, are forgiven because she has loved much.” The context is the same. Peter is asked three times if he loves Jesus because he has, in the same Gospel, denied him three times (John 18.16,24,27). Jesus is forgiving a great sinner because of his great love, just as he did the prostitute. All he asks in return is “Feed my sheep” (21.15-17) – a call to service, not to rule. Christ founded his church on love and forgiveness, not on pride in office. There was no office of Rome’s bishop in Peter’s time, as eminent Catholic scholars like Raymond Brown have long confirmed. But of course, as everyone knows, Raymond Brown was simply preposterous.

For fact checkers: Raymond Brown and John Meier, Antioch and Rome
(Paulist Press, 1082, pp. 164, 215-16).

This guest column was written by Garry Wills, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Northwestern University professor.

Posted by ChicagoCatholicNews.com
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com

“I want to assure you that I and the people of the Archdiocese of Chicago will be praying for all those who died and were injured in this tragedy, along with their families, friends and neighbors,” George wrote to Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, according to a copy of the April 16 letter posted on the Archdiocese of Chicago web site.

Here’s a full copy of the letter:

“Your Eminence:
Like so many people throughout the world, I was shocked and deeply saddened upon hearing of the bombing that occurred yesterday afternoon near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. This terrible and senseless act, which killed and maimed and injured many innocent people, and disrupted the peace and security of so many more, reveals an utter disregard for the innate dignity of human life. In a particular way, our hearts ache for the families and for the people of Boston, who have been devastated by an act of such shocking violence, and I offer you my deepest sympathies.
As you well know, at times like this, when even our most profound expressions of condolence fall short, the only words that can genuinely bring healing are those we lift up to the Lord in prayer. I want to assure you that I and the people of the Archdiocese of Chicago will be praying for all those who died and were injured in this tragedy, along with their families, friends and neighbors. May the Lord bless all of you with His consolation and strength, particularly the emergency responders, medical personnel, and others who are coming to the aid of victims and seeking to bring to justice those who were responsible for this crime. Please do not hesitate to let me know if there is anything else we can do to help.
Fraternally yours in Christ,
Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.
Archbishop of Chicago”

Compiled by ChicagoCatholicNews.com
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com

“And yet, just the other day I read that some quarters of the Church are not particularly pleased. Some, with their own unique liturgical agenda, are disappointed that he may not continue to push for the reform of the reforms set in motion by Vatican II. Some others are aghast that he would wash the feet of two “women” on Holy Thursday. A few others are disappointed that he has adopted a simpler liturgical style, often breaking with protocol. He has worn simpler vestments at Masses and his pectoral cross is a break from the ornate, solid gold crosses carried by his predecessors. His fisherman’s ring is much more frugal. Certain individuals and groups have expressed their disapproval.

“I was frankly quite irked by these stories and I intend to express my honest reactions in this column. Most of these negative reactions have come from the right side of the ideological spectrum and usually these individuals and groups consider themselves to be “more faithful.” It is unfortunate that this happens in the Church more often than we care to admit as these criticisms come from both the liberals and the conservatives. These attempts to be critical of the Holy Father or to disapprove his words or actions spring from a lack of understanding of the true meaning of Church and border on arrogance. Let me explain myself.

“In the column I wrote just prior to the conclave I invited all of us to embrace the candidate that would be elected, no matter where he came from and no matter what his theological leanings might be. There is always the temptation – both on the right and the left – to pick and choose whom we will support and follow. We tend to support those leaders who align themselves with our own ideology. As a result, we dismiss others who disagree with us. Both progressives and conservatives in the Church have claimed that in those periods of the Church’s history when the Church moved in an unacceptable direction – in their estimation – the Holy Spirit took a vacation.

“The Church is not yours or mine. She is the Church of Christ. He never abandons her. The election of Pope Francis is an extraordinary manifestation of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When Cardinal George was speaking to us last Tuesday just before the Chrism Mass he told us that the Pope’s election was a surprise. I believe that the more surprising the result of a conclave is, the more actively the Spirit is present in the choice. Pope Francis has the guidance of the Spirit more than any other individual or group in the Church today. The Holy Spirit does not take a vacation from the Church at certain times of her history. He is actively present at all times. Besides, when someone is chosen to carry out a special office in the Church, God gives him the particular grace of state. In other words, God provides the necessary graces to enable the individual to carry out his ministry effectively and capably. Now that the burden of authority has fallen on Pope Francis’s shoulders, we cannot second-guess his actions or decisions. Therefore, as the faithful, we need to follow him and not doubt him. He needs our obedience and not our disapproval.

“These less than positive reactions also betray a certain amount of arrogance. In choosing to stand in judgment over the Supreme Pontiff – whether we are on the right or on the left – we claim to know better than the one whom the Lord Himself has chosen to guide the Church. In the process we are posing ourselves as the final arbiters of the truth. This is the trap that individuals and groups fall into when they are blinded by their ideology and pet ideas. All of us must submit ourselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and go where He leads us. On this journey of discernment the Holy Father plays the principal role of taking us in the right direction. Only to Peter and to his successors did the Master say, “To you I give the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” In utter humility let us seek to go where the Lord leads us. To find out where we need to go, let us heed the call of the Bishop of Rome.

“Let us continue to pray for Pope Francis. May the Lord guide him and give him all the graces he needs to carry out his delicate task!”

– The Rev. Britto Berchmans, St. Paul of the Cross‘ April 7 church bulletin, Park Ridge

Compiled by ChicagoCatholicNews.com
Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com

George argues that you can’t rest on your personal encounters with the numinous: “People can always make claims to any kind of experience . . . . The faith-filled person is sure of God and distrustful of himself. Unlike faith in God, experience is often wrong in religious matters.” He makes the overall point that Christianity means binding oneself to a community gathered around the Lord, a real person who truly rose from the dead and who makes claims on us. This is neither unreasonable nor objectionable.

What concerns me is an underlying dismissive attitude, which sincere seekers and principled religious refugees will find none too endearing. George says things like: “The question is always: Who cares? Why should anyone care where someone else gets a spiritual high?” Really, that’s always the question? See also: “the claim to be spiritual but not religious is always safe.” Or: “They prefer a Christ who is safely an idea in their minds, made in their image and likeness.” Or: “spiritual tingle.”

Vocal critics of the spiritual-but-not-religious, like the cardinal, often share a certain attitude about them: deep down they are just pursuing the next sensation, willfully adrift but not admitting it. They might want God, but do not want God to speak; they want a down comforter, but no alarm clock. They shy away from the hard work of transcending our culture, which chooses among ultimate concerns the same way it chooses among hand-held Apple devices and accompanying apps.

Therefore the onus is on spiritual-but-not-religious folks to break their selfishness, to prove they can submit to something external. Their complaints about the church actually justify the church. They merely highlight how the church’s demands, which coincide with God’s demands, are foreign to a lifestyle of ever-changing whims.

But consider: many of these folks come from the church in the first place, and were originally as immersed in it as anyone. Many of them found it an unhealthy, dysfunctional community. They got pushed around, watched others get pushed around, were told in ways both subtle and overt that some people were not good enough for a real welcome. Ask for their stories. You will get many of them.

Many spiritual-but-not-religious folks concluded that Christianity did not make Christians any better than they would have been otherwise. Fairly or not, they sensed that the phonies, to borrow from J.D. Salinger’s archetypal alienated observer Holden Caulfield, were practically climbing in the window. And having become allergic to suffocating piety, they excised the allergen.

Near the end of his column, Cardinal George writes that mature believers confirm their faith by going to Peter’s successor, Pope Francis. So maybe we should ponder some observations Jorge Mario Bergoglio made to his brother cardinals shortly before they gave him the job. From Bergoglio’s notes: “When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick. . . . The evils that, over time, happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in self-referentiality and a kind of theological narcissism. . . . The self-referential Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him out.”

We church people exalt ourselves. We build walls and moats. We make people run away. We very much helped create the apathy and commitment-phobia that now so troubles us.

Justin Sengstock is a contributor to the books Hungering and Thirsting For Justice: Real-Life Stories by Young Adult Catholics and An Irrepressible Hope: Notes from Chicago Catholics, both published by ACTA in fall 2012. He writes about church and society at http://ivstinvs.wordpress.com and cross-posts much of his content at Young Adult Catholics. Justin works at Call To Action, has a theology degree from Loyola University Chicago, and lives in the south suburbs.

Jesus was a prophet of great moral courage. He taught and lived moral principles that caused him personal danger. He nonetheless endured in speaking and living his convictions. He did his prophetic ministry up against two domination systems, that oppressed poor Jewish people economically and politically, while justifying the oppression theologically. The two domination systems, the Roman government and organized religion of the time, were actually in collaboration with each other oppressing the people.

As Jesus’ conflict worsened with the two systems, his apostles and disciples grew more diffident and weak in their faith in him. They seemed to fall into a pragmatic cynicism, misunderstanding Jesus. They became failed disciples. As the faith of Jesus’ followers weakened, antagonism with the political and religious leaders worsened.

He was betrayed by Judas, as Judas apparently tried to save himself from being killed with Jesus. Peter denied that he knew Jesus. After Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane, he was abandoned. At times he experienced what St. John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul” — at times he felt that even his Father had abandoned him.

Throughout the first Holy Thursday night and the morning and afternoon of Good Friday, Jesus suffered alone except for the presence of his mother, some women, and John, the beloved disciple. Often crucifixions lasted for days. The Romans used this awful capital punishment to intimidate the Jewish people into submission. The fact that Jesus died in a matter of hours suggests that he had been terribly abused by those who captured him.

Despite the awful suffering of his crucifixion, right before Jesus died, St. Luke in chapter 23 of his gospel, reported that Jesus said: “Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit . . . Into your hands I hand over my life.” After he prayed those words of Psalm 31, Jesus died. The Gospels teach us that despite the awful suffering that Jesus endured, he ended his life with a total expression of trust in and surrender into his Father. His dying words were a fitting conclusion to his three years of preaching, teaching and living the Reign of God. I believe that Jesus knew he would go on beyond his death. His expression of “. . . Into your hands . . .” was, in fact, the beginning of his Resurrection, which became fully manifest on Easter Sunday morning.

We hear on Easter in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles a clear evangelical proclamation of the good news of Easter. Peter speaks in this passage what is called the keryma, the kernel, the core truth of our Easter faith. In John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene is the first follower of Jesus to experience the empty tomb. She ran to Peter and the beloved disciple to tell them about the event. In the ongoing reversal of expectations that was part of the ministry of Jesus, he chose a woman to become the apostle to the apostles. Peter and the beloved disciple ran to the empty tomb. The beloved disciple out of respect for Peter did not go in first, though he had arrived first. After Peter entered the tomb, the beloved disciple did also. In this part of the story, the beloved disciple does not just represent the apostle John. Rather, he represents all of us, loved by Jesus, who despite the many years since the resurrection, come to believe in the truth of this mystery.

At Holy Family Parish, in Inverness Illinois where I served for 17 years, we had a very unique cross. It was very large and made of acrylic. It depicted Jesus rising to new and eternal life from the cross. With this cross, the two mysteries of death and resurrection were not separated; rather one led to the other. We called the cross The Cross of New Life because it depicted Jesus passing from death to Resurrection. We also made sure that the hand of Jesus, extending down into the community, had the wound of the nail. Even when Jesus rose from the dead he was still wounded. So it is with all of us, when we experience the mystery of the cross: God leads us to new life, but we nonetheless are still wounded.

Some of you know that I have a doctorate in psychology. Perhaps what some of you do not know is that most of my life I have suffered from anxiety and depression. These two crosses led me into years of counseling and psychotherapy, for myself. I also had a very significant spiritual direction relationship with a priest; that relationship radically changed me.

This tendency towards anxiety and living with an edge of sadness is episodic; it comes and goes. Both problems have been significant this Lent. As I try to understand what is going on and gain insight into myself and my life, I think that I have been grieving the multiple changes in my life: in my relationships and ministerial assignments, for the past four years. I think I have been experiencing the disorientation, sadness and apprehension of letting go, grieving, and trying to start over.

In that significant spiritual direction relationship that I had some years ago, the priest that I was seeing always ended the appointment with those dying words of Jesus on the cross: “Into your hands we commend our spirits; into your hands, we hand over our lives.” I found myself beginning to use those words as a mantra, especially when I felt anxious or sad. When I prayed them from my heart, and timed them with my breathing, a great peace would come over me. The prayerful words had a greater impact on me than the counseling I was going through. I came to understand that that priest was teaching me the trust and surrender that Jesus had as he died on the cross. I began to understand that, as with Jesus, when we have cross experiences, we are already on the way to new life and Resurrection. I have built my life and my faith on that conviction. When I have difficult times like I have been having recently, I continue with that mantra, and the painful feelings that I am feeling begin to lift. So has Lent been difficult for me this year? Yes! But I also believe that I have been rising to new life; and I can feel that very really when I surrender to the experience of the cross and belief in Resurrection and new life.

I believe that God is always with me, with us, when we carry or experience crosses. He invites us through the cross to new life, and he will invite us through the cross of physical death to eternal life. This is what the Paschal Mystery is all about. Paschal means passage. With Jesus, we are always in passage to new life and eternal life. With the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, and trusting in the love of God for each of us, we can grow in the spiritual strength that we need to carry and to pass through crosses.

Catholic tradition says that Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter are really one liturgy. In saying that, we are saying there is one mystery, the mystery of life, death and resurrection. Jesus went to Jerusalem to reveal this mystery to us, and ultimately to defeat the evil of all domination systems. So even now, if there is some edge of sadness in our lives, if we are carrying the cross, we are called to trust the Paschal/passage process that Jesus and Easter reveal to us.

As Jesus had predicted, Abba raised him from the dead. He was the same Jesus; his identity was intact. But he was transformed: he had a glorified body no longer subject to the laws of time and space. In his apparitions, he was briefly seen; and then he would disappear. As I said earlier, though risen, he still bore the scars of his suffering.

This Easter Sunday and season, we celebrate the fullness of the Paschal mystery — the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus. During this season we are frequently reminded of the importance and centrality of baptism. Paul talks about this in the reading from Colossians today. He says that through baptism we were raised with Christ, that we have died; and one day we will be with him in glory. Through baptism we were immersed in the mystery of life, death and Resurrection. We have been living this ministry since we were baptized. In different ways, we recurrently have moved through death experiences to experiences of new life. We are convinced that this Paschal process will continue on to the other side of death. We then will move from new life in Christ to eternal life, through God’s grace and mercy.

I heard a public speaker recently say that happiness is not as important as finding meaning in our lives. Perhaps another way of looking at that is that the discovery of meaning leads to happiness. Victor Frankl started a whole school of psychotherapy that he called Logotherapy, in which the therapist strives to help the client discover meaning. Easter is a celebration that all of life, its joys and struggles, has meaning because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. With the meaning that the Paschal Mystery brings to us, we can face and get through anything.

At this time of year I am always reminded of the words of an old evangelical, spiritual song: Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. And I know he holds the future; and life is worth the living — just because he lives. Happy Easter!

The Rev. Pat Brennan, a longtime priest, has earned doctorates in pastoral ministry and psychology, and teaches at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola and at the College of DuPage. He is the author of 15 books and co-host of the radio program Horizons for 31 years, now on 560 AM at 6:30 a.m. and 1160 AM at 11 a.m. on Sunday mornings.

Contact: pbrennan@theclareatwatertower.com

(POSTED: 4/1/13)

Like other groups, United Power backs legislative curbs on guns. Specifically, it supports in Congress the Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act (S-54) and the Fix Gun Checks Act (S-374). In Illinois it supports an amendment to Firearm Owners ID Card Act (HB-1143, SB-1171) and supports the Prevention of Gun Trafficking Act (HB 2592).

The United Power campaign, however, has a unique strategy. United Power assumes gun manufacturers and gun retailers can be allies in the campaign. United Power will ask businesses—large and small—to pledge their support in helping police track weapons and ammunition; pledge cooperation with screenings of potentially irresponsible gun customers; and pledge their effort to curtail lobby groups that are impervious to unwarranted gun violence. If it all sounds too idealistic, United Power mentions The Sport’s Authority and Dick’s Sporting Goods as examples of responsible retailers.

United Power is not alone in this campaign. Several of its sister-organizations in the Industrial Areas Foundation national network are participating. In fact, Rabbi Joel Mosbacher of an IAF group in New Jersey came to Chicago with a message of solidarity.

Mosbacher’s remarks revealed another interesting feature in the campaign. Some groups base their argument on statistics—and those are important. But the heart of United Power is stories, both personal and collective. In Mosbacher’s case it was the story of his father’s murder while on the way to work. Mosbacher witnessed how he subsequently channeled his anger into positive energy for many community meetings and appointments with officials regarding peace and justice.

Illinois Senator Dan Kotowski spoke briefly at the gathering. He warned the United Power delegates about the formidable challenge in front of them. Children’s teddy bears are regulated for safety, he reminded the crowd. “But gun manufacturers and gun retailers are the last unregulated industry in our country. We [legislators] hear from their lobbyists around the clock.” United Power must be as tenacious, he said.

The 75-minute gathering concluded with a roll call of the delegates. Each synagogue, church and mosque responded to Kotowski’s warning by proclaiming: “We will not stand idly by.” They have a month in which to expand United Power’s leverage. Delegates are busy rounding up support from police, schools, more churches, civic officials and more. On May 19, 2013 at 2 p.m. they will reconvene to assess their progress. The place is Chicago Sinai Congregation, 15 W. Delaware Pl., Chicago, IL 60610.

Fr. Bob Oldershaw of Evanston ended the gathering with a sermonette on the theme of standing idly by. He used a parable in Matthew 20: The landowner goes out at 5 P.M. and asks day laborers: “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They replied: “Because no one has hired us.” The landowner, who represents God, said to them: “Go into the vineyard.”

Oldershaw made the analogy. “God says to us this day: You also go into the vineyard. It’s not too late. There’s still time. We are sent into the vineyard of our city, our state, our country to give credible witness. . . . Let us stand idly by no longer. . . . We will not stand idly by. Amen.”

By Bill Droel, an instructor and campus minister at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills. He edits a newsletter on faith and work for the National Center for the Laity (P.O. Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).

Contact: info@chicagocatholicnews.com

(POSTED: 3/15/13)

“When we don’t walk, we are stuck,” the new pope said in Italian during the homily. “When we don’t build on the rock, what happens? It’s what happens to children when they build a sand castle and it all then falls down.”

“When we walk without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we confess without the cross, we are not disciples of Christ. We are mundane,” he said. “We are all but disciples of our Lord.”

“I would like for all of us, after these days of grace, that we find courage to walk in the presence of God . . . and to build the church with the blood of Christ,” the pope said. “Only this way will the church move forward.”

The service was held in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, the seat of the Church, which counts more than a billion adherents worldwide.

Until Wednesday the pope was known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit cardinal from Argentina. He was elected by his fellow prelates to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who stepped down last month.

Francis is the first pope from the New World, and the first Jesuit to hold the post.

Bergoglio adopted the name Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most radical and beloved saints of the Church. St. Francis lived in Italy in the late 1100s and early 1200s. He gave up a life of relative comfort and embraced poverty and humility, modeling himself after Jesus Christ.

“As pope, Francis will have plenty to deal with,” according to CNN. “He takes the helm of a Roman Catholic Church that has been rocked in recent years by sex abuse by priests, and claims of corruption and infighting among the church hierarchy.”

The Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests sent an open letter to the new pope, stating:

“Your predecessor met only a few times with a few carefully chosen victims in tightly choreographed settings, as he visited nations where this crisis had reached a fever pitch.”

“We write today seeking a different kind of meeting — one in which our respective organizations — yours, huge and struggling, and ours, small and struggling — can begin to work together to safeguard children across the globe.”

Meanwhile, more details emerged about the selection process that led to Bergoglio’s ascension.

According to the New York Times, “The choice of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope was so surprising, the Italian bishops sent out an e-mail congratulating the wrong man. His profile was so low that he was barely mentioned by the feverish handicappers and Vaticanologists who make their living scrutinizing the Holy See. But the Argentine emerged from the conclave a swiftly anointed Pope Francis on Wednesday evening, barely 28 hours after it began.”

“While the workings of the conclave are secret, Cardinal Bergoglio won the papacy, according to comments from cardinals, Vatican experts and leaks to Italian newspapers, in part because the Vatican-based cardinals protective of their bureaucracy snubbed the presumptive front-runner, and a favored candidate of reformers, Cardinal Angelo Scola.”

“That created an opening for a Latin-American Jesuit whose attractive mix of piety, humility and administrative skills won over many cardinals, including those intent on addressing the Vatican’s recent troubles with corruption and disarray in the Vatican hierarchy, or Curia. Still, it remains to be seen how, and if, Francis will fulfill those hopes.”

Chicago Cardinal Francis George relayed that, during the selection process this week, some cardinals asked not to be considered.

“Some people were very disturbed by the idea” that they might be considered for pope, George said, according to the Times.

To read about the new pope’s age, click here.

Click here to read about criticism that the new pope stayed silent during Argentina’s “Dirty War.”

Click here to read about how the new pope stopped by his hotel to pay the bill and pick up his luggage.

To read about the challenges facing Chicago-area Catholic churches, click here.

For more liberal to moderate coverage of the new papacy, visit the National Catholic Reporter.

For more conservative coverage, visit the National Catholic Register.

Catholic World News can be accessed by clicking here.

For the “official” word via the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Catholic New World, click here.

By ChicagoCatholicNews.com

info@chicagocatholicnews.com

Photo courtesy of L’Osservatore Romano

The choice in some ways was groundbreaking. Bergoglio, who adopted the name “Pope Francis” in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, is the first pope from Latin America. He’s the first pope from the Jesuit religious order — which over the years has not always been on good paper with the Vatican, the Church’s Rome-based bureaucracy. And unlike his aging predecessor, who resigned last month, Bergoglio is described as humble and approachable.

“But Cardinal Bergoglio is also a conventional choice, a theological conservative of Italian ancestry who vigorously backs Vatican positions on abortion, gay marriage, the ordination of women and other major issues — leading to heated clashes with Argentina’s current left-leaning president,” according to the New York Times.

Bergoglio’s selection — by fellow cardinals, so-called “princes” of the Church, in a gathering at the Vatican — was surprising to some.

Yet Bergoglio also could be considered a soothing choice who calms the controversies swirling about in recent years.

The Church has faced an exodus of members; some have suggested ex-Catholics comprise one of the largest religious blocs nowadays. Large parts of traditionally Catholic Europe are increasingly secular, and many Church members are disgusted by the way bishops have handled priestly sex abuse of children — which has cost hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits and ruined countless lives.

What’s more, many Catholics and non-Catholics also have been at odds with the Church’s continued opposition to women priests, gay marriage, abortion, divorce and the like.

National Public Radio referred to the new pope as “a fresh start,” but the network also indicated “old problems are waiting.”

Even so, the pope’s public embrace of St. Francis of Assisi sends a strong message.

Popes usually adopt a new name. For instance, Pope Benedict XVI’s real name is Joseph Ratzinger. But CNN Vatican expert John Allen relayed this was the first time “Francis” has been used by a pope. The name symbolizes “poverty, humility, simplicity and rebuilding the Catholic Church,” Allen said, according to CNN. “The new pope is sending a signal that this will not be business as usual.”

Added a Vatican spokesman about the name choice: “Cardinal Bergoglio had a special place in his heart and his ministry for the poor, for the disenfranchised, for those living on the fringes and facing injustice.”

In many ways, St. Francis was a radical. He gave up a comfortable life in Italy, with all attending possessions, to live humbly and dedicate his life to Christ in the late 1100s and early 1200s. St. Francis was known to embrace lepers — true outcasts in society at the time. His followers today are known as Franciscans.

The new pope belongs to the Jesuit order, also known as the Society of Jesus. Members often live in communal circumstances and are involved in education. Jesuits are highly educated, and given their egalitarian philosophy, it’s unusual they rise in the Catholic Church hierarchy. (Click here to see how students at the Jesuit-run school Loyola University Chicago are reacting.)

According to NBC: “Pope Francis, the first man in the modern era from outside Europe to lead the Roman Catholic Church, prizes compassion, humility and simplicity — so much that he gave up his chauffeur in Argentina and took the bus to work.”

“He is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic order founded in the 16th century by St. Ignatius Loyola. Its  members, known as Jesuits, take a vow of poverty and are known for their work among the poor and their scholarship.”

The New York Times described him as a “conservative with a common touch.”

Click here, here, here, here and here for additional coverage.

Pope Benedict XVI, 85, resigned from the post last month.

By ChicagoCatholicNews.com

info@chicagocatholicnews.com