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Posted in category "Seasons of the Spirit"
First Sunday of Advent.
Don’t you find it difficult this back and forth between the “already” and the “not yet” in the Gospels, and also in the Liturgy?
The Kingdom of God is “already” among us, but hold on, it is “not yet” accomplished! So which one is it?
Advent is on of those teasing seasons when I feel I am supposed to rejoice at the upcoming of Christ, but yet, nothing really changes after Christmas. Christ is already born. 2000 years ago in fact! So what is really new this Xmas of 2006? Apart from a retailer’s bliss, what am I really supposed to look forward to, and thus ‘prepare’ during this particular Advent season? Christ is “already” born, but expecting his birth now is still what the liturgy is asking us to do as if it has “not yet” happened.
Today is Mary’s birthday. I went on a site ‘Notre Dame du Web’ (Our Lady of the Web); sorry it is in French, and read the Magnificat. Some of the words were highlighted. As I read I was struck to see that what Mary celebrated and rejoiced about in her song was really a completely new perception of God’s nature. Of course she used bits and pieces the Hebrew Scriptures, but the way she puts them together was so new, so fresh, even controversial, and certainly revolutionary. It is still so for us today. Why?
This is what God does she sings! Gone is the vengeful God/Judge, comes in a God completely different.
Mary’s song is the beginning of the Gospel, the Good News brought about by Christ. But isn’t it true that Christ first awareness of God came to him from his mother?
I am wondering as we hear the discourse of the Christian Right if we are talking about the same God. Mary’s and Christ’s God is much more discreet. Much more difficult to understand. Because the ‘superbs’ are still sitting on their throne and the ‘rich’s hands’ are still full, this God is hard to believe in, but so, so much more appealing.
What if it is indeed the true nature of God?
A friend wrote, asking our thoughts on that topic. I am not sure exactly what she meant by ‘catholic religion’. But whatever it is, we need to find out if and how it should, or can, be practiced as a lesbian.
What’s the difference between Christian faith and Catholic religion? Is Catholic religion one of the various ways to interpret and live one’s Christian faith? If so, it’s obviously not the only one.
However for Catholics as well as for Christians of other denominations, the root of it all is our faith in the risen Christ and our knowledge of him and his message received in the Gospels. Religion should help us nourish that faith.
Religion and faith are a bit like the chicken and the egg. Without religion how would we discover and nourish our faith. And without faith, religion is simply dead in the water.
If religion is the sailboat, faith is the wind in the sails. One without the other is pretty hard. Which one comes first? Very often religion does, we are raised into a religion and draw our faith from it, except of course for converts such as St. Paul and many others.
At the end which one will last longer? Faith I bet. There will be no need of it in heaven!
What does it tell us? That religion is a mean, not an end. A mean to live, practice and nourish our faith. To turn it into an end is a sort of fundamentalism.
Indeed we need to be vigilant that religion does not become a hindrance rather than a help.
We need to be clear as of its role in our life of faith. Once we are we are free and can choose to practice our religion in a way that will help us, today and as we are.
Today I decided to delete FreeCell (a computer game) from my computer at work. I had become quite addicted! So much time and energy -and eye sight- went in improving my average (74%!) that it had to stop.
On a related -or not- note, this blog has been left to gather dust for too long. It’s not that I had nothing to write, or no time to write it. But a certain “blah” took over my spiritual self after the hooplas of Lent and Easter were over and done. Prayer then was easier, more satisfactory and comforting. Alas the “blah” brought up a slack in my daily prayer routine, and the slack led to guilt which succeeded in insinuating a definite lack of trust in Christ.
This is always the same story! And do not tell me there is no devil at work in that sleek sequence of events: slack in perseverance- lassitude- guilt- mistrust.
Walking on the beach I took a photo which heads this blog. An old rusty anchor sunk in the sand and mud. Come storms and fogs, hurricanes even, it remains put. High tide, low tide, it is always there. The day I took the photo the waters were clear and calm.
Yes, does it make a difference to God?
The more we love, the more vulnerable we are. So much so that people who have been hurt a lot may fear to love again. To love is to risk. Love is a form of weakness. One can get hurt! This is all very clear and can be read and seen in thousand ways in literature and art of all kind.
But can it apply to God? Does God seek my love? Yes, mine, not all human’s in general, but Mine. And if I do not respond, does it make a difference to God? If it does not, then there would be no mutuality, only complete surrender and adoration on my side and unlimited power-over on God’s side. That’s not love!
There must be a weakness in God that allows for mutuality. How can it be? My mind refuses to think of it as if an abyss opens in front of me. This is so scary! What if indeed God loves me so much as to need me? As to be left vulnerable, waiting for me?
Me, not as the center of the universe, but as each one of us being the ‘Me’ God loves to such extreme. Each one of us as a unique and absolute love.
Not sure that I am on theologically solid ground I go back to the Gospels. And yes, indeed it all fit:
“Who saw me, have seen the Father” says Jesus. God and Jesus are one and the same. So Christ in the abject weakness of his passion, at the mercy of his torturers shows God, as a true icon.
Some feminist Christians reject the image of Christ on the cross as being sadistic. How can a father do that to his son? I agree, the cross cannot be there to expiate our sins, as a ransom paid to God the Father. I do not believe that. That would put God in some sort of terrorist role. Violence, torture as a mean for God to save us! This is absurd. In that sense, the Cross could not be a mean of salvation. But God, on the cross, at our mercy, having lost all power, utterly weak, a pitiful prisoner in the hands of thugs. Why?
“I am at your mercy!” says God to me in Jesus on the cross. “I love you as much!” and Christ opens his arms wide with no defense left against me.
It sounds a bit pretentious when you think about it. The difference between us should forbid any sort of relationship, except one of complete surrender and unreserved adoration. Love relationships require a certain degree of equality, don’t they? They need mutuality. At least a trace of it. We all know that in order to work a relationship cannot be completely unbalanced, with one party having all the power and the other being completely dependent. Look for instance at parenting. Parents have complete control of the infant and until a certain extent of the young child. But there is very little mutuality in the early stages. The infant gives back but not much! As the child grows and his/her power (at least the power to say no) develops, the relationship grows. It increases at the same pace than the balance of power evens out.
Having all the power and all the control in one of the partner does not make for a great loving relationship, more like slavery, wouldn’t you say?
So what kind of relationship can I have with God? Maybe I should ask the question a different way: Does it make a difference to God? What a thunderous question!
“Come back to me, with all your heart” Jl 2:13
What do you give up for Lent? It’s funny that the first thing we think about with Lent is penance. I am planning to give up drinking wine, but that decision comes dangerously close to my goal of loosing 20 pounds before the spring. (2 points with Weight Watchers for each glass of wine!)
Why do I want to shed pounds? To look and feel better. The way others see me enters a lot in my dieting decision. First and foremost how my partner sees me and how I see myself. Indeed I can see clearly a connection between dieting and my relationship with her, with myself.
But where is the connection between God and penance? What difference does it make in God’s scheme of things if I drink wine or not during Lent? Jesus himself was not great on penance!
I do not like this emphasis on sin during Lent. As if my giving up wine or candies would somehow pay for my sins. A sort of expiation!
Don’t we put the cart before the ox?
My partner would say: “What’s the point of looking thinner and better, even bringing me flowers on Valentine’s Day, if you do not take the time for us to sit and talk, if I am of no importance in your plans, in your life?”
Indeed, the first word of Lent is not penance, but conversion. To convert, that is to turn the direction of our heart. Lent is the time where we are called to re-kindle our intimacy with God. It’s a special trip just for the two of us, a time of re-discovery, a time to re-commit, a time of spiritual exploration. Fasting and other Lent resolutions have their place, as signs of our intention, but they are certainly neither the goal nor the end of it.
Our Father Who Art In Heaven
The Lord’s Prayer
For a long time, many years in fact, I was not able to say the Our Father because I was stuck on the Father part. This is what happens when one’s consciousness is raised; blessed innocence disappears for ever.
But last summer, praying near my mother, brought a different perspective. I needed to pray. So I did and let go of my hang-ups.
Later it dawned on me that I too might be guilty of fundamentalism. I say guilty because is it not true that fundamentalism is a sin, a form of idolatry? To take the letter, the written word, made by men (most of the time) and to make it into an absolute, and end in itself seems to me the same as raising a golden calf to worship it as God.
I stopped at the letter, the written word of the Lord’s Prayer, not to worship it, but on the contrary to reject it. I am always prompt to argue that the Scriptures should not be taken literally, but studied and interpreted, reading through the layers of symbolism, to find meanings beyond the accident of language and culture. With a feeling of superiority I laugh at Christians who put the creation myths on the same scientific level as the evolution theory. I would not be so dumb as to confuse myths and scientific facts.
But did I bother to stop one minute and look at the symbolisms beyond the patriarchal language of the Our Father?
Remember you are dust and to dust you will return
Distribution of Ashes
I hate to receive the ashes and vigorously wipe them off the minute I am out of church. However I do feel guilt and shame as I see the throngs boasting a large cross on their forehead throughout the whole day on Ash Wednesday.
Why is it that, as noted earlier in the Forum, the same ash adorned Christians were only a few weeks ago wishing “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”? Is it more acceptable to flaunt Christian repentance than Christian rejoicing?
I do not like to think that I am dust and will return to dust. Even more this year when dust takes a special meaning: my Mother passed away last summer. Sometime erupts in my mind the image of her laying in a coffin, alone, cold, Mother yes, but without life, so not her anymore, and I feel as a wave of ice over me. Death and life are so close and yet so radically opposed. Why do I need to be reminded of it, and with such a literal symbol, dust?
Maybe Lent is the time to think hard about the ultimate realities. Where are we coming from? Why? Where are we going?
Is the cross of ashes a help or a hindrance?
“When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.”
John 16:12-15
But what is truth? Pontius Pilate did ask that very question from Jesus who remained silent.
Are there several truths, like facets of a diamond, depending on the perspective one looks from? The truth we know as ours, who we are -having received our sexual orientation from God as a gift-, contradicts the truth people say we are, -deviant and intrinsically disordered-. Which one is true, which one is not? This is a quite painful alternative. It would be great if we could say: “Please, may the true truth stand up!” And we would see the truth finally unveiling itself in the sight of all. We would be vindicated at last, or proven wrong?
We grasp in the dark with in one hand our gut feelings and in the other the conflicting messages of our families, society, and religion. Can we indeed receive the promised Spirit and be guided to a truth solid enough to build a life on?
Fundamentalists of all faith are absolutely certain of their truth. Is it that sort of conviction we are looking for? I would hope not, as too often the rock upon which one stands becomes the stone thrown at others.
Instead I see truth, not as a rock, but as a process.
A process. “He will guide you to all truth”.
The process began when we were born and continued through all the steps of our coming out, never complete, never completed.
How do we know we are engaged in the true process? How do we know we are on the right road?
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