Political Theater at a Human Cost

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This week I finally had a chance to visit the Roman Colosseum, something that has been on my bucket list ever since my high school Latin days. It is certainly a magnificent sight and a colossal site to behold, even filled with hordes of tourists like myself during a June heatwave.

Walking through the remains of this stone structure, echoes of the countless human lives lost in the name of empire and entertainment sounded in my heart. As I stood at the cross overlooking the sight of their torture in the arena, I prayed with and for them. I prayed too with the memories of those who watched, jeered, and cheered, and for the political leaders who orchestrated it all for propaganda and ideological purposes.

I couldn’t help but make connections to what is happening at home in my own country even as I stood there in Rome. Today’s people on the margins are being sacrificed for political purposes, whether through the siphoning off of life-saving food and medicine at home and abroad, or deporting and detaining our immigrant brothers and sisters while ignoring the constitutional right to due process. Tears are being shed and lives disrupted and even taken. And for what? Political ideology at best and nefarious intention at worse, with real human impacts at a scale that only history will truly measure.

I for one feel the need to speak out, to pray, and to act. I am in solidarity with the people in peaceful protest on the streets in Los Angeles and across the country. Although I will still be out of the country, my Congregation is one of many that will be represented on June 24 in Washington, DC and in echo events in New Jersey and Washington State for the Sisters Speak Out event, a prayer and public witness for immigrants and a just economy. https://sistersspeakout.my.canva.site/

I am praying daily with the Sisters Speak Out Rosary guide which you can download here. It has special Sorrowful and Joyful mysteries written for this moral moment.

Finally, as events unfold in my nation this weekend, I am proud to be part of the elected leadership team of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace as we have issued a public statement in support of nonviolent action. We also express our profound concern about unjust action against immigrants, the deployment of military forces in our own nation, and the display today in our nation’s capital.

“Consistent with our mission as agents of peace through justice, we reject the false belief that national strength derives from military power and reject the militarization being used to quell domestic demonstrations.”

Persecution and human suffering in the name of political theater is social sin, pure and simple. I say not in my name. I resist and reject it. And I pray for the heart and soul of my nation and all those whose lives are being disrupted and lost.

Dreaming Together

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Last night a gathering of  300 Catholic Sisters under 65 from 25 countries and 6 continents prayed as one during the opening ritual of Hope 2025. This 4-day event, held at Fraterna Domus retreat center outside Rome, is an opportunity during this Jubilee year for the next generations of religious life to explore the current and emerging realities of and concretely experience the gift of the global sisterhood. About  two-thirds of us are here in person, with the rest participating online.

We began singing with our special musical guests, Gen Verde.

This is our dream, across the oceans and deserts, we’ll join our hearts to walk together.

A world of Hope, is our tomorrow if only we learn to live for one another.

And we will see we are one.

Looking around the room, sitting at my table with sisters from Australia, Dominican Republic, Korea, New Zealand, Vietnam and the US, I felt that the dream is becoming reality in our midst.

In the opening ritual sisters from the continents brought our foremothers and founders to the circle. We prayed with all of our charisms, different aspects of the charism of religious life to witness to the Gospel in our wounded and weary world. I was literally brought to tears, tears of Hope and Joy and Possibility.

And to think we have four more full days to bask in this global sisterhood.

God is good. All the time God is good. Sometimes we are just more aware of that reality and this graced experience I know is one of those times.

My CSJP sisters

Spirit of God

prayer, reflections,

May our hearts be open

to the surprises of God’s Holy Spirit,

present always among us,

bringing light and love,

hope and possibility.

What is ours to do?

To let God be God,

to love and remember

we are loved.

All of us. Todos. No exceptions.

Yes, even him or her or them.

The Spirit is moving.

May we move too,

along the arc of justice.

May we cooperate

with God’s Spirit

in peace.

Amen

Agency Amid Anxiety

ethic of resistance, ethics, events, resources, social sin, , , , , ,

Friends, it might be an understatement to say that we are living in an overwhelming time. What is one person who might be anxious or worried about the common good do in this moment? I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by Jeff Renner on the program Challenge 2.0. The entire 30 minute interview is available on the Paths to Understanding YouTube Channel, which was mostly focused on shareholder advocacy.

Below is a 3 minute clip where I try to answer the question on what ordinary folks can do in this moment, drawing from the tradition of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace and my research on the ethics of resistance.

He has need of us

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This Palm Sunday, praying as a visitor in a packed to the gills new-to-me church, the familiar readings from Luke’s Gospel spoke to me in a new and powerful way.

From the Gospel read before the Palm Sunday Procession:

Jesus proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem. As he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. He said, “Go into the village opposite you, and as you enter it you will find a colt tethered on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. And if anyone should ask you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you will answer, ‘The Master has need of it.’

My friends, Jesus has need of US. He needs us to untie ourselves from thinking we have no power to make a positive difference in the world. He needs us to empower one another to make the way for God’s love to break into our weary world.

Because like Jesus, many innocents are being condemned by the group think of the crowds.

Pilate addressed them a third time, “What evil has this man done? I found him guilty of no capital crime. Therefore I shall have him flogged and then release him.”

With loud shouts, however, they persisted in calling for his crucifixion, and their voices prevailed. The verdict of Pilate was that their demand should be granted.

The crowds can condemn, and the crowds can also speak out and stand up for those wrongly accused. Those whose free speech rights are in peril. Those who are wrongfully deported and detained. Those whose life-saving medicine and food is stopped by greed and ideology. Those who …

Christ has need of us. Today. Now. Here in this day and time.

Will we like Peter deny Christ and His love?

Or will we help to carry the cross and seek to bring about God’s reign of justice and peace.

May God’s Will be Done

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O God

You gave us, Your people,

free will

(which we use for good or for ill).

As we exercise all that makes us human,

may we remember that we,

all of us, 

each and every one of us,

are created in Your image and likeness.

O God,

may we be guided by Your love,

may we follow Your wisdom,

may we use our free will with

compassion and mercy.

O God,

may Your will be done,

to respect human dignity,

to protect Your creation

for good.

Amen

Chaos, paradox, and prayer

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Things are a bit chaotic these days. (Mis)information flies at us at rapid speed, often before we can process its effect or prepare for potential impacts. The very landscape beneath our feet is shifting, even as the people of Myanmar, Thailand, and China face the reality of an actual earthquake. Systems we have relied on for decades  to hold things together are being dismantled. The list goes on.

What is a person to do? How do we hold fast to love as we seek to be people of peace amid the chaos?

One of my daily practices is to take time in the morning with the daily Scripture readings and reflections in Give Us This Day.

This morning, after reading and praying with the news (see the first paragraph), I turned to this prayer resource.  I was gifted with a reflection by my friend Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA on “The Power of Paradox.” Here is an excerpt:

“I don’t remember where I heard it or where I read it, but it’s been rattling around in my mind a lot lately that the healthiest and holiest people are the folks who are conscious of the power of paradox. These good ones can love those they disagree with and want goodness for those who have harmed them. They are the saints who can hold two contradictory truths together, who aren’t threatened by inconsistencies.

I wonder how different our church and our world might be if we were taught from a young age that prayer is a type of communion with the mystery, that it is the practice of embracing opposite truths as they coexist. Opening ourselves to seeing every side and knowing we will forever be limited in our knowing is another way we can touch the cross of mystery; it is a way we get to put our fingers into Christ’s side.”

And so I pray …

And so I choose to stand in love and solidarity, keeping the peace of Christ in view on the horizon of my heart as I scan the landscape, trying to make sense of it all.

I hold fast to what I know is good and possible and true. I resist being limited by darkness or division but seek light and love, even when it is obscured or makes no sense in the circumstances. I refuse to demonize others or deny their human dignity, even if their actions harm others and earth. God can hold the paradox and the tension. God is bigger than it all, and God is good all the time. All the time, God is good. And so are we. And so are you.

Earlier this month, I had the chance to visit an art exhibit at SFMOMA, an installation by Yayoi Kusama called “Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity: I Would Offer My Love.” It was a mirror room, filled with color and to be honest a bit disorienting, a chaotic paradox of sorts.

We entered through a WillyWonkaesque door, which required us to duck to enter the box that held the mirror room. Inside our senses were bombarded by this …

It was both expansive and confining. Illuminating and confusing. Overwhelming and enjoyable. We were only in the room for two minutes. It felt so much longer. And so much less.

I was there with good friends who know and love me as I know and love them. I was also there with strangers I did not know and will never know again.

The words of the artist point the way, just as Julia does.

“Enter the place of colors

Polka dots let in the sunlight of the earth

The heart is filled with the shining light of the sun

All of the people who enter seeking the joy of being alive

Let there be eternal harmony among all in the circles and cycles of living

Peace and endless love for all.”

Amen

Another Annunciation

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Today on the Feast of St. Joseph, I am reminded of the many ways God breaks through and into our lives and our world, often unexpected. Think of the story of Joseph, the unexpected message he received in a dream from an angel and his faithful response despite the pressures of society.

There’s a song that captures this moment by Waterdeep, which I recently illustrated in a prayer video using a favorite picture of stained glass window depicting this critical moment in our faith history.

Mary’s annunciation gets a lot of attention, and rightly so. But how often do we reflect on this other annunciation? And what might Joseph’s response teach us today as we face our own uncertain and confusing moments?

I love this stained glass window of Joseph receiving the message of the angel. It is so very human. When I would visit my father at St. Joseph Village in Chicago, the nursing home on the North Side of Chicago where my Dad lived his last years, I would see this window behind the altar in the chapel. St. Joseph Village was the first ministry of the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago, founded in 1897. The current building is a new construction, and it is clear that special attention was given to the design of the chapel. It is a beautiful place to pray, filled with light.

Joseph does not respond to the angel’s heavenly message with words, at least not according to Matthew’s Gospel account (2: 18-25). This stained-glass window, however, implies what must have been his natural response. “His expression,” notes the booklet describing the chapel artwork, “seems to suggest the question, ‘What does this mean?’”

Not only does his expression speak volumes, but also Joseph’s posture—hands open, shoulders shrugged, one knee on the ground. He has even dropped his tools. His life will never be the same.

The angel tells Joseph not to be afraid to welcome Mary into his home, to form a family. “For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.”

Joseph, a man of few words—or no words at least that have been recorded—spoke instead with his actions. Joseph was open to the unexpected.

Joseph took Mary into his home and helped to raise Jesus. “Joseph’s ordinary life of labor and purity of intention have been transformed into an extraordinary element of God’s holy plan.”

WHAT WOULD you do if an angel appeared to you in a dream and told you something completely unexpected, life changing, and a little bit crazy?

God often speaks to us through the unexpected. Most likely we do not have visions or angelic messages, but then again, what else are friends and family and those “aha” moments? God’s love surprises us again and again, often in unexpected ways. And the message is clear … Be Not Afraid. Respond with love in return. And all will be well.

Prayer for Unexpected Moments
St. Joseph, inspire us to be open to the unexpected Spirit-filled moments of life. Pray with and for us, that we too may see the extraordinary possibilities hidden in the ordinariness of life. Thank you for the many ways you modeled acceptance and loving response to God’s love. May we too respond to God’s gifts with faith, gratitude, and loving action.
Amen

Choosing Life and Love

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In today’s first reading from Deuteronomy (30) we hear:

“Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the Lord, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him. For that will mean life for you, a long life for you to live on the land that the Lord swore he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

I had started my morning prayer time reflecting on another reading, this one from Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, who I have chosen (or has chosen me) as my spiritual companion this Lent.

“When something difficult comes about, whoever remains in love will receive everything for the best.”

It seems to me that these two readings are linked. God is good all the time, yet we humans make life messy and sometimes difficult for ourselves and others with our choices.

It is good to remember, to quote a well-worn phrase from fictional character Anne with an e of Lucy M. Montgomery’s Green Gables, “Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it.”

We can never undo what is done, but we can face today and the days ahead by holding fast to the truth of God’s love.

Holding fast … interestingly that phrase has come to mean more to me these days, as it is a definition of resistance.

I commit in these challenging times to hold fast to goodness, love, justice, human dignity, compassion, and mercy as I follow the God of Peace. I choose life. I choose to love always, fiercely, inclusively.

Franz Jägerstätter faced hard choices in a time of extreme social sin as he refused to fight for the Nazi regime. He held fast to his love for God, his family, and the people of God at great cost. In the end he was murdered by the Nazi government. In the end following the path to love did not lead to a long life for him on earth. His memory, indeed his very name, is blessed and his witness of a life of love lives on to inspire us today.

Pray for us Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, that we may hold fast to God’s love, that we may act in love and for love and with love. Always. Amen.