A full day yesterday at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. New students, lay and ordained, secular and religious, got acquainted over a continental breakfast. The school introduced us to every member of the faculty not on sabbatical; each professor said hello and summarized his field of study, her research, his course offerings. The administrative staff took us briskly and virtually through the institution so we would know what we needed to know now. The riches of the Boston Theological Institute, the consortium of the ten Boston-area divinity schools, seminaries, and schools of theology, were revealed to the uninitiated. And returning students returned to greet us and pull us out of the bog of our first-day perplexities.
At one o'clock I paused for the celebration of the Eucharist at the chapel in the School of Theology and Ministry building. In the afternoon I met the director of the Master of Theology program and my own faculty advisor to confer over first-semester courses. Happily, I have registered for the courses I most wanted: the one on the Second Vatican Council and the other on feminist theologies.
A quick stop at the university's office of student services to grin for the camera, then obtain my student identification card; and the day was done.
Classes begin on Tuesday. Boston College, here we come.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Ministry
Meetings this afternoon with the lead organizer and board members of Massachusetts Interfaith Worker Justice, where I served in various capacities from 2006 to 2011. In between those meetings, there will be an opportunity to meet some of the hundreds of workers from Boston fast food restaurants who are on strike today for better wages.
I have been a volunteer, a paid intern, and full-time lead
organizer with Mass IWJ. I remained active with the group until I left Boston in July 2011 to begin initial
formation with the Capuchins. Now I aim to renew my service with Mass IWJ. I discussed this with the lead organizer this spring and met with him earlier this month to review Mass IWJ’s campaign priorities;
to inventory its base of constituents and resources; and to discuss its strategy
and tactics for achieving its objectives.
I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. I am eager to share my gifts and talents with the beloved community, the people of God in Boston. I have an extensive network of contacts with activist Christian ministers, both
lay and ordained, Catholic as well as Protestant, students and professionals, in
the Greater Boston area. Being a Capuchin does raise my profile as a public figure in the Roman Catholic Church and may help open more
doors for Mass IWJ in the Archdiocese of Boston. I offer my talents for
communication as an editor, writer, and public speaker. Mass IWJ needs religious activists who are good public speakers, who can preach, give
presentations and workshops, prepare documents, and design publications. They need leaders who can
mix with members of labor organizations as well as congregations. They need leaders who are comfortable with the lexicon of labor and the language of theology. They need people of faith who can translate between the two tongues, just as they can bring together
peoples from the worlds of labor and religion.
It will, of course, take some time for these talents to bear fruit again. I have been away from the Greater Boston area for two
years and have to learn again the existential realities facing workers in the
region. It will take some time to be educated on current campaigns and the
strategy and tactics being applied. I have to invest time and labor in
re-establishing social capital. Relationships need to be renewed. This
requires slow and respectful effort. Furthermore, my connections to labor are
less robust than my ties to faith communities. And my network with people
from faiths other than Christianity is in need of rebuilding. Finally, while my knowledge of organizing is good, I am out of practice!
As I integrate being a religious brother with the doing of
ministry, I must now balance fraternal life with the Capuchins and
studies at Boston College. These are significant new life commitments. I must
be careful not to take on too much, or make promises I cannot fulfill. While Mass IWJ is my primary ministry commitment, it is not my only activity. For instance, I have agreed to serve on the steering committee of the Boston New Sanctuary Movement, attend the group’s
monthly meetings and major events, and support its education and advocacy
efforts in service to immigrant families. And I would like to be involved in one of the local parishes serving the communities of Jamaica Plain and Roxbury.
Each brother in simple vows must find ways to integrate ministry and work for justice and peace within the Capuchin way of life, grounding these charisms within the fundamental charism of fraternity, as practiced in the setting of contemplative minority. Now it is my turn to discover how to be, how to do as a follower of Jesus in the manner of Francis.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Reticent
Been mum on the blog lately. I don't know why I feel inclined to silence, especially as life is getting interesting. Where it concerns this chronicle of religious life, is my creative muse urging me to expressions of a different form?
To review the days recently past:
Concluded our study of the Capuchin Constitutions on Thursday. The revisions to our charter document await approval from a department of the Vatican called the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. We hope to see an English edition of the revised Constitutions late next year.
Mostly house chores on Friday: cleaning the bathrooms, receiving a fellow who inspected the fire extinguishers in our house. Some conceptualizing of ministry. Some reading and resting, too. Also watched a new documentary on the Second Vatican Council that I found online. God willing, I will be studying the council this fall with Richard Gaillardetz, the Boston College professor much-featured in this documentary.
On Saturday I traveled with a couple of brothers to Yonkers for the funeral of Bro. Robert Maher, for many years a missionary in Guam and Hawaii. The high points of the liturgy were the homily, in which Bob's best friend in the order recited original poetry; and the communion hymn, which was based on a Hawaiian melody. Verse and chorus swelled in volume, each wave succeeded by a grander wave, with warm voices surfing high but deep within a sea of sound provided by the organ's orchestra.
On Sunday I worshipped at Saint Mary of the Angels Parish, located in Roxbury on the border of Jamaica Plain. For years I had heard good things about this Christian community, a multi-ethnic, multiracial congregation long committed to peace and social justice in an impoverished, violent neighborhood. Several workers and union organizers of my acquaintance belong to this church. Oh, why did I never come here before? I was welcomed by no fewer than a dozen parishioners who spoke brightly of their relationship with the Capuchins and eagerly sought me to become a part of their life together. Their neighborliness, in the Good Samaritan sense, made a fast impression on me. I will definitely be returning for worship and participating in their fellowship.
Later that afternoon I shuttled uptown to the North End for the great street festival in honor of Saint Anthony of Padua. Although Anthony's feast day is June 13, and he already had a festival late this spring, this festival is special. It was organized a century ago by immigrants from a Neapolitan town called Montefalcione in Avellino. The town survived a severe earthquake in the 17th century when numerous surrounding villages fell, and the people attributed their safety to the protection of Anthony of Padua, who they believed had interceded on their behalf. The citizens sought to name Anthony their patron, and they successfully petitioned Rome to permit them a feast in August to commemorate his miraculous intervention on their behalf. When the sons of daughters of Montefalcione immigrated to Boston, they took their annual observance with them, and it became the pre-eminent street festival.
I arrived just before noon, in time to see the beginning of Anthony's grand procession around the narrow streets. The statue was already robed with all kinds of jewelry: rings, bracelets, chains, watches. In little time he was draped with several layers of U.S. and Italian currency. My gut reaction: Ack! Why? What is the meaning of this custom, which on the face of it is ironic to the extreme, since friars in his time were forbidden to touch money? First of all, the practice is an expression of gratitude to this friend of God whose advocacy preserved the people of Montefalcione and helps them and their descendants still. Second, the practice is charitable: the money collected on Anthony's person goes to support non-profit organizations serving the citizens of the North End. (The society that organizes the festival, San Antonio di Padova da Montefalcione Inc., began as a mutual aid society for Italian-American immigrants, helping families pay for burials and providing insurance for its members.) So it is at once an act of devotion and solidarity. Seen from a modern sensibility, the gesture appears terribly gauche, but the symbolism is sound: Anthony, who was poor in material things, is rich in heavenly things, the things that matter to God. And the people of God in Montefalcione, and later Boston, would show the world just where they intended to put their treasures -- not in luxuries and vanities, but in community, in one another, in neighborliness.
This friar got a real taste of that neighborliness when browsing the vendors. From one I ordered an arepa, a delicious corn fritter with mozzarella inside; it cost five dollars, but the woman insisted that I pay only three. Next, I visited a bakery booth where a bin of anisette biscotti caught my eyes and nose. I told the man I would like a half-pound, which cost six dollars, but when he saw me reach for my wallet, he said "Please," and he gave me the biscotti for nothing. Then I went to a vendor selling caramel apples and chocolate-covered fruit. I listened to the vendors tell other people it was five dollars for an apple. I came forward and asked how much, and the lady told me just to take any apple I wanted. I protested, saying I had money. She asked me only for a blessing, because she had been unable to attend Mass that morning because of the business of setting up the stand. So I read a psalm and gave a blessing. Then I promptly found a donation basket where the procession had started and dropped a five-dollar bill.
I am not comfortable with such unmerited privilege, but I try to remember what another Capuchin has told me: it is not you they are reverencing, but Christ in you. So let them adore Christ; as for you, aim to give away the gifts others give to you to the people who never get any gifts.
Today, more chores: excursions to the supermarket (Stop & Shop) and hardware store (Home Depot). We cleared everything out of a large room in the basement so that our maintenance man can paint the dirty dusty floor. Only rain and the threat of more rain kept us from cutting up our yard waste. This evening, we will have our first house chapter of the year to review housekeeping and other fraternal matters.
Okay, back to silence, or to expressing myself by other means.
To review the days recently past:
Concluded our study of the Capuchin Constitutions on Thursday. The revisions to our charter document await approval from a department of the Vatican called the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. We hope to see an English edition of the revised Constitutions late next year.
Mostly house chores on Friday: cleaning the bathrooms, receiving a fellow who inspected the fire extinguishers in our house. Some conceptualizing of ministry. Some reading and resting, too. Also watched a new documentary on the Second Vatican Council that I found online. God willing, I will be studying the council this fall with Richard Gaillardetz, the Boston College professor much-featured in this documentary.
On Saturday I traveled with a couple of brothers to Yonkers for the funeral of Bro. Robert Maher, for many years a missionary in Guam and Hawaii. The high points of the liturgy were the homily, in which Bob's best friend in the order recited original poetry; and the communion hymn, which was based on a Hawaiian melody. Verse and chorus swelled in volume, each wave succeeded by a grander wave, with warm voices surfing high but deep within a sea of sound provided by the organ's orchestra.
On Sunday I worshipped at Saint Mary of the Angels Parish, located in Roxbury on the border of Jamaica Plain. For years I had heard good things about this Christian community, a multi-ethnic, multiracial congregation long committed to peace and social justice in an impoverished, violent neighborhood. Several workers and union organizers of my acquaintance belong to this church. Oh, why did I never come here before? I was welcomed by no fewer than a dozen parishioners who spoke brightly of their relationship with the Capuchins and eagerly sought me to become a part of their life together. Their neighborliness, in the Good Samaritan sense, made a fast impression on me. I will definitely be returning for worship and participating in their fellowship.
Later that afternoon I shuttled uptown to the North End for the great street festival in honor of Saint Anthony of Padua. Although Anthony's feast day is June 13, and he already had a festival late this spring, this festival is special. It was organized a century ago by immigrants from a Neapolitan town called Montefalcione in Avellino. The town survived a severe earthquake in the 17th century when numerous surrounding villages fell, and the people attributed their safety to the protection of Anthony of Padua, who they believed had interceded on their behalf. The citizens sought to name Anthony their patron, and they successfully petitioned Rome to permit them a feast in August to commemorate his miraculous intervention on their behalf. When the sons of daughters of Montefalcione immigrated to Boston, they took their annual observance with them, and it became the pre-eminent street festival.
I arrived just before noon, in time to see the beginning of Anthony's grand procession around the narrow streets. The statue was already robed with all kinds of jewelry: rings, bracelets, chains, watches. In little time he was draped with several layers of U.S. and Italian currency. My gut reaction: Ack! Why? What is the meaning of this custom, which on the face of it is ironic to the extreme, since friars in his time were forbidden to touch money? First of all, the practice is an expression of gratitude to this friend of God whose advocacy preserved the people of Montefalcione and helps them and their descendants still. Second, the practice is charitable: the money collected on Anthony's person goes to support non-profit organizations serving the citizens of the North End. (The society that organizes the festival, San Antonio di Padova da Montefalcione Inc., began as a mutual aid society for Italian-American immigrants, helping families pay for burials and providing insurance for its members.) So it is at once an act of devotion and solidarity. Seen from a modern sensibility, the gesture appears terribly gauche, but the symbolism is sound: Anthony, who was poor in material things, is rich in heavenly things, the things that matter to God. And the people of God in Montefalcione, and later Boston, would show the world just where they intended to put their treasures -- not in luxuries and vanities, but in community, in one another, in neighborliness.
This friar got a real taste of that neighborliness when browsing the vendors. From one I ordered an arepa, a delicious corn fritter with mozzarella inside; it cost five dollars, but the woman insisted that I pay only three. Next, I visited a bakery booth where a bin of anisette biscotti caught my eyes and nose. I told the man I would like a half-pound, which cost six dollars, but when he saw me reach for my wallet, he said "Please," and he gave me the biscotti for nothing. Then I went to a vendor selling caramel apples and chocolate-covered fruit. I listened to the vendors tell other people it was five dollars for an apple. I came forward and asked how much, and the lady told me just to take any apple I wanted. I protested, saying I had money. She asked me only for a blessing, because she had been unable to attend Mass that morning because of the business of setting up the stand. So I read a psalm and gave a blessing. Then I promptly found a donation basket where the procession had started and dropped a five-dollar bill.
I am not comfortable with such unmerited privilege, but I try to remember what another Capuchin has told me: it is not you they are reverencing, but Christ in you. So let them adore Christ; as for you, aim to give away the gifts others give to you to the people who never get any gifts.
Today, more chores: excursions to the supermarket (Stop & Shop) and hardware store (Home Depot). We cleared everything out of a large room in the basement so that our maintenance man can paint the dirty dusty floor. Only rain and the threat of more rain kept us from cutting up our yard waste. This evening, we will have our first house chapter of the year to review housekeeping and other fraternal matters.
Okay, back to silence, or to expressing myself by other means.
Friday, August 23, 2013
Tonight
Distant motors roar
Behind the crickets' whistles
I strain to hear more
A shadow passes
Along the moony street, fresh
From Hopper's limbos
The air does not touch
I bring my hands to my lips
I breathe; I recall:
Tonight, I am the wind. I am the light.
I am the world tonight.
The world is not enough.
Behind the crickets' whistles
I strain to hear more
A shadow passes
Along the moony street, fresh
From Hopper's limbos
The air does not touch
I bring my hands to my lips
I breathe; I recall:
Tonight, I am the wind. I am the light.
I am the world tonight.
The world is not enough.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Four O'Clock Prayer
God ever ancient and ever new,
Make me new again,
Before I get old once.
You who read me and know my story,
Whose life is life itself and the light of glory,
Feed me the pith of the marrow of the bone in the meat of the flesh.
Spare me the dust of the rind of the rotten and scrawny fruit.
Make me stride upon a hard road.
It is no kindness to wander softly through sand-blown gardens.
You who give the word that I cannot make,
Make me know the words I know how to spell.
You who bid me to breathe your love into me,
Deliver me from these gasps
Of suffocated poetry
Inflate this sagging sac
(If only it would burst!)
Give form to this triumph of deformity
And conform it to you
To reform me
Until I know nothing better
Than to relive your life
So to live this life
Once and for all
In me.
Make me new again,
Before I get old once.
You who read me and know my story,
Whose life is life itself and the light of glory,
Feed me the pith of the marrow of the bone in the meat of the flesh.
Spare me the dust of the rind of the rotten and scrawny fruit.
Make me stride upon a hard road.
It is no kindness to wander softly through sand-blown gardens.
You who give the word that I cannot make,
Make me know the words I know how to spell.
You who bid me to breathe your love into me,
Deliver me from these gasps
Of suffocated poetry
Inflate this sagging sac
(If only it would burst!)
Give form to this triumph of deformity
And conform it to you
To reform me
Until I know nothing better
Than to relive your life
So to live this life
Once and for all
In me.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Seventh to Heaven
Bro. Robert Maher, a Capuchin who served for years in the missions of Guam and Hawaii, died yesterday after falling and suffering a severe brain hemorrhage. He was 66 years old.
His funeral is on Saturday at our province's motherhouse in Yonkers, N.Y. Here comes another day trip, another day of brotherhood intensified by a rite of passage observed with intimacy and solemnity.
From our province, Brother Bob is the third friar to die this month, the fourth in two months, the sixth this year, the seventh in the last twelve months.
The older friars tell me this has happened before, where the deaths of brothers occur in clusters. Talk about doing everything in fraternity and never only on our own: our brothers do everything, even dying, together.
His funeral is on Saturday at our province's motherhouse in Yonkers, N.Y. Here comes another day trip, another day of brotherhood intensified by a rite of passage observed with intimacy and solemnity.
From our province, Brother Bob is the third friar to die this month, the fourth in two months, the sixth this year, the seventh in the last twelve months.
The older friars tell me this has happened before, where the deaths of brothers occur in clusters. Talk about doing everything in fraternity and never only on our own: our brothers do everything, even dying, together.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Ramping Up
Both friaries, San Lorenzo and Saint Francis of Assisi, are at capacity with the formators and student friars and guests who are here for the workshops on the Capuchin Constitutions. The first session begins this afternoon. We will be meeting in the San Lorenzo dining room-cum-conference room with our presenter, Bro. Regis Armstrong.
This week we will have meditation, prayer, and Eucharist mid-morning. This evening and for the remainder of the week, after meditation and prayer, dinner for up to 25 friars.
It feels good to have this many brothers around. Last evening's rite of renewal of vows and festive meal were very good. A full chapel and full table give me cause for rejoicing.
This morning, a few chores and errands. Conferred with the formation director about my fall class schedule (pending registration), formation meetings, and the selection of a new spiritual director while I reside in Boston.
At the moment it feels like we are going gradually, very gradually, on the way. It is like driving at 5 miles per hour onto the on-ramp, or taxiing lightly on the tarmac toward the runway. We are approaching the takeoff point slowly, casually, even. But in two weeks, after Labor Day, look out! I will have all the work I can handle: physical, mental, and spiritual labor.
It's not like me to do anything in half-measures. But this year the aim is to integrate part-time study and part-time ministry with full-time fraternity in a spirit of prayer and minority. A compromise with the works of mercy and justice? A cutting of corners instead of total commitment? Or common sense, good self-care?
Formerly I carried on the work God gave me without grounding it in the depth of my being. Now I look to take up that work again, but "with all my heart." This is not a platitude; this is a new resolution. To work with full devotion means to let the work proceed from the very life God has given me. This life has to be nourished in prayer and worship. This life has to be nourished in the communion that comes from participation in life of the body of Christ. This communion must be lived from within the soul; it must be lived at the most local level, in the household, in one's family. This I must do with my religious family, the Capuchins; my extended spiritual family in Christ, all my sisters and brothers who follow Jesus; and all my neighbors, everyone God gives me to love in this neighborhood, this city, this country, this world.
My studies, my ministries, my works: these were never my life. These could never give me life. God is the source of my life. Let me continue to live God's life, and let the labors, mental and spiritual, rise up gradually from it. It is better now to ramp up than to leap off and risk leaving behind the being that God bids me to bring to the work of proclaiming and living the kin(g)dom of heaven.
This week we will have meditation, prayer, and Eucharist mid-morning. This evening and for the remainder of the week, after meditation and prayer, dinner for up to 25 friars.
It feels good to have this many brothers around. Last evening's rite of renewal of vows and festive meal were very good. A full chapel and full table give me cause for rejoicing.
This morning, a few chores and errands. Conferred with the formation director about my fall class schedule (pending registration), formation meetings, and the selection of a new spiritual director while I reside in Boston.
At the moment it feels like we are going gradually, very gradually, on the way. It is like driving at 5 miles per hour onto the on-ramp, or taxiing lightly on the tarmac toward the runway. We are approaching the takeoff point slowly, casually, even. But in two weeks, after Labor Day, look out! I will have all the work I can handle: physical, mental, and spiritual labor.
It's not like me to do anything in half-measures. But this year the aim is to integrate part-time study and part-time ministry with full-time fraternity in a spirit of prayer and minority. A compromise with the works of mercy and justice? A cutting of corners instead of total commitment? Or common sense, good self-care?
Formerly I carried on the work God gave me without grounding it in the depth of my being. Now I look to take up that work again, but "with all my heart." This is not a platitude; this is a new resolution. To work with full devotion means to let the work proceed from the very life God has given me. This life has to be nourished in prayer and worship. This life has to be nourished in the communion that comes from participation in life of the body of Christ. This communion must be lived from within the soul; it must be lived at the most local level, in the household, in one's family. This I must do with my religious family, the Capuchins; my extended spiritual family in Christ, all my sisters and brothers who follow Jesus; and all my neighbors, everyone God gives me to love in this neighborhood, this city, this country, this world.
My studies, my ministries, my works: these were never my life. These could never give me life. God is the source of my life. Let me continue to live God's life, and let the labors, mental and spiritual, rise up gradually from it. It is better now to ramp up than to leap off and risk leaving behind the being that God bids me to bring to the work of proclaiming and living the kin(g)dom of heaven.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Renewal
We are almost a full household -- still waiting for the return of one more of our student friars. We are just about a full friary, what with our guests here and across the corner at Saint Francis of Assisi Friary. After Mass today -- I'll be attending at a parish where our Capuchin brother, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, is presiding -- I'll be in the kitchen baking and cooking for our evening meal. It's a special occasion this evening, in that two returning student friars are renewing their simple vows for one more year.
Tomorrow, we begin our week of workshops on the Capuchin Constitutions. Fitting that this week of reflection and renewal of our Franciscan mind begins with a witness to the renewal of our two brothers' commitment to consecrated life.
Okay, off to worship. I hope the week to come provokes holy conversation, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. Maybe some of the fruits of our listening and consideration will surface here. Maybe!
Tomorrow, we begin our week of workshops on the Capuchin Constitutions. Fitting that this week of reflection and renewal of our Franciscan mind begins with a witness to the renewal of our two brothers' commitment to consecrated life.
Okay, off to worship. I hope the week to come provokes holy conversation, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. Maybe some of the fruits of our listening and consideration will surface here. Maybe!
Friday, August 16, 2013
There and Back Again
Over eight hours on the road to New Paltz, N.Y., and back, for the three hours we stayed at Saint Joseph Parish to celebrate the life of Bro. Barnabas Keck, who died on Tuesday. Here is a biography of our brother, who would have marked the 70th anniversary of his joining the order on Aug. 31. Beautiful to see the church filled with the people of the parish, whom Brother Barnabas served as priest for the last sixteen years of his life. Plenty of friars were there, too, as well as dignitaries of the Knights of Columbus and an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York. But we alone would not have been able to fill the church; only the faithful of the parish could do that. Splendid music, too, from the people of the parish who swelled the ranks of their choir.
But for all the positive notes sounded this day, I am feeling wiped out again, not from the liturgy and the reception, but from the traveling. I hate riding in automobiles. Never mind driving; I don't even want to ride as a passenger. I deeply dislike going places in cars. It's not simple.
Ah, to bed now and to make a new start of it tomorrow. We are preparing for the arrival of our two housemates who are already in simple vows and returning from vacation and summer pastoral assignments. They will renew their vows for one more year on Sunday evening. We are also getting ready to host the brothers who are staying with us for the week-long workshop on the Capuchin Constitutions. We will be getting our house and grounds in good order for the week to come. All hands will be helping with the meals; surely yours truly will be busy baking some good things.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Friends at a Former Home
Backtracking from yesterday....
Some light chores around the house during the day: cleaning the bathrooms and showers on my floor, cleaning the exterior of the basement-level windows, weeding the landscaping on the front property of San Lorenzo Friary.
In the evening, I visited Beacon Hill Friends House, my home for two years, for a presentation by an alumna of the house, now a Unitarian Universalist minister in Bedford, on children's books and their role in bereavement and healing. I had a few motivations for attending. First, as an uncle with a young nephew and younger niece, I would like to explore how to talk simply and humanly about death and dying with them as they grow up. Second, I admire the genius of the authors and illustrators of children's literature. It takes an uncommon creativity to communicate with love and with truth to our youngest persons. (Once, for a final exam, a theology professor of my acquaintance assigned her students to write a sermon for a six-year-old. Would that I had been in that class! I envied those students.) Third, with the deaths of six Capuchin friars, three recently, I desire to grieve and mourn well.
Finally and hope-fully, I returned to Beacon Hill Friends House in anticipation of reunions, both expected and unexpected. I did see a friend I expected to see, and I was delighted to encounter other former housemates. It was good to be back in the old parlor with my Quaker sisters and brothers. The event last night reminded me of the charm of this intentional community and of the good moments over the two years I lived at the Quaker meeting-house.
Those years were also challenging times for me personally. Now, I have been living in a religious community for two years and concentrating primarily on "domestic discipleship," being "Church at home," practicing hospitality with my brothers. It's hard work! I can better appreciate how special the intentional community at Beacon Hill Friends House is ... and how much effort it takes to create and sustain a household of light, joy, and peace. I realize now what I took for granted then.
Today, to continue the weeding for a little while this morning and afternoon. Then, to the walking tour of downtown Boston, an activity we postponed from Tuesday because of inclement weather.
Some light chores around the house during the day: cleaning the bathrooms and showers on my floor, cleaning the exterior of the basement-level windows, weeding the landscaping on the front property of San Lorenzo Friary.
In the evening, I visited Beacon Hill Friends House, my home for two years, for a presentation by an alumna of the house, now a Unitarian Universalist minister in Bedford, on children's books and their role in bereavement and healing. I had a few motivations for attending. First, as an uncle with a young nephew and younger niece, I would like to explore how to talk simply and humanly about death and dying with them as they grow up. Second, I admire the genius of the authors and illustrators of children's literature. It takes an uncommon creativity to communicate with love and with truth to our youngest persons. (Once, for a final exam, a theology professor of my acquaintance assigned her students to write a sermon for a six-year-old. Would that I had been in that class! I envied those students.) Third, with the deaths of six Capuchin friars, three recently, I desire to grieve and mourn well.
Finally and hope-fully, I returned to Beacon Hill Friends House in anticipation of reunions, both expected and unexpected. I did see a friend I expected to see, and I was delighted to encounter other former housemates. It was good to be back in the old parlor with my Quaker sisters and brothers. The event last night reminded me of the charm of this intentional community and of the good moments over the two years I lived at the Quaker meeting-house.
Those years were also challenging times for me personally. Now, I have been living in a religious community for two years and concentrating primarily on "domestic discipleship," being "Church at home," practicing hospitality with my brothers. It's hard work! I can better appreciate how special the intentional community at Beacon Hill Friends House is ... and how much effort it takes to create and sustain a household of light, joy, and peace. I realize now what I took for granted then.
Today, to continue the weeding for a little while this morning and afternoon. Then, to the walking tour of downtown Boston, an activity we postponed from Tuesday because of inclement weather.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Another Brother in the New Creation
Zachary Grant,
Walter O'Brien,
Ephrem Karwowski,
Darius DeVito,
Christopher Varley ...
... and now Bro. Barnabas Keck, who left this life this morning at the age of eighty-nine. The sixth of our Capuchin brothers to go back to God in the last twelve months.
Our brothers are zealous to be born into the new creation. Look how they hasten. May the eternal rest we ask of God for them be nothing less than the enjoyment of the life that can never die.
Walter O'Brien,
Ephrem Karwowski,
Darius DeVito,
Christopher Varley ...
... and now Bro. Barnabas Keck, who left this life this morning at the age of eighty-nine. The sixth of our Capuchin brothers to go back to God in the last twelve months.
Our brothers are zealous to be born into the new creation. Look how they hasten. May the eternal rest we ask of God for them be nothing less than the enjoyment of the life that can never die.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Brother Dell
This is being written from the new computer the guardian has provided for my use. Thank you, Brother Guardian; thank you, Brother Dell. Spent the evening doing setup and installation. Now we're supposedly secure and up to date. I am online, which is the main thing! And I am navigating the applications I need, though I am a little befuddled and a little more bemused by the way many things about desktop computers have changed!
Down to Yonkers and back to Boston today for the funeral of Bro. Christopher Varley. It was very good to be there, having missed the previous four funerals of the last twelve months. But now I am wiped spiritually. A lot of travel, and a lot of fraternity, for one day: it enervates me.
Tomorrow morning, some shopping for basic home and office supplies. Then, in the afternoon, time to play tour guide for my post-novice brothers as we head to downtown Boston to explore and dine out for dinner.
Down to Yonkers and back to Boston today for the funeral of Bro. Christopher Varley. It was very good to be there, having missed the previous four funerals of the last twelve months. But now I am wiped spiritually. A lot of travel, and a lot of fraternity, for one day: it enervates me.
Tomorrow morning, some shopping for basic home and office supplies. Then, in the afternoon, time to play tour guide for my post-novice brothers as we head to downtown Boston to explore and dine out for dinner.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Full Days
A full day today:
Mass at nine o'clock this morning with the community of Poor Clare sisters in Jamaica Plain, where, instead of observing the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, they were permitted to celebrate the feast of their founder, Saint Clare of Assisi, the first Franciscan woman religious. Normally, Sunday trumps whatever saint's feast day may coincide, but exceptions can be made for religious communities whose patron or founder is that saint. So today we joined our sisters in rejoicing over the radical Gospel witness of Clare.
Then, from Jamaica Plain to Cambridge via the Orange Line and Red Line to catch up with some of my BU seminary friends just as the worship at Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church was concluding. We had lunch at a vegetarian-vegan friendly breakfast-and-sandwich shop in Harvard Square. And eco-friendly, too: they compost everything, including the plastic cups and cutlery! Hooray for civilization. We all proceeded to a neighborhood playground off of Central Square for an hour of ping-pong on concrete table tennis tables (yours truly emerged undefeated) before returning to my friends' house to learn how to play euchre (I learned fast and enjoyed beginners' luck).
Back at San Lorenzo Friary in time for meditation and evening prayer, then a pasta dinner. A good heart-to-heart conversation with my brother later in the evening, and now an early rest for tomorrow's full day. Our fraternity will be travelling to Yonkers and back for the funeral of one of our friars, Bro. Christopher Varley. After Bros. Zachary Grant, Walter O'Brien, Ephrem Karwowski, and Darius DeVito, he is the fifth brother to depart this life in the last twelve months. Here is a remembrance of him from the Province of Saint Mary. Pray for a safe journey for all the brothers coming to Yonkers to pay their respects. As we send our prayers up to the angels carrying Christopher speedily to the world to come, may those same angels speed us safely to our brother and back to our respective friaries.
Mass at nine o'clock this morning with the community of Poor Clare sisters in Jamaica Plain, where, instead of observing the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, they were permitted to celebrate the feast of their founder, Saint Clare of Assisi, the first Franciscan woman religious. Normally, Sunday trumps whatever saint's feast day may coincide, but exceptions can be made for religious communities whose patron or founder is that saint. So today we joined our sisters in rejoicing over the radical Gospel witness of Clare.
Then, from Jamaica Plain to Cambridge via the Orange Line and Red Line to catch up with some of my BU seminary friends just as the worship at Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church was concluding. We had lunch at a vegetarian-vegan friendly breakfast-and-sandwich shop in Harvard Square. And eco-friendly, too: they compost everything, including the plastic cups and cutlery! Hooray for civilization. We all proceeded to a neighborhood playground off of Central Square for an hour of ping-pong on concrete table tennis tables (yours truly emerged undefeated) before returning to my friends' house to learn how to play euchre (I learned fast and enjoyed beginners' luck).
Back at San Lorenzo Friary in time for meditation and evening prayer, then a pasta dinner. A good heart-to-heart conversation with my brother later in the evening, and now an early rest for tomorrow's full day. Our fraternity will be travelling to Yonkers and back for the funeral of one of our friars, Bro. Christopher Varley. After Bros. Zachary Grant, Walter O'Brien, Ephrem Karwowski, and Darius DeVito, he is the fifth brother to depart this life in the last twelve months. Here is a remembrance of him from the Province of Saint Mary. Pray for a safe journey for all the brothers coming to Yonkers to pay their respects. As we send our prayers up to the angels carrying Christopher speedily to the world to come, may those same angels speed us safely to our brother and back to our respective friaries.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Brother Ally
In the fall of 2009 I helped to organize a Boston-area chapter of the New Sanctuary Movement, an interfaith coalition of activists and congregations committed to supporting immigrants in the U.S. who are suffering because of unjust treatment from the state, from employers, and from their neighbors. The Boston New Sanctuary Movement aims to ally itself with immigrant families and organizations that advocate on their behalf for just and humane immigration policies, fair treatment from employers, and an end to discrimination. Through our own efforts at education, we seek to recruit and train lay and ordained religious leaders to speak from the values of their tradition for the dignity and well-being of our immigrant sisters and brothers. Through our efforts at advocacy, speaking truth to power and taking direct action in the corridors of political and economic power, we hope to bring about positive social change for immigrant families.
Before I joined the Capuchins I was a member of the steering committee for our chapter. Now that I have returned to Boston I have been brought back on to the steering committee.
This morning I went to First Parish in Brookline, a Unitarian Universalist congregation, to attend an antiracism workshop our steering committee organized. The purpose was to make us conscious of racism on the internal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural levels; and then to reflect on what it means to be an ally to marginalized peoples -- to name ourselves as such and make this identity a key to working faithfully and effectively for more just communities.
For me, at this moment, being an ally has to do with putting my privileges (or gifts and talents, if you will) at the service of my suffering neighbor; and doing so in a way that allows them to decide how those privileges, those gifts, those talents, are to be used, not me. Just as I must put my innate abilities and acquired skills at the disposal of my province and the brothers, so would I do for the least among us. And thus is my obedience made complete.
In thanking the women who organized and conducted this workshop, I lifted up in gratitude their courage and commitment to diversity and equity in the Boston New Sanctuary Movement. I am a better person for knowing these women, more mindful of the things I carry in my "knapsack of privilege." As Franciscans living the vow of poverty know, material poverty is the easy part. Spiritual poverty, or minority, or solidarity with the poor, is the hard part. Even when you have given away your material things, you still hold on to other forms of privilege: social capital, cultural hegemony, the theological values of your group enshrined in secular policy, etc. But in the company of my friends in the New Sanctuary Movement, Interfaith Worker Justice, I can learn how to give away even these "sticky" spiritual and social gifts for the common good, for all peoples. Without their knowing it, these sisters hold me accountable to my vow of poverty!
As I take up ministry of service to low-wage workers and to immigrants through Interfaith Worker Justice and the New Sanctuary Movement, I look forward to learning from my fellow aspiring allies of the disinherited how to be a better lesser brother with the poor.
Before I joined the Capuchins I was a member of the steering committee for our chapter. Now that I have returned to Boston I have been brought back on to the steering committee.
This morning I went to First Parish in Brookline, a Unitarian Universalist congregation, to attend an antiracism workshop our steering committee organized. The purpose was to make us conscious of racism on the internal, interpersonal, institutional, and structural levels; and then to reflect on what it means to be an ally to marginalized peoples -- to name ourselves as such and make this identity a key to working faithfully and effectively for more just communities.
For me, at this moment, being an ally has to do with putting my privileges (or gifts and talents, if you will) at the service of my suffering neighbor; and doing so in a way that allows them to decide how those privileges, those gifts, those talents, are to be used, not me. Just as I must put my innate abilities and acquired skills at the disposal of my province and the brothers, so would I do for the least among us. And thus is my obedience made complete.
In thanking the women who organized and conducted this workshop, I lifted up in gratitude their courage and commitment to diversity and equity in the Boston New Sanctuary Movement. I am a better person for knowing these women, more mindful of the things I carry in my "knapsack of privilege." As Franciscans living the vow of poverty know, material poverty is the easy part. Spiritual poverty, or minority, or solidarity with the poor, is the hard part. Even when you have given away your material things, you still hold on to other forms of privilege: social capital, cultural hegemony, the theological values of your group enshrined in secular policy, etc. But in the company of my friends in the New Sanctuary Movement, Interfaith Worker Justice, I can learn how to give away even these "sticky" spiritual and social gifts for the common good, for all peoples. Without their knowing it, these sisters hold me accountable to my vow of poverty!
As I take up ministry of service to low-wage workers and to immigrants through Interfaith Worker Justice and the New Sanctuary Movement, I look forward to learning from my fellow aspiring allies of the disinherited how to be a better lesser brother with the poor.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Food for the Body and Soul
Feeling really good about the meal I served to the brothers this evening. This is the first full-course meal I prepared solo for the brothers since postulancy in Brooklyn. I made a quinoa and vegetable pilaf, roasted sweet potatoes with pepper and onion, and roasted cod. For dessert, it was an orange-almond polenta cake dusted with confectioners' sugar. It was an enjoyable afternoon, learning where the cooking utensils were, discovering our appliances and seeing how they work, making the recipes come to life. Even the grocery shopping -- accomplished in spite of pouring rain, lumbering four soggy cloth bags from Stop & Shop to the subway to our house -- was a satisfying experience. The following cookbook is my new best friend, my most trusted kitchen helper:
The Moosewood Collective. Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2005.
Way to go, brothers, for bringing a taste of Ithaca, N.Y., to Jamaica Plain!
While we're on the subject of vegetarian meals, this cookbook will also see much use in the years to come:
The Vegetarian Resource Group. Vegan Handbook (Debra Wasserman and Reed Mangels, eds.) Baltimore, Md.: The Vegetarian Resource Group.
Moving associationally along from food for the body to food for the soul, the following books, found here at the friary, are on my reading list:
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents (trans. and ed. by James Strachey). New York: W.W. Norton, 1961.
It must be the feast of Saint Edith Stein that has me in the mood for readings in philosophy and psychology from the stormy mid-20th century.
Also the following from the friary:
Kennedy, Eugene. The Now and Future Church. Garden City, N.Y.: Image, 1985. This one is subtitled "The Psychology of Being an American Catholic." Tell me more....
Finally, from my own collection of theological texts, arrived this week after one year in storage:
Cone, James. Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991.
Again, something about the mid-20th century is attracting me, bidding me go back to a time before I was born. Something is telling me to listen and understand, before the hard-won wisdom of those difficult decades is lost and we condemn ourselves to times even harder than our parents and grandparents endured.
So much to read! Then there are the Catholic periodicals which beckon me: America, Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter. When my studies begin, will there be any time for leisure reading, or to follow my own intellectual pursuits outside insurmountable syllabuses?
The Moosewood Collective. Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2005.
Way to go, brothers, for bringing a taste of Ithaca, N.Y., to Jamaica Plain!
While we're on the subject of vegetarian meals, this cookbook will also see much use in the years to come:
The Vegetarian Resource Group. Vegan Handbook (Debra Wasserman and Reed Mangels, eds.) Baltimore, Md.: The Vegetarian Resource Group.
Moving associationally along from food for the body to food for the soul, the following books, found here at the friary, are on my reading list:
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin, 1991.
Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents (trans. and ed. by James Strachey). New York: W.W. Norton, 1961.
It must be the feast of Saint Edith Stein that has me in the mood for readings in philosophy and psychology from the stormy mid-20th century.
Also the following from the friary:
Kennedy, Eugene. The Now and Future Church. Garden City, N.Y.: Image, 1985. This one is subtitled "The Psychology of Being an American Catholic." Tell me more....
Finally, from my own collection of theological texts, arrived this week after one year in storage:
Cone, James. Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991.
Again, something about the mid-20th century is attracting me, bidding me go back to a time before I was born. Something is telling me to listen and understand, before the hard-won wisdom of those difficult decades is lost and we condemn ourselves to times even harder than our parents and grandparents endured.
So much to read! Then there are the Catholic periodicals which beckon me: America, Commonweal, National Catholic Reporter. When my studies begin, will there be any time for leisure reading, or to follow my own intellectual pursuits outside insurmountable syllabuses?
Bring the Water!
Morning prayer with the brothers in our chapel, but no Mass, because none of our priest friars are available to celebrate the Eucharist. So I will head downtown to Saint Anthony Shrine, where the Franciscan Friars live and serve the women and men who work in the business district, and the women and men who have nowhere to go and no work to do.
Running some errands, too: first, to purchase CharlieCards from the MBTA so my brothers who are new to Boston can get around by subway and bus. Then, to the supermarket for the groceries I need to prepare dinner this evening.
At some point I will sit down with my formation director to discuss the shape of the ministries I will be doing.
Been meditating this week on life in "Israel" and life in "Egypt," faith and fear, and selflessness and selfishness. The grumbling of the Israelites; the faith of the Canaanite woman; the reluctance of Moses: these stories convict me. How hard it is to de-center yourself! How hard it is to remember that God is the center of your life, your very existence! For the rest of my life I will be doing penance for being a usurper of privilege, or so I assure myself in chapel every morning. But where am I at the end of the day? Back on the golden throne I carved for myself? Should I not instead have no seat of my own but only sore knees and dirty, aching feet?
The Scripture shows that God was displeased with Moses because he was unwilling to satisfy the needs of the thirsting people and thus reveal the tender compassion of God. Granted, they were ungrateful for being freed from the oppression of Egypt, but they were thirsting nonetheless. Why the roughness with his people? Why the exclamation, “Listen to me, you rebels! Are we to bring water for you out of this rock?”
On the other hand, is not God unnecessarily rough on Moses? God's punishment on Moses -- being denied entry into the Promised Land -- seems exceedingly harsh; after all, Moses, albeit grudgingly, did strike the rock to release the life-giving water. But Moses' behavior at that moment of crisis in Massah and Meribah shows that even he still had too much of Egypt in him. Instead of giving God's gifts generously and graciously, he lorded it over the unhappy Israelites, taunting them, calling them rebels, performing the miracle out of spite and the desire to assert his authority over them.
In today's Gospel reading Jesus teaches us to learn from Moses' pride. We cannot serve God and continue going about making ourselves the master of our selves, much less the master of others. God is determined to free us from the suffering we bear because of other people's selfishness. But this is not so we can turn the tables on our oppressors and become their masters. God is also determined to free others, both the just and unjust, from the suffering they bear because of our own selfishness.
Will I let go of myself? Will I stop hugging the rock that bears the life-giving water, clinging to it for myself alone? Will I bring the water to others?
Running some errands, too: first, to purchase CharlieCards from the MBTA so my brothers who are new to Boston can get around by subway and bus. Then, to the supermarket for the groceries I need to prepare dinner this evening.
At some point I will sit down with my formation director to discuss the shape of the ministries I will be doing.
Been meditating this week on life in "Israel" and life in "Egypt," faith and fear, and selflessness and selfishness. The grumbling of the Israelites; the faith of the Canaanite woman; the reluctance of Moses: these stories convict me. How hard it is to de-center yourself! How hard it is to remember that God is the center of your life, your very existence! For the rest of my life I will be doing penance for being a usurper of privilege, or so I assure myself in chapel every morning. But where am I at the end of the day? Back on the golden throne I carved for myself? Should I not instead have no seat of my own but only sore knees and dirty, aching feet?
The Scripture shows that God was displeased with Moses because he was unwilling to satisfy the needs of the thirsting people and thus reveal the tender compassion of God. Granted, they were ungrateful for being freed from the oppression of Egypt, but they were thirsting nonetheless. Why the roughness with his people? Why the exclamation, “Listen to me, you rebels! Are we to bring water for you out of this rock?”
On the other hand, is not God unnecessarily rough on Moses? God's punishment on Moses -- being denied entry into the Promised Land -- seems exceedingly harsh; after all, Moses, albeit grudgingly, did strike the rock to release the life-giving water. But Moses' behavior at that moment of crisis in Massah and Meribah shows that even he still had too much of Egypt in him. Instead of giving God's gifts generously and graciously, he lorded it over the unhappy Israelites, taunting them, calling them rebels, performing the miracle out of spite and the desire to assert his authority over them.
In today's Gospel reading Jesus teaches us to learn from Moses' pride. We cannot serve God and continue going about making ourselves the master of our selves, much less the master of others. God is determined to free us from the suffering we bear because of other people's selfishness. But this is not so we can turn the tables on our oppressors and become their masters. God is also determined to free others, both the just and unjust, from the suffering they bear because of our own selfishness.
Will I let go of myself? Will I stop hugging the rock that bears the life-giving water, clinging to it for myself alone? Will I bring the water to others?
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Praying ...
... for people who have too little work or no work at all, and for people who have too much work to do; and for both peoples, who cannot afford food, shelter, or medicine.
... that we Capuchins may be closer brothers to people who work dreadfully hard to produce the food we eat, the clothing we wear, and all the conveniences we enjoy.
... for people who struggle in the clutches of addiction and mental illness.
... that we Capuchins may know speak words and do good works of healing for them, even if we do not know how to cure their ills.
... for the poor who wander the streets of our neighborhood, hungry and homeless and in emotional and physical pain.
... that we Capuchins may always meet them open-hearted and open-handed, never turning them away with nothing, never giving them anything that will harm, but filling them with good things.
... for our neighbors on Shepton Street in Dorchester, who were jarred by a shootout between police and suspects on Wednesday. (I lived on Shepton Street from August 2010 to July 2011. Today's newspaper described an altercation between undercover officers and suspects leading to gunfire, including an alleged drive-by shooting from a vehicle that turned onto Shepton from Dorchester Avenue.) Unspeakable.
... that we Capuchins may have the courage to remain when violence breaks out in our midst.
... for our sick friends and relatives, especially a friend in Cambridge who is suffering from cancer and severe back pain.
... that we Capuchins may care for the bodily needs of all our sisters and brothers, each of us according to the gifts and talents we have been given, without counting the cost.
... for ourselves, when we are too afraid to reach out when others in need come to us at inconvenient times asking for our help.
... that we Capuchins may show the faith of true Israelites when challenged by the surpassing faith of a Gentile.
... that we Capuchins may be closer brothers to people who work dreadfully hard to produce the food we eat, the clothing we wear, and all the conveniences we enjoy.
... for people who struggle in the clutches of addiction and mental illness.
... that we Capuchins may know speak words and do good works of healing for them, even if we do not know how to cure their ills.
... for the poor who wander the streets of our neighborhood, hungry and homeless and in emotional and physical pain.
... that we Capuchins may always meet them open-hearted and open-handed, never turning them away with nothing, never giving them anything that will harm, but filling them with good things.
... for our neighbors on Shepton Street in Dorchester, who were jarred by a shootout between police and suspects on Wednesday. (I lived on Shepton Street from August 2010 to July 2011. Today's newspaper described an altercation between undercover officers and suspects leading to gunfire, including an alleged drive-by shooting from a vehicle that turned onto Shepton from Dorchester Avenue.) Unspeakable.
... that we Capuchins may have the courage to remain when violence breaks out in our midst.
... for our sick friends and relatives, especially a friend in Cambridge who is suffering from cancer and severe back pain.
... that we Capuchins may care for the bodily needs of all our sisters and brothers, each of us according to the gifts and talents we have been given, without counting the cost.
... for ourselves, when we are too afraid to reach out when others in need come to us at inconvenient times asking for our help.
... that we Capuchins may show the faith of true Israelites when challenged by the surpassing faith of a Gentile.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Statement of Purpose
In September I will begin the Master of Theology program at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Yesterday I was considering my plan of study, reviewing the course catalogs for the School of Theology and Ministry and the Department of Theology in the College of Arts and Sciences. My orientation will be on Aug. 29 and 30.
Over the next year and two I hope to blog a bit about my experiences at Boston College and how my intellectual formation is influenced by and shapes my identity as a Capuchin friar. Meanwhile, as I ponder my return to formal theological studies, I post for your consideration the personal statement I submitted to the School of Theology and Ministry board of admissions in May.
Over the next year and two I hope to blog a bit about my experiences at Boston College and how my intellectual formation is influenced by and shapes my identity as a Capuchin friar. Meanwhile, as I ponder my return to formal theological studies, I post for your consideration the personal statement I submitted to the School of Theology and Ministry board of admissions in May.
In the
course of my wanderings all I have wanted is to be a person, a Christian, a follower of Jesus, one who loves God and all
people. I have been an editor in New York, a teacher in Baltimore, and a community
organizer in Boston. Now I am a brother on pilgrimage with the Capuchin
Franciscans. Over the last two years I have migrated from New York to Kansas to
California with the friars. In a little while I will return to Boston as a
vowed religious.
The path
of initial formation with the Capuchins brings me to Boston College School of
Theology and Ministry for continuing education. I earned a Master of Divinity
degree five years ago. By learning theology, I learned how I wanted to live—by the Gospel. By resuming theological
studies, I seek to live the Gospel better.
My
spiritual awakening began at Cornell University, where I learned how to think
and to see the world with my own senses. I collided with different realities,
and in the cracking of my worldview I came to realize how desperate I was to
believe. My soul yearned for the spirit of God. And God began to whisper a new
word and a new story to teach me living truth. God whispered to me that there
are things more important than work, family, nation, and self. God whispered
doubts about the American Dream my parents and educators told me about and gave
me a new story—the story of the people of God.
God
did this not so I would condemn my elders, who never told me about the Gospel,
but to love them more in their spiritual poverty and mine. God did this not so
I would turn my back on a world that seems built to thwart all possibility of
an encounter with the living God, but to be in the world more and love in it so that God’s presence might shine
more brightly. My spiritual awakening was an awakening into relationship and
into community.
By the
time I began theological studies at Boston University in 2005, I had long
shaken my stupor. I was confirmed in the Catholic faith on Pentecost in 2000. I
believe my felt experience of the sacrament of confirmation was a Spirit-filled
encounter with the God of Jesus Christ. I felt free; I felt loved. I moved to
Boston to learn better how to love this God
who loved me and set me free. (Because of this love, I previously spent two
years grinding through the privations of urban mission in Baltimore, including
one year teaching grammar and math at a GED center and one year teaching
religion to inner-city youth at a Catholic school.) God began to show me what to
do. If I wanted to know and love this
God, I would work for the transformation of broken relationships. What began as
an intellectual assent to the truth of Catholic social teaching became a
personal concern for workers and the employers who do them wrong; immigrants
and their hostile U.S. neighbors; prisoners and a scorning society; and the
homeless and the housed who shun them. The God who rescued me from isolation shattered
my indifference to others.
For
three years I practiced public discipleship, working for the conversion of
society as an organizer mobilizing churches. Then in 2011, I joined the
Capuchins to renew my own conversion, on the level of my personal relationship
with God and my interpersonal relationships. As novitiate ends and post-novitiate
draws near, I am eager to integrate being and doing and practice the Gospel on both
personal and social levels.
Why theological
studies now? The people of God in the United States today live among neighbors
who classify themselves as “spiritual, not religious” and, increasingly,
“neither spiritual nor religious.” Many in the Church neither desire nor know
how to speak to them. In our own house, we live with sisters and brothers who
have faith in Jesus but no confidence in the Church of Christ. We struggle to
live the Gospel together. Conversely, among Church loyalists, both lay and
clerical, I sense a strain of anti-elitism: a distrust of well-educated laypersons
who are exploring and expanding the Catholic intellectual tradition in its
breadth, depth, plurality, and ambiguity. If a “spiritual, not religious”
Christian imperils a living, life-giving tradition by severing the person of
Christ from the community of believers, then an “intellectual, not academic”
believer does the same by taking the name of Jesus but not the language our
most thoughtful Christians use to approach him. Among Catholics, the
“spiritual, not religious” and “intellectual, not academic” are falling into
opposite camps, with the lay “renegades” in the former and the loyalists in the
latter.
I wish
to bridge the divide between these groups. I wish to study the nature of the Church,
understanding the much-contested Second Vatican Council; the nature of Christ,
understood from mainstream (magisterial) and marginal (liberation and feminist)
perspectives; our social doctrine in its theological and philosophical
foundations; and the prophetic tradition, woven like a golden thread into Scripture
from the Hebrew prophets to the Gospels. I would do this as a Franciscan developing
a vernacular theology, a practical personalism leading to a program of social
action in covenant with all Catholics, all Christians, people of all faiths,
and people of good will.
As a
Capuchin, I am called to a life of continual transformation, conforming myself
to the life of Jesus Christ by living the Gospel after the example of Francis
of Assisi. As a lay religious minister, it is my work to make a space where the
justice and compassion of Christ becomes real. Those who can name reality make reality.
I want to speak and act in Christ in such a way as to encompass different
realities: not to annihilate them or assimilate them into my own, but to
describe them, criticize them, and draw them closer together, within the ultimate
reality of God, into a new shared reality. This is the project I bring to the
School of Theology and Ministry.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Reunion, Domestication, Communication
My post-novice brothers have arrived; we are now a larger, louder household! The guardian and two post-novice directors are here as well. The two other brothers in simple vows who live here are respectively away on vacation and continuing a summer ministry assignment out of town. They will return late next week. When they do, our household will be whole.
I have continued to meet with friends and partners in ministry from the old days (that is, before beginning initial formation with the Capuchins). It has been so easy to renew these relationships, which is a blessing. I came back to San Lorenzo Friary mid-afternoon to bake an apple crisp and toss a green salad for our cookout (burgers and frankfurters for the carnivores, veggie burgers for your repentant correspondent). Also did my laundry for the first time as a resident here. And I received the last batch of boxes with my theology books and notebooks and personal papers. Feeling really settled, at ease in this new home, and confident about my ability to make others feel at home here. Such confidence would have been inconceivable to me several years ago. At home in a house? I've become quite domesticated, which is quite a turnabout from the time before I joined the friars.
Another major transition as of this evening: I have rejoined the 21st century and been issued both a cell phone and a credit card. And a personal computer and printer are on the way. More on all this later.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
My Brothers' and Sisters' Blogs
Now that I have been liberated from the time limits constraining my use of Internet throughout novitiate, I have the leisure to read my friends' blogs.
Here are a few of the websites I will be visiting more frequently, beginning with those of my Capuchin brothers:
Brother Jack's Preaching Ministry
A Minor Friar
New Sandals
... and I would be remiss not include this Capuchin brother:
Cardinal Sean's Blog
I will also be reading the thoughts of my sisters in the Spirit, including my friends who write for these sites:
Feminism and Religion
God Talk
I am ready to be edified, provoked, and delighted!
Here are a few of the websites I will be visiting more frequently, beginning with those of my Capuchin brothers:
Brother Jack's Preaching Ministry
A Minor Friar
New Sandals
... and I would be remiss not include this Capuchin brother:
Cardinal Sean's Blog
I will also be reading the thoughts of my sisters in the Spirit, including my friends who write for these sites:
Feminism and Religion
God Talk
I am ready to be edified, provoked, and delighted!
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Sister Boston
Been back in Boston for 48 hours now, and it feels like I've never been away. At this moment, to my eyes, this city is unconditionally beautiful, whether sunny or cloudy, rainy or shiny. Praise be to you, my Lord, for Sister Boston, who is bright like the stars and strong like the earth.
Being here now feels very good and very right. In addition to spending an excellent two days with longtime friends, I've had some amazing reunions on the street with old acquaintances. No fewer than three times has some familiar face come up to me on the street because he or she saw the habit and then recognized who
was wearing it ... as I say, amazing. If this is a sign of the three years in simple vows to come, I must count myself abundantly blessed.
Attended a vigil Mass this afternoon to fulfill my Sunday obligation and free me to attend worship tomorrow morning at the American Baptist church here in Jamaica Plain, where a dear friend of mine will be preaching. In the evening I will have my first meal here with the friars as a fellow friar.
Now, sending prayers for God's peace and love to embrace the candidates and the friars attending discernment weekend in Thornwood, N.Y. May the Spirit grace all the brothers, especially Bro. Jim Gavin, who is giving the discernment presentations; and the young men (and young-at-heart men) who are considering our way of living the Gospel.
Being here now feels very good and very right. In addition to spending an excellent two days with longtime friends, I've had some amazing reunions on the street with old acquaintances. No fewer than three times has some familiar face come up to me on the street because he or she saw the habit and then recognized who
was wearing it ... as I say, amazing. If this is a sign of the three years in simple vows to come, I must count myself abundantly blessed.
Attended a vigil Mass this afternoon to fulfill my Sunday obligation and free me to attend worship tomorrow morning at the American Baptist church here in Jamaica Plain, where a dear friend of mine will be preaching. In the evening I will have my first meal here with the friars as a fellow friar.
Now, sending prayers for God's peace and love to embrace the candidates and the friars attending discernment weekend in Thornwood, N.Y. May the Spirit grace all the brothers, especially Bro. Jim Gavin, who is giving the discernment presentations; and the young men (and young-at-heart men) who are considering our way of living the Gospel.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Psalm 121
Another day, another month, another move. This time of year has often been a time of leaving and arriving, going and coming. On this day God has prepared for another going and coming, and for all the times of moving yet to come, I ask for protection and help.
As I recall Psalm 121 prayerfully today, I am reminded of a sermon I gave on the psalm for a preaching class I took at Boston University six years ago. I wonder how I would break open this word from God today, in a Franciscan key, as a Capuchin friar, as one returning from the desert, as one returning from hills, sun, and moon that made the world of this psalm immediate.
Well, I have a seven-hour journey during which I can consider this. Be well, fellow travellers in the Spirit.
As I recall Psalm 121 prayerfully today, I am reminded of a sermon I gave on the psalm for a preaching class I took at Boston University six years ago. I wonder how I would break open this word from God today, in a Franciscan key, as a Capuchin friar, as one returning from the desert, as one returning from hills, sun, and moon that made the world of this psalm immediate.
Well, I have a seven-hour journey during which I can consider this. Be well, fellow travellers in the Spirit.
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