A Sixth Category for Glenmary Mission....Inter-Religious Dialogue?

   

      

          Most folk know that Glenmary operates under five general categories of mission:  Catholic nurture, working with the Universal Church, ecumenism, social outreach, and evangelization of the un-churched.  But perhaps just for a day I added to those missionary tasks Inter-religious Dialogue.

     

        Back in 1986 in Assisi, Italy, St. John Paul II began a tradition of bringing together people from all of the world's religions, as well as people of good will, in order to pray for peace.  Of course, this was a complicated task given the diversity of beliefs and practices.  But his motivation was genuine:  get people together to think, talk, dialogue and pray for peace in a world that desperately needed it.

      Today, I was able to attend a continuation of this dream of Saint John Paul II in Antwerp, Belgium, as the Saint Egidio community put on a program entitled "Peace is the Future."  Once again, people from various religious backgrounds, civil leaders, and people of good will came together to reflect on what peace might look like in our world, and how we can possibly move towards realizing some of these dreams.  Given the recent atrocities in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine, as well as continued violence in other parts of the world, it was certainly a timely event.

From left to right: Hilde Kieboom (St. Egidio), Abraham Skorka (Rabbi and friend of Pope Francis),
Bishop Johan Bonny of Antwerp, Vian Dakheel (Yazidi Community and MP of Iraq who was recently pleaded in the news for her persecuted community in Iraq), and Andrea Riccardi (founder of the St. Egidio community)

              One of the most moving speakers was Vian Dakheel, a MP of the Iraqi government and a member of the Yazidi people.  She has recently been featured on the news begging for international support and response for her people who have been slaughtered and scattered as refugees due to the inhuman and barbarous acts of ISIS.  She again brought many to tears, describing how ISIS finally left the Yazidi area they had been occupying because the smell of the corpses or her slaughtered people began to be too much for them to take.  She certainly made real the suffering of her people to so many who are isolated from the direct effects of this violence.

          Equally moving was the presentation of Ignatius Aphrem II, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East (pictured left).  He talked about visiting many different sites throughout the Middle East where his followers lived only to see countless acts of genocide, killings, starvations, and persecution.  He mentioned how faith in the Prince of Peace, Jesus the Christ, is the only way to achieve lasting peace.  But he said that in visiting families and speaking to survivors it was sometimes difficult to communicate this.  

     

         There was also a presentation by Shawki Ibrahim Abdel-Karim Allam, Grand Mufti of the Arab Republic of Egypt (see below).  As a Muslim, he emphatically proclaimed that extremism and terrorism are not part of the Islam.  He said that unfortunately much of the violence done in the name of Islam today is being led by radical leaders who have had little to no education in Islamic tradition, and who are motivated by complex and irrational reasons for their atrocious acts against humanity. 

     This was a moving event for me.  Being surrounded by thousands of people, many of which are leaders of their respective religious traditions, indicated a sign of hope in our tumultuous age.  Yet the path to peace is a difficult and complex one, that must consider all of the various elements that add to violence in our world.   Many hope in governments to provide the answer, or better distribution of the world's resources to bring about the solution.   These all certainly can help the situation.  But for myself, I only think that peace will be achieved as the world is drawn closer to the one who frees us from our sinfulness, frees us from our selfishness, and the one who turned from violence and aggression and gave us his own life instead:  Jesus Christ.  May we who believe in him pray more fervently for peace in our hearts and in the world, and may the world continue its dialogue and search to realizing the peace that we all desire.  

    

A Subversive Faith--Homily from this Weekend

It was nothing more than a little incense dropped into a bowl.  That was all.  Drop it in and the public sacrifice was over.  It appeared seemingly innocent.  But it was much more than that.  For the early Christians it was a denial of what had become so dear to them.  A denial that there really was only one Lord to whom they devoted their entire lives.  So they refused.  They were subversive to the reigning culture.  Some lost their lives.  But the faith lived on.

In the camp no one spoke up.  Silence pervaded the ash filled air.  Life was work, sleep, and try to stay alive—or perhaps not.  Faith was impossible.  Hope completely lost.  Love unimaginable. Yet when one man was called forward to receive the punishment for three that had escaped, an act of love would come.  A subversive act by a man named Maximilian.  He would lose his life, but the faith would live on.  

There is something about the Christian faith that is always subversive.  For if it is not subversive than the Church either admits that the Kingdom has come, or we are simply apathetic to the Kingdom.  It is never subversion through violence or even coercive power.  It is subversive by simple acts of love, living the very example that Jesus has left us.

In the safety that many of us here experience in the Western world, we will probably not risk losing our lives by being subversive. Yet it will take great sacrifice none-the-less. I believe that today’s Gospel is actually speaking to us as a community to be subversive.  It is not the subversion of violent regimes or political oppression.  It is subversion of elements of the culture in which we find ourselves.  A culture that is not always so conducive to faith:  one that insidiously creeps in on us without our knowing.

The gospel begins by saying that if our brother sins against us, we should go and tell this person. This is the first invitation to live a subversive faith.  It is by being a community of discipline. It means first being willing to let someone know when they are acting in the wrong.  But it is also our own ability to allow others to invite us to deeper conversion. This might seem simple.  But in our culture it is really unheard of. 

For we live in a time and place that holds tolerance to the highest degree.  Seemingly, no one can do anything wrong.  In private anything really goes.  And even if someone should act in an incorrect way publicly, it is really no place for someone else to say something.   We determine what is right and wrong for ourselves, and no one should bother us otherwise.  Talk about what is right and wrong is even taboo.  For your right and my wrong is all that matter.  There is not much that binds us together. 

Stanley Hauerwas states that we live in an age that has thrown discipline out.  Not only in society has this been eclipsed.  But it is also gone from the church.  He says that the church has remained only a place of care.  But it has lost the art of discipline.  And therefore it has lost one of its subversive qualities, and it is weakened at being the Sacrament of Salvation to the world. 

For us then, one of the most powerful acts of subversion that we can image to the world is a mutual openness to discipline.  It says that we ultimately don’t determine what is right and wrong.  That often we are mistaken; that not all things are relative; and that not all things should be tolerated.  We certainly will be misunderstood, mocked and maybe even laughed at.  We will have to unlearn some of what culture has taught us.  It will be painful, but the faith will live on.

The next way the Gospel is inviting us to be subversive is found in one simple verse: “If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.”  In matters to determine the truth of a situation the good news of Jesus invites us to appeal to authority. 

Now anyone versed in some philosophy knows that the appeal to authority went out long ago.  For as Chesterton writes “Modern man will accept nothing on authority, but will accept anything on no authority.” With the hermeneutic of suspicion of anything but “pure reason” authority was sent back in a time machine to the Middle Ages where some would say that it belongs.  For those of us considered theologians or at least theologians in the making we know about how far appeal to authority gets us in our arguments.  And for parents I am sure when asked over and over from your kids why they need to go to bed, “because I said so” doesn’t always seem to work so well. 

But our willingness to appeal to authority, and to accept that authority, is a subversive act in our current culture.  For it says that we have limits.  That as glamorous as science is: it is still limited.  As brilliant as our God-given minds are: they are not infallible.  And as deep as we are able to plumb the depths of meaning and understanding in this world: the depths are limitless and not fully attainable.  We are limited.  We are weak.  And to admit we need to appeal to an authority—a God given authority based on God’s word—is a subversive act.  It admits our creaturelyness. We shouldn’t feel foolish about hanging on to tradition.  We shouldn’t feel foolish about appealing to authority. We may be misunderstood and deemed irrational and seen as foolish in doing so, but the faith will live on.

I would like to illustrate the final way in which our Gospel today calls us to be subversive by a little story from when I was in the missions. 

Agnes was the grandmother of Samantha.  Every Saturday evening she would drop her granddaughter off at the church.  Her granddaughter, a 14 year old convert to Catholicism, one of the first converts in our missions, would run inside and be greeted by the community.  But Agnes would stay outside in her van.  She would park close enough to be able to see what was going on inside. But she never came in.  Week after week she simply sat out in her van.  I began making it a habit to join her after mass.  Sometimes if we had hospitality I would bring her juice or cookies.  We would talk.  Laugh.  But she never got out of her van.  And she never stepped foot in the church.  Once I asked her why she always sat outside rather than joining us.  She responded:  I’ve looked for God a lot in my life but rarely have I found him.  But now I have.  I know that God is there in your little church.  I can see it by that candle that is always lit.  I can see it as the people gather.  I can see it in how my granddaughter has changed.  God is there.  And this is as close as I need to get for now. 

The Gospel today makes a promise to us that where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, he will be there in their midst.  Believing in that reality is perhaps as subversive as we can get.  For the world is longing to know where to find God.  And unfortunately many charged with the responsibility to point people to wear God can be found have let the world down.  Whether through sin or through unbelief or through pride we have become convinced that we are not sure where God can be found.  We walk around in a haze of the “false humility” of fragmentation and uncertainty and we don’t know where to look.

But what we will do here in just a few minutes subverts all of that.  In the baptism of Manuel—whose very name indicates that we know where to find God—we gather as a community and answer the question that is written on the human heart.  We answer the question that the world in its lust for idols, a world with its sky line of towers to babel searching for God, it its technological frenzy to achieve transcendence is dying to have answered. 

Where is God:  God is here.  Where two or three are gathered, he is here.   And thus the negative elements of the reigning culture are subverted.  And we and the world are transformed.

Faith Amidst the Storm--And Given ISIS in Iraq, the Storm is Certainly Brewing

Faith requires us to step out into the storm.

There was a storm gathering around the disciples.  They must have seen it.  For Jesus seemed to attract a storm.  Like clouds gathering on the horizon people gathered around him.  As they gathered they brought their needs: food, water, healing, forgiveness, wholeness, life and peace.  Like strong winds their needs were overwhelming.  But Jesus responded to them. 

As his popularity grew so did the rumble of thunder: thunder from the religious leaders of his day.  Thunder of skepticism, disbelief, jealousy and envy.  Rumbles of rejection even from his own people.  For Jesus was gaining popularity and making claims that seemed to be simply blasphemous.  How could they be true?  And so the storm started to gather and pick up strength. 

Lightening also struck.  Lightening that took the life of his cousin, John.  Lightening that seemed to strike pretty close to the other disciples, too.  For if John could lose his life, why should they be kept safe?  And so the storm gathered. 

But they said yes to follow him.  That day on the seashore when he asked them to leave everything and follow, they said yes.  It seemed that faith required them to say yes to step out into the storm.

It was no different that night on the boat.  The storms had gathered around the disciples and they were scared.  Scared of capsizing; scared of drowning and of death.  Their fear only grew when they saw the man approach on the water.  Was it a dream? A nightmare? Was it a ghost?  They cowered in fear for it was too much for them.  But that beautiful voice broke through the winds.  That voice they had come to trust.  That voice that whispered to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.”  They knew that voice.  They knew what it meant. 

So Peter in his glory, in his attempts at being a leader, remembering his first call on that seashore asks Jesus if he can still follow.  For he knows what faith requires.  Faith required him to step out into the storm. 

I don’t think that our situation today is much different than that which is described in the Gospel.  For the storm continues to build around us too.  The thunder rolls and lightening strikes in Iraq and so many other parts of the world where converts to Christianity, and really many of the faithful, are persecuted and crucified in the heat of the desert sun.  Their bodies hang on trees much like that of their founder. They are evidence that the storm still rolls on.

The earth also cracks and shakes as deeper divisions happen in our church: divisions of ideology; divisions of power, divisions of class. These divisions threaten to tear our own temple asunder.  

And there are the rains of skepticism and atheism that seem to flood our faith.  They accompany winds that blow fiercely against the shelter of our own Christian lives as we attempt to live our faith in a place where it is not always so easy to do. 

But in the midst of the storm Jesus says the same thing to us.  He whispers to us: Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.  Come, and follow me.    For faith requires us to step out into the storm. 

And many have stepped out into the storm.  No matter how dark or scary it had been, they were brave and courageous.  Their witness assures us that there are followers of Christ who are willing to step out of the boat.  From St. Peter to St. Mary, St. Kwinten to the martyrs of our own day, many have heeded the call of the Lord—they understood that faith required them to step out into the storm. And these brave witnesses are all around us, too.

The couple that remains open to having children and raising them in the faith steps out onto the water in the midst of the storm.

The student who decides to leave her own country to pursue a degree in a foreign land amid a foreign language in order to better her country and her family steps out onto the water in the midst of the storm.

The theologian who attempts to think with the church even though it is not always the most popular thing to do steps out onto the water in the midst of the storm.

The community that gathers for Mass as the church bells ring, bells whose symbols have lost their meaning in the present culture, when they gather they step out onto the water in the midst of the storm.

Over and over again disciples throughout the ages have headed the call of Christ—even in the midst of the most tumultuous storms—and been courageous enough to step out onto the water and follow him. 

But.  But my brothers and sisters I believe we must also be aware of what happens next in today’s gospel.  For most likely, if we step out into the storm to follow Christ, we may inevitably begin to sink.  Perhaps we even need to sink.

Peter was certainly confident in his will to follow Christ.  But he began to sink.  And this would not be his only moment of weakness.  And down through the ages the greatest of saints stepped out onto the water and began to sink.  For sometimes the storm is too much.  Sometimes our faith is just not that strong 

In our own time we will probably begin to sink, too.  In the midst of cancer we will curse God and wonder where he is.  Waking up to attend to our children for the third time in one night we will wonder if the sacrifice was worth it.  Having the opportunity to stand up for our faith we will hide safely in the background, blending into the crowd.  Overcome by the lure of an overly sexualized culture, we will have our moments of weakness.  Overwhelmed from leaving the familiar we will cry tears at night thinking that it is simply too much.  We too will sink.  For our faith sometimes just isn’t strong enough.

But we can be assured, that in our darkest hour, in our greatest moment of despair, in our most shameful self, he will be there.  His hand will grab us.  He will lift us up.  He will bring us to safety.  His voice will whisper in our ear that it is him.

And with faith like a child let us hope that we too might be able to say on that day, and every day until we see him face to face: 

Truly, you are the Son of God.