The Great Campaign of Sabotage

“Long lay the world, in sin and error pining
Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth” –O Holy Night, c. 1847

Sometimes, my appreciation for grammar rewards itself.

‘O Holy Night’, of course, is a standard holiday song heard, sang, and overplayed on many a radio station committed to syrupy and overproduced renditions of Christmas classics. But no matter. To paraphrase a former professor of mine, abuse of a song doesn’t negate proper use, or its lyrical prowess. It’s still a good song.

It’s this line quoted above that has long jangled a deep chord of truth within me. It both recognizes that the world is, to put it mildly, a mess and it always has been (Ecc. 7:10). And yet … the world being a mess is never the end of the story. The next line of the hymn is "Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth."

In this line, it would have been so easy to have the ‘its’ instead be a ‘His’ – as in, when Jesus was born, people’s souls were able to understand the worth of Jesus. “… and the soul felt His worth” – this sounds churchy, proper and altogether plausible, doesn’t it?

But that is not how the hymn is, thankfully so.

What the hymn actually states is what we know in our gut to be true about our world today; we live in a world drenched in sin, of people misusing one another, misusing God’s creation, and not loving their neighbors as themselves. We experience this reality locally in our city. We see and hear this play out in the news that we consume and in the news that consumes us. We taste the bitterness of it as it touches our lives, or the lives of those we know and love. The way of the world.

This was as true in Jesus’ time as it is now. Soon after Jesus was born, his parents would have to quickly become refugees in another country (Egypt) – their hometown was no longer a safe place to be. They sought shelter as strangers in a strange land.

Stop me if any of this sounds familiar. This is regrettably the way of the world right now.

And yet … Scripture treats the historical birth of Jesus Christ as an event foretold in the Old Testament; the fulcrum upon which creation turns. It’s what Oxford University fellow and Christian apologist CS Lewis referred to in Mere Christianity: “Enemy-occupied territory-that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”

And by great campaign of sabotage, Lewis means that the birth of Christ is the firstfruits of this ‘way of the world’ (sin, violent misuse of one another and of creation) being interrupted. It's the firstfruits of us and all of creation starting to be set right by God through Christ’s love for us, justice for victims and the oppressed, of being saved from the sin that ensnares us, both in ways we have misused others and in ways we have been misused by others.

When Christ appeared, it was God’s way of showing us what we are worth. Words can only, at best, describe some of the depth, breadth and expanse of God’s love for us.

"Till He appeared, and the soul felt its worth."

Sometimes, grammar and pronouns convey so much.

My hope and prayer for you this holiday season is that you would, in ways familiar and new, get to experience and know in the deepest parts of your being that you are loved by God beyond compare.

Jim Roach is the Campus Minister in Reinert Hall.

To Should or Not to Should

I recently had a conversation with a student about shoulds. In the conversation, we discussed the feelings of obligation that come with them. They tend to cause us to place unrealistic expectations on ourselves which then lead to guilt when we don’t fulfill those expectations. As someone who doesn’t really like to be told what to do, when I feel like I should do something, I have less motivation to actually do it.

I don’t know about you, but I too often let shoulds run my life—there are times when I should all over myself. There are a lot of things in my life that I feel like I should do. These shoulds carry a lot of weight with them and if at the end of the day I feel like I haven’t completed enough of them, I may go to bed with a heavy heart.

These shoulds can also impact the way I live my life. I do things not because it’s the right thing to do, but because I feel like I should do them. Shoulds have a tendency to turn into have-tos, and those can feel real heavy. Not all shoulds are bad, but those that cause us to set unrealistic expectations and that induce unhealthy guilt are those that we might need to really evaluate and call into question.

Shoulds can oftentimes spill over onto our image of God. It becomes an image of God standing there shaking his finger at me, making me believe I’m not good enough. This is, in my experience, so far from who God is. Instead, God wants to free us from the shoulds. I believe God uses coulds. Coulds feel more like an invitation than a demand. When we’re invited by God, we do things out of love, not shoulds.

Ask yourself where you’re shoulding in your life. Are there tasks that you’re resentful towards and you allow yourself to easily be distracted from? Chances are there’s a should behind it. Are there spaces in your faith life in which you do things because God is shaking a finger at you rather than inviting you? Chances are there’s a should behind that too.

Robby Francis is the Campus Minister in Fusz and DeMattias Halls.

Homily for the Solemnity of All Saints - November 1, 2015

One day a priest was visiting the home of some parishioners who had a young toddler. The parents were wondering what path their son would one day choose, so the priest said he had a simple test that could predict what would become of him. He would set out three objects and let the baby choose whichever one he wanted to have: a Bible, a wallet stuffed with cash, or a bottle of scotch. If the baby chose the Bible, he’d be a holy priest; if he chose the wallet, he’d be a wily businessman; and if he chose the bottle, he’d be a slick bartender. So the parents let the baby loose, and when he ran over and grabbed all three at the same time, the priest cried out, “Saints preserve us! He’s gonna be a Jesuit!” I can neither confirm nor deny that I was the baby in this story. But what I can tell you is that it points to something important: what it means to have a certain vocation, and what it means to be holy, can often burst apart the categories of our expectations. It’s a good time to remember this, because today we celebrate two things. It is the feast of All Saints, a day when we honor all those who, by God’s grace, lived out our faith in holiness, both the canonized and the uncanonized, both the famous and the forgotten. It is also the beginning of National Vocation Awareness Week, when the Church encourages young men and women to consider what kind of life God is calling them to.

So I’m going to combine these two occasions into a single, bold claim tonight, and say this: it is the vocation of every person in this church to be a saint. Now, when I say that it’s your vocation to be a saint, I’m guessing that you’re probably listening politely on the outside, but inside you’re more or less dismissing it as pious claptrap. I’m betting there are at least two reasons for this. First, most of us think we are way too flawed, too imperfect, to ever be remotely eligible to be a saint. What we know of saints makes them sound like religious superheroes who do things far beyond our ordinary lives. Second, most of us don’t even particularly feel a desire to be a saint, since frankly it doesn’t sound like much fun. Saints seem so austere, so otherworldly, so serious, so grim. What we hear of their lifestyle just doesn’t seem like a viable option for happiness. But maybe the categories of our expectations need to be burst apart. What I’d like to propose to you is that being a saint means, yes, being flawed and, yes, being joyful.

So, first: saints were flawed, imperfect, broken people like you and me, but they allowed God to use them. And when God used them, he transformed their very flaws into strengths, with that delicious kind of irony that God seems to enjoy. The communion of saints is definitely a motley crew—as the first reading describes them, “a great multitude from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” Take a closer look at some of these colorful characters:

St. Peter, a big-hearted blunderer whose mouth seems a few steps ahead of his brain, who stands up to confess Jesus as Son of God, but later denies he even knows him—God uses his generous spirit to become the leader, the rock of faith on which the Church is built.

St. Paul, a passionate, single-minded religious fanatic who goes from city to city bitterly persecuting the young Church with all his energy—God uses his zeal to become the great missionary who spreads Christianity throughout the Roman world.

St. Jerome, a crotchety old curmudgeon who’s good at languages, but complains when studying Hebrew that it sounds like farting—God uses his talent to translate the Bible into Latin, which would communicate God’s word for centuries.

St. Hildegard, a sickly woman who lives enclosed as a nun and suffers from debilitating migraines—God uses these episodes to grant her visions, which inspire her to stand up even to the most powerful men in her society.

St. Thomas Aquinas, known as the Dumb Ox because he’s hefty and slow to speak, which makes him work extra hard at his studies—God uses his careful perseverance to become the master scholar who writes a huge summary of all theological knowledge.

St. Ignatius Loyola, a chivalrous but washed-up wanna-be knight who wants to do great deeds in service of his king—God uses his great-hearted vision to found a new order, the Jesuits, to serve under the banner of Christ the King.

St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, who wants to be a missionary but lives in a cloistered monastery and dies of tuberculosis at age 24—God uses her apparent insignificance to produce profound spiritual writings and powerful miracles still today.

Why does God choose the weak, the misguided, the idiosyncratic, and do great things through them? Maybe just to show that it’s not all about us. Holiness is God’s doing: God will take even the things we’re most embarrassed about and turn them around until they are, ironically, the ways we can best serve others and build up his kingdom. So not feeling “saintly” is no excuse: God has a fondness for unlikely heroes, and the people you least expect—including you!—may turn out to be saints, whether or not you’re ever canonized. All that’s required is to allow God to work through you.

And second: no matter what they may look like in stained glass or as statues, saints were joyful people, because they were following their hearts. Being holy is not a grim, teeth-clenched, deadly serious enterprise. It means not chasing after false happiness and things that delude us, but living life to the full, flourishing as the persons we are created to be, chasing joy. In fact, our
tradition reveals many saints who impressed people by their good sense of humor:

As St. Lawrence was being put to death for being a Christian by being slow-roasted on a gridiron, he famously told his executioners, “I’m done on this side; you can turn me over now!”

St. Augustine in his autobiography wrote that he used to pray, “O Lord, give me chastity… but not yet!”

When St. Francis of Assisi’s father accused him in public of giving away all his goods to the poor, and pointed out that Francis’ own clothes were bought from his father’s hard work, Francis stripped off all his clothes, gave them back to his father, and walked away naked.

St. Ignatius Loyola used to cheer up sad Jesuits by dancing a little jig from his native country. After getting hit with a cannonball in his youth, one leg was shorter than the other, so it must have looked pretty goofy.

St. Teresa of Avila is said to have prayed, “From somber devotions and sour-faced saints, good Lord, deliver us.” She even liked to joke around with God—in one journal entry she wrote, “If this is the way you treat your friends, Lord, it’s no wonder you have so few!”

St. Philip Neri was widely regarded as a saint during his lifetime, so to keep himself humble, he would go around with half his beard shaved off, or wearing a cushion on his head like a turban, or making faces at people while he was celebrating Mass.

St. John XXIII, who was pope just over fifty years ago, was famous for his wit. When asked how many people worked in the Vatican, he replied, “About half.” And once, when he was at a fancy dinner which a woman attended who was wearing a very low-cut dress, his assistant said, “What a scandal! Aren’t you embarrassed that everyone’s looking at her?” John replied, “No! Everyone’s looking at me, to see if I’m looking at her.”

Why do saints laugh so easily? What’s the source of their joy? For one thing, they’re comfortable with themselves, and don’t mind looking foolish or drawing attention to their own shortcomings. Also, they keep everything in perspective: they know what’s really important in life, and can poke fun at the things that aren’t. Most of all, they understand that what God wants for them and what they want for themselves deep down are the same: to be truly happy, to flourish in the way they were made to be, with all their gifts and desires and personality. They know that following God’s will is ultimately never going to conflict with who they want to be. So yes, our vocation is to be saints—or put another way, our calling is to be holy. And no, our flaws won’t get in the way. And no, we will not have to give up happiness—in fact, we will find the most genuine joy we can imagine. What particular mode our holiness will take is going to be different for each of us. There are some in this church who will one day join the Jesuits. Some will become priests or sisters or brothers of other kinds. Some will get married, and some will stay single. Some will dedicate their lives to healing the sick, or defending justice, or serving the disadvantaged, or teaching the young, or building a better government, or any of a myriad of other professions. It’s up to each of us to figure out how God is calling us to be holy. The important thing is that we need not fear God’s plan for us, or worry that it won’t satisfy us. As we read in the prophet Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord: plans of fullness, not of harm, to give you a future and a hope.”

Fr. Steve Schoenig, S.J. is a Professor in the History Department.

September 28, 2015

Those who know me well, know that I love music of all kinds. This week as I was driving, I heard a beautiful piece on the radio:  “Im Herbst” “In Autumn”, Concert-Overture Op. 11 by Edvard Grieg.  I invite you to listen and to reflect with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWwn98FvnL4

I often pray with music and I was so moved to reflect on autumn after listening to this.  Autumn is a time when the earth is curling up for the long winter in anticipation of being reborn in the spring.   With the dying of many leaves and grasses on the vine also comes hope, and a remembrance for what was.

In this autumn, we come to the anniversary of events in our city, in Ferguson, on our campus.  Just like the leaves and grasses slow down but spring back to life, so these memories of the challenging times in our city and campus ebb and flow.  Even through the dead of winter, we can never forget the life within the earth.  We also cannot forget the issues and challenges we have personally been presented with throughout the last year, and we are called in a special way to continue to honor those issues and challenges.  We are called to honor those images which are both fragile and beautiful, those images which provide us with both a harvest of reflection and hope for the future, and those images which call us in a greater way to not only honor and care for the earth but for all creation, including every living being.

As we move into this period of dormancy, we ourselves cannot lie dormant about the challenges and issues which call us to our faith that serves justice.  Perhaps now, in this period of quiet and fragility, it is time to revisit some of the important questions we are called to ask ourselves.  These questions were presented to the campus last autumn from the Department of Campus Ministry.  I invite you to call them to mind again this autumn:

·         Do I condone prejudice by my participation or by my inaction, particularly when speaking out seems like a greater inconvenience than silence?

·         Do I make the connection between faith and action by critiquing structures and attitudes that diminish others?

·         Do I make an effort to get to know people who are different from me in appearance, beliefs, and lifestyle?

·         Do we listen to members of vulnerable communities, both on and off campus, who can help us to see our own blind spots about how our unchallenged assumptions perpetuate hostility?

As always, please remember that there are resources on campus that will engage in dialogue with you around these challenging questions.  My hope and prayer for you is to consider these questions in light of your faith tradition, and in light of the mission which you are a part of here at SLU.  Autumn is a good symbolic reminder that we need to take some time to reflect on our own greater purpose.

Sue Chawszczewski, Ph.D.

Director of Campus Ministry

Never again, never forget: commemorating to make a difference

This upcoming week, August 29, marks the ten-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Many of my friends and fellow New Orleanians - and I - lost everything, relocated, rebuilt their lives and their homes. Plenty of people I knew found ways to commemorate that moment: leaving up the spray paint marks left on front doors by the National Guard, saving memorabilia that survived the flooding, and lots and lots of fleur de lis tattoos. All of them shared the goal of demonstrating the change that this event had on our lives, how we have been wounded, and how that wound does not just heal but leaves a permanent impact on us from then on.

This evening, Sunday August 23, SLU will hold a vigil for peace and justice, echoing the vigil we held in the same spot one year ago, the Sunday immediately before classes began, to share our desire for peace in a city that so desperately needs it and to challenge ourselves to be engaged in making that change happen. The university is working on plans for a memorial of last year’s #OccupySLU and the Clocktower Accords that concluded that challenging week - a week for which SLU’s leadership has been hugely lauded and hugely criticized - but statue or no statue, we still have a long way to go as a university to be more connected to the city around us.

Last year opened more, and more serious, dialogue about race, privilege, and the place of our university in St. Louis than I have seen at any other time during my seven years here. It was a singularly difficult year, but one that challenged us to pay attention to problems that have been going on for decades and centuries in this city, but which we on our campus have mostly had the privilege of not having to look at. As our newest SLU students and staff and faculty join us, I wonder what it is like for them to come here, knowing at least something of what has taken place in St. Louis and on our campus in this past year. I can’t abide hearing tour guides on campus talking to prospective students and parents about how safe the campus is as long as people don’t go north of Delmar or into this or that neighborhood. The so-called “SLU bubble” is made more real by telling people they should be afraid of this city, particularly in neighborhoods that are poor and/or mostly African-American, but our SLU Mission is made LESS real by reinforcing that prejudice. On the contrary, in one of his essays on the role of Jesuit higher education in the world, the superior general of the Jesuits talks about the importance of engaging with the “gritty reality” of the world, and last year forced us to do so; we did not keep this city’s racial issues north of Delmar, and to our benefit. I think of that week in October of last year when we were “occupied” - some of us tried to minimize our contact with the disruptions, keep focused on the alleged “real work” of being a student or professor or staff member, while others of us tried to listen, or dialogue, or challenge, or keep a respectful eye on the proceedings. One of my new colleagues recently discussed with me the difference between “safe spaces” and “brave spaces” - being able to risk a conversation or an encounter that is challenging rather than being so focused on keeping everyone feeling safe that no hard realities can come to light.

I have been student and faculty and staff member here over the years, and cliche though it may be, I am increasingly convinced that the “real work” of Jesuit higher education only makes sense to the degree that it puts us in contact and keeps us in contact with the world around us - not in sterile, abstract, numerical ways alone, but through real solidarity with real people and stories of their real lives. A lot of us got our butts kicked last year by being shown how out-of-touch we were with what is going on just a few miles, just a few blocks, away from the comfort of our offices and classrooms. Many of your friends, your professors, and your classmates put themselves in the thick of the action over and over again, both to help magnify the voices of those who have gone unheard and to educate themselves about what is going on away from campus. As we begin this year with a vigil for peace and justice, I hope that we will take seriously the goal of transformation - we are not praying in a light, easy, “hope-to-God-something changes” kind of way, but out of an earnest desire to learn about what is going on and to be a part of building a better reality.

Patrick Cousins is a member of the Department of Campus Ministry.

Choosing Vulnerability

Vulnerability has been a theme in my life for the past several months. Why? Because I made the decision that for Lent I was going to practice being more vulnerable in various areas my life. The topic of vulnerability had been one that kept showing up in my life in the months prior to Lent, and so I decided that Lent might be a good time for better understanding how vulnerability can play a part in my faith life. I will admit that this decision was a little frightening. Choosing to be more vulnerable is somewhat of a daunting task, but through this process, I have come to see many fruits I had not expected. Several of my relationships took on a deeper level as I learned to better trust others with myself. I also found myself becoming aware of what’s going on inside of myself in a whole new way, and this has spilled over into my prayer life, allowing me to be even more vulnerable in prayer.

What is vulnerability? Brené Brown describes it as “the cradle of the emotions and experiences we crave. It is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, accountability and authenticity.” It creates space for us to shed our false selves and become the person God calls us to be. It leads us to become a resurrected people. While in my mind I saw it as a “Lent-thing” associated with suffering, I’ve now come to appreciate it at as an “Easter-thing” because it invites me to go through the suffering and experience the resurrection.

I found myself during the Triduum reflecting on the vulnerability present in those events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. It started with the Last Supper and Jesus’ washing the feet of the disciples. It’s a gross act (their feet would’ve been pretty disgusting) that requires vulnerability on all sides of the parties involved. Then he moves to the garden where he holds nothing back. He’s crying, he’s in distress, he’s scared, he’s asking God to take this suffering from him. Then we find him on the cross, abandoned by most of his friends, exposed to everyone who sees him. It’s not really a great advertisement for encouraging people to embrace vulnerability, but what happens afterward is. He is resurrected and, as a result, those in his life are changed. They gain a new understanding of themselves and their mission as followers of Christ.

Vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It is in this space that we can best live out our life of faith. We break down walls and discover our true selves rather than the person the world tells us we should be. Where before, we kept our distance from others out of fear that they might judge us, when we’re vulnerable we’re brought closer to others. When we practice vulnerability, we have more compassion for ourselves and as a result we have more compassion for others.

It what areas of your life is God inviting you to be more vulnerable?

Robby Francis is a Campus Minister in Griesedieck Complex.

He is Risen!

One of the conversations that I remember having with my grandfather when I was a teenager was on the resurrection of the Lord. My grandpa was a Free Methodist minister who modeled Christ’s love to me beautifully. Undoubtedly his reflections came out of a devout prayer life along with a deep love for life in general.Though I do not recall his precise words, I remember him marveling at Jesus’ resurrection.

In some moments, Jesus was there and then would disappear. At other events he simply appeared or became recognizable. There are passages where he seems to walk through walls, and we have to question in the Gospel passage today whether or not Jesus might have eaten with the disciples. He could be identified, but not always. Mary of Magdala thought he was the gardener before he heard Jesus call her name. The disciples on the road to Emmaus only recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread though he had journeyed with them throughout the day.

I wonder what resurrection was like for the early disciples? Could they have really understood the fullness of resurrection even as witnesses to the event? And how did they recognize Jesus? Every story seems unique to the person or persons seeing the risen Lord. Not only did they see the Lord risen, but it changed their lives, their understanding, their way of seeing the world.

What if a time machine existed to take us back to that first Easter morning? Would we be astounded as many of the disciples seem to have been, or would we simply apply science and worldly knowledge to the event in order to classify it differently? I wonder if the same story would have reached our hearing if it had happened in 2015 AD instead of in first century Palestine.

This is not to say that scientific knowledge is not essential, but as with all human knowledge, it is limited to our understanding. And ultimately Jesus’ resurrection is beyond what can be dissected, quantified, or perfectly analyzed.

First century Palestine was not privy to reality as we now have come to understand life. When Jesus rose from the dead most people professed that the Earth was flat and believed it to be the center of the universe. The Eastern world had yet to perceive the West (North and South America and probably Antarctica). And I suppose heaven was a place up in the atmosphere just beyond our reach.

Human constructs of God have certainly changed over the years. The question I often think upon is what do we lose when our construct of God shifts? If it is lost, then perchance it was never God at the onset, but merely our limited perception of who we name God to be.

In a few thousand years, many will look at and wonder perchance at our unknowing. Science tells us that human knowledge is accelerating faster than it ever has. And yet, around every corner there is something we do not yet know or have not perceived fully as yet.

Thus, I continue to wonder and pray into the mystery of that first Easter morning. Though Mary of Magdala, Peter, John, James, Thomas, Didymus, Nathanael, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and many others might have witnessed Jesus’ resurrection, I cannot say they knew exactly what was happening to them.

Maybe had the event taken place in 2015 we would have analyzed it all differently, but I suspect the results would be similar. Some would be sceptical and others would believe--and no one would fully understand. So today as we rejoice in the miracle of Easter, I am thankful for both what I have yet to perceive and for the gift of faith that says: Jesus is Risen. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Christy Hicks is a Campus Minister in Griesedieck Complex.

Contemplate Love on Good Friday

Rituals and traditions are important to my own Catholic faith. Some are steeped within the rituals of the Church; some are cultural. Growing up in Chicago, my parents built these traditions into our faith life. On Good Friday every year we observed two traditions. In the morning, my mom and I visited several Catholic Churches to pray and venerate the events in Christ’s life. We always went to the Basilica of St. Hyacinth.

They had a crypt in the lower level of the Church that was set up as a tomb. We prayed there on Good Friday. I remember it being pretty creepy, but as I reflect on that experience, I cherish the image of walking with Jesus in his suffering and death.

I also love the story of St. Hyacinth (in Polish: Święty Jacek). He was born in Poland in 1183. He was ordained a priest in Krakow and in 1217 he joined the Dominican Order. He is known as the Apostle of Poland and had a great devotion to Mary. During his time in Poland in Kijow, he was told that the Tartars had invaded the city. Quickly he seized the ciborium from the Church containing the Blessed Sacrament and was about to leave the church, when he heard: “Hyacinth, you have taken my Son and you leave me behind?” He looked to the marble statue of Mary and Jesus and to his amazement the marble statue was as light as a feather as he carried it to safety across the Dnieper on to Krakow. It is said that he walked over the surface of the waters of the Dnieper.

This image of St. Hyacinth gives us a pretty good indication of the love that St. Hyacinth also had for Christ. This love also manifested itself on Good Friday when my parents encouraged me to be silent from noon to 3:00 pm to commemorate the death of Christ. Who knew that my parents were setting me up for an experience of Ignatian Spirituality? While the silence for me at the time was difficult, as I’ve come to understand my own spirituality, the silence is what I cherish. In experiencing the silence as an adult, it gives me pause to contemplate the life and death of Christ in a very prayerful and loving way.

It allows me to contemplate the love I’ve received and the love which I am called to give back to others. It allows me to contemplate my own actions in a broken and suffering world and calls me to show my love to others through my actions. As St. Ignatius tells us “love shows itself more in deeds than in words”.

On this Good Friday, take some time in silence and prayerful reflection. Contemplate the great gift you have been given and pray about how you can manifest your love for others through your actions.


Sue Chawszczewski
Director of Campus Ministry

It's not about you...

To be honest I am not typically the biggest fan of prayer through scripture but when I was reflecting on today’s reading and gospel in order to write this blog I found that it was very relevant to my life and my own Lenten journey right now.

            I won’t quote the whole Gospel passage for you but long story short Jesus is preaching in the synagogue using examples of the prophets (like the story of Elisha and Naaman from the first reading) and ends with the quote, “No prophet is accepted in his own native place”. Then basically everyone gets pissed and they try to kill Jesus…end Gospel. So what does this mean? I think that we too often get angry like the people in the synagogue when we do not feel like the chosen ones; like when the prophets aren’t healing those form their own land; like when Jesus favors a Gentile as much as a Jew.  Lent is a very personal and reflective time but something to keep in mind is that it is not just about you. I think we need to remember that God is in all people, that God chooses all people, and that God loves all people. You should not think of yourself as better than another because you are doing more for your Lenten journey, sacrificing more, fasting more, going to mass more. It is easy to get caught up in oneself and the “more” that you are doing and easy to forget that God is showing himself through others around you. Too easily we judge and criticize others who are just as loved and chosen by God, and too easily we fail to recognize the voice of God through these others. As we reach our almost-halfway point in Lent, I would encourage you to not only reflect on your own journey thus far but to reflect on how others have impacted your journey and how you can start to see God through all people at all times.   

“Rabbi, it is good that we are here!”

Generally, I do not tend to watch the Oscars, and in fact, would likely not have even known that they were on television had my roommate not alerted me to the fact that they were taking place. But, this past weekend I spent a little over an hour of my Sunday evening being entertained by Hollywood.

The world of entertainment certainly draws our senses and peeks our collective (or at least our mainstream) interests, for after all, the cinema’s portrayal of real and fictional events are a collect of our stories and the dreams that we have for ourselves. Even when the narrative is inaccurately portrayed or the experiences are not our own, there is something in these stories that connect our lives to one another.

In her book, We Live Inside a Story, Megan McKenna writes:

There is a saying among storytellers around the world that goes: ‘If there is no one to listen, then there is no story to tell.’ The understanding is that if you hear a story often enough, you begin to believe in it. If you believe in it, you will begin to tell it yourself. And then in the telling, you will begin to make it come true in your own life. In fact, you will come true as the story begins to tell you! This may sound fanciful to some, but stories are the most ancient and revered form of communication and expression among peoples. Stories were chanted, drummed out, carried on the notes of musical instruments, danced and mimed, even ritualised, and then in a cycle of the seasons, passed on by elders and tellers by word of mouth and remembered through generations (We Live Inside a Story, 15-16).

In this light then, besides entertaining us, the Oscars are a collection of tales both obscure and mainstream that human beings have worked hard to share with the world throughout this past year. Storytelling is powerful, and throughout history we have connected our experiences through story.

What is your favorite story, and who is your favorite character in the tale? What about this character relates to you?

The gospel that we read together this Sunday is truly one of my favorites, for upon witnessing the unexpected, Peter proclaims: “Rabbi, it is good that we are here! Let us make three tents: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Peter was likely blown away by the fact that he saw the great heroes in his own faith narrative alive on a mountaintop speaking to Jesus. And his first thought was one of welcoming...Let us make three tents. But, I also suspect that Peter felt much like we would feel if we were suddenly to meet one of our heroes or heroines (those people in our lives that we admire whether they be real beings or fictional characters).

Ironically, (and a twist in plot we cannot miss here as a crucial part of the gospel narrative), we meet the most extraordinary of heroes in the person of Jesus: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” Though I cannot precisely guess how Peter would have known Jesus when He was being transfigured on the mountaintop, I speculate that he had yet to imagine the extraordinary gift that had landed in his day to day life. This ordinary man that wandered the earth, ate food, tasted drink, spoke wise words, but did not seem altogether out of bounds--was and is the greatest story ever told.

Mark’s gospel is the earliest of the gospel accounts to have been written, and in many ways the most dire. In fact, when one reads the text from beginning to end, it turns out that no one is faithful to Jesus; all turn away and reject him in the end. Alas, I am not a Markan scholar, so I will refrain from pretending to know more than I do. But, I think it is important to note where Jesus tells us that we will find Him throughout the gospel texts, namely,  in the least of our brothers and sisters.

When do we fail to notice Jesus in our midst because she or he does not look like us? Are there stories that we neglect to tell or repeat because the people in them have less of a voice than we do? When do we focus on are own needs at the expense of those who are less fortunate? Do we spend too much time entertaining ourselves, and not enough time giving ourselves to others? And finally, who in our life today is most in need of care, that is, who among us is most vulnerable?

Like Peter, I am all too often entranced by the appearance of things, people, and ideas that distract me from the main scenario. In the ordinary and everyday moments, Peter found Jesus in his midst. What is extraordinary in our lives that we manage to miss because we have yet to grasp transfiguration and the richness of life found in the ordinary?

And back to the Oscars. My favorite scene among those I saw came when a Polish director expressed his gratitude after winning the Oscar for best foreign film. The clip is shared here, but his words transfigured me a little as he shared:

O God, how did I get here? We made a film about, as you saw, black and white...about the need to withdraw from the world and contemplation. And here we are (laughter)...at the epicenter of noise and world attention. Fantastic! Our life is filled with surprises (Oscars 2015).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yRw53wV5Ng

My prayer then for all this Lenten season is that we will be delighted to find God in unexpected and new ways, just as Peter did that day atop the mount, and that we will have the grace to see clearly what is before us with reverence and awe.

Christy Hicks is a Campus Minister in Griesedieck Hall.

Not to see or to know, but to act

A lot has been on my mind as I prepared to enter the season of Lent this week. Do I give up something like sweets, or add something like cooking a meal at the Catholic Worker House, perhaps both? And all of this seems trite to another part of my mind more preoccupied with the growing violence around the world: the Islamic State across the Middle East, interstate machinations in Ukraine, the ongoing violence along the U.S.’s border with Mexico, and the string of shootings of unarmed black men by police in cities across the country, just to name a few.  It is easy for me to compartmentalize these two parts of my life, the liturgicaly grounded spiritual practices, and the political animal that longs for justice.  This happens despite my knowing that God exists in the world and for the world and that my calling as a Christian is to unite my divided mind toward the single purpose of the Kingdom of God; any belief held only in the mind and not embodied in action hardly qualifies as a belief.

Luckily for me, the world if full of people who help me keep my actions rooted in what I believe.  Amidst all the news stories passing through my mind last week was a piece about Kayla Mueller, a 26 year old aid worker who died while being held captive by ISIS.  (http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/kayla-muellers-encounter-suffering-god) Her story stood out because before dying she had written so eloquently about why she took the risk of doing humanitarian work in a warzone. In 2012 she wrote, "I will always seek God. Some people find God in church. Some people find God in nature. Some people find God in love; I find God in suffering. I've known for some time what my life's work is, using my hands as tools to relieve suffering." I admire her ability to look into the eyes of our suffering world, recognize God there and allow that knowledge to move her hands into action.

The Saints are held up as role models for communities, to help them get from knowing to acting.  In the last days before Ash Wednesday, as I vacillated between committing to daily mass, giving up meat and volunteering with SLU’s winter outreach, Kayla’s words and more importantly her actions struck me as a powerful witness of how I might respond to the world around me.  I am not spurred to leave my work and travel to Syria as she did, but I am reminded that again and again that the great spiritual task for me is not to see or know, but to act. That has made all the difference as I entered into this season of Lent and the tension of living the faith of Easter in a world that still longs for the resurrection.

John Burke is the Campus Ministry Faith and Justice Coordinator.

Bless this mess...

I've been thinking a lot lately about getting a tattoo.  Something to remind me about freedom and joy and presence....because you should see my house.  Toys and blocks and books are scattered around the living room, clothes are tossed wherever little toddler hands drop them,  dishes don't know if they are clean or dirty in the sink and dishwasher, and leftover juice in sippy cups and crushed popcorn on the floor tells a story of snack time.  Sigh.  And in so many ways I'm a perfectionist and NEED to keep my space neat and tidy....but living with two toddlers means that the majority of my day is then used up following behind them, tidying their messes and I become one frustrated mama who is constantly searching for a moment to catch my breath and free myself from aggravation.  I need SOMETHING to remind me that God is in this mess.   

I spent some time earlier last week chatting with my mama and she mentioned the phrase “let go”.  Let go of those things that use you up, that you spend too much time giving too much power.  Let go of your need for perfection.  Ugh.  I hated hearing that.  Letting go is not easy for me because that means that I am relinquishing control, and that leaves me feeling vulnerable and powerless...and yet, I wonder what graces can begin to creep in at that point, when I've stopped distracting myself with things that don't really bring the freedom and joy I desire.  

Following this weekend that is jammed packed with Valentine's Day and Mardi Gras, we will welcome the season of Lent.  Lent can be a tricky time where we easily get lost in the process of letting go of STUFF, but I wonder what would happen if we re-framed our understanding a bit and let go of those things that, when left, make us feel vulnerable and therefore open us to those graces that truly transform a person.  Maybe I will try to let go of my need for perfection, and instead use that energy to the know the joy of my little people and the messes we make together.  Maybe this Lent I will get a tattoo...

Julie McCourt is the Campus Minister for CLC.

Do Something!

I often listen to Christian music during my prayer time to God. Today I was listening to “Do Something” by Matthew West and the lyrics jumped out me:

I woke up this morning
Saw a world full of trouble now
Thought, how’d we ever get so far down
How’s it ever gonna turn around
So I turned my eyes to Heaven
I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”
Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of
People living in poverty
Children sold into slavery
The thought disgusted me
So, I shook my fist at Heaven
Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”
He said, “I did, I created you”

So often we see injustices happen before our eyes or we read about them in the newspaper or listen to them on the news. It is easy to get discouraged by the way the world looks sometimes. It is also easy to look to God and ask “why?” It is hard to imagine how our beautiful and powerful Creator could let such evil occur in the world. But maybe we are not looking at the whole picture. Look around. There is you. There is me. There are millions of others. Can’t we do something? I would argue that it is our duty, as Christians, to do something. God gave us gifts for a reason, and I challenge you to see how you can use those gifts to change the world. Let’s not be passively living. Next time you get frustrated with something you see, instead of asking God why He is not do something, try asking yourself the same question.

Hannah Vestal is a junior majoring in Theological Studies.

Here in the Middle

Let me first say I don’t really like beginnings or endings- books, classes, trips, summers, snacks, projects, and the list could go on. For me, I much prefer the middle, and I think it has something to do with the challenge that accompanies it. The challenge not to give up, to stay enthusiastic, to be present, and to know that the middle counts. In fact, back in high school a priest convinced me that it counts the most. During one of his homilies he said, “fidelity is won in the middle,” and that phrase is something that has stuck with me. Because after the initial excitement has worn off but much before the accomplishment of the end, there is the middle. In reflecting on this over the past few years of college, I have learned that this middle can mean monotony, repetition, and drudgery. However, it can also mean creativity, mindfulness, and loyalty.

            Up until this point I have been speaking in mostly abstract terms, but let’s talk how this can make sense right now. We are all in the middle of the academic year. It’s halfway done and there’s halfway to go, which deems right now the perfect time to reflect. There is a lot to consider, including academics, work, extra-curriculars, relationships, self-care, and of course, faith. How are all of these areas?  What is keeping us from committing ourselves more deeply? Are we content with the way things are, and if we are not, are we willing to make changes? These are questions I find useful at times such as this.

            Especially important to consider is faith life. For me, I see my faith in the middle as an opportunity to experience a new level of awareness and gratitude. Each 9pm Mass at College Church, every time I meet with my Christian Life Community, and all of those Upper Room Monday nights are chances to recognize not only the sacredness of tradition, but also the nuances of the Spirit. I keep going back because I have found that God meets us in the middle in a more subtle way. We are asked to look beyond what we think we know in order to experience God in all the ways She offers. So, before running off to the next class, meeting, or coffee date take a minute to reflect on the first half of this school year and remember God’s presence right here in the middle.

Cami Kasmerchak is the Campus Ministry GROW Intern.

Thomas Merton: A Man for All Seasons

January 31 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Merton; while he may or may not be familiar to many of you, he was arguably the best-known American Catholic author of the 20th century (Dorothy Day is the only other person I think even comes close). While there are a lot of commemorations floating around among Catholic (and other) publications whose readership skews much older than the undergraduate age range, I would argue that he remains a strikingly relevant companion for young adults who are working to make sense of their spiritual lives and the part they will play in the world.

Thomas Merton was born January 31, 1915 in Prades, France to artist parents and spent a wandering childhood between France, New York, and Bermuda. His parents had both died before his 16th birthday, leaving him adrift spiritually as much as he had been geographically. Young Merton grew into a sophisticated and literary but somewhat aimless life, including a disastrous year at Cambridge University which concluded after he fathered a child and was summoned to New York by his guardian. Transferring to Columbia University in New York City, Merton surrounded himself with friends and mentors who gradually awakened his latent desire for maturity and peace, culminating in his 1939 conversion to Catholicism and his 1941 entrance to the Abbey of Gethsemane in the woods of Kentucky, a house of the austere Trappist order. His 1948 autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, became an overnight bestseller and remains a spiritual classic; nearly seventy years after its initial publication, it has never been out of print. While his early years in the monastery were marked by a rather world-denying split of the sacred life of monasticism from the worldly secular realm, he grew to realize that monastic life could not be about escape from the world as bad, but as critical distance to speak to the world as fallen and loved.

From his previous identity as a gifted but fairly pious and conventional Catholic author, his “second conversion” back to the world opened Merton to a new sense of dialogue with the world he had left behind nearly twenty years before. Nothing was out of reach: art, music, poetry, literature, religion, philosophy and more. Despite almost never leaving his monastery, he befriended and corresponded with some of the most significant figures of his generation, from Dorothy Day and the Dalai Lama to Thich Nhat Hanh and Daniel Berrigan to Martin Luther King Jr. and Pope Paul VI. From the atrocities of World War II, he gained fresh insight into the need to speak out against the same violent and dehumanizing mentality that made new terrors possible in his time: racism, the Cold War, the Vietnam conflict and more. At a time when monks were expected to remain in silent prayer, he spoke out against the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear warfare, writing essay after essay about the madness of an allegedly Christian nation manufacturing both weapons of mass destruction and the arguments that dared to legitimate their use. In the early 1960s his order silenced him from writing about nuclear war as a topic “unbecoming” of a monk; it was only after Pope Paul VI himself turned to writing against nuclear warfare that he was allowed to do so again.

When he died in December 1968 of an accidental electrocution while at a conference in Bangkok, Merton left behind over 60 published books, and at least that many more have been collected from his letters, journals, photographs, poems, drawings and book reviews. What makes him enduringly relevant nearly 50 years after his death is not only how applicable his writings are to the existential struggles and social problems we continue to face (although, that too), but his restless heart, always working to welcome a new perspective, to reach across another aisle to learn from someone else, always wondering what else is out there. In an era of information overload and media saturation, Merton paradoxically holds together the love of silence and solitude with the need to remain in conversation with the world. His best-known prayer remains one of my favorites and is a favorite of millions of people around the world who struggle to know how they will contribute to the reconciliation of the world:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

"Speak, for your servant is listening."

The readings for this weekend reflect imagery of VOCATION, being called to the service of God and humanity. In the first reading Samuel does not recognize the voice of God calling him to service, and in the gospel the disciples of John go to figure out who Jesus is and end up staying with him. If only it were so simple to know where God is calling us! If only following one's vocation were simply a matter of KNOWING what to do, instead of, more often, facing one's fear enough to do what is right.

This long weekend we celebrate the 86th birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - a great orator, a leader in the fight against injustice, and ultimately a martyr at the hands of people, mostly Christians, who rejected the Gospel call to unity. Despite (or maybe because of) his incredible public significance, it is easy to forget how much danger he faced in his ministry, how strong the opposition to something so straightforwardly immoral (it seems so clear to us!) as desegregation, and how much he struggled with fear and doubt. Even after he had been in a position of leadership for years, his opponents' increasingly brazen tactics demanded new depths of courage. As he told the story, "One night toward the end of January I settled into bed late, after a strenuous day. Coretta had already fallen asleep and just as I was about to doze off the telephone rang. An angry voice said, 'Listen, nigger, we've taken all we want from you; before next week you'll be sorry you ever came to Montgomery.' I hung up, but I couldn't sleep. It seemed that all of my fears had come down on me at once. I had reached the saturation point...I was ready to give up...With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory: 'Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now, I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage. Now, I am afraid. And I can't let the people see me like this because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone.' It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: 'Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you. Even until the end of the world.'"

He knew what he needed to do, but he struggled with the courage to do it. Three days after that episode, his house was bombed with his wife and infant daughter inside. The fear, the near-despair, the apocalyptic sense that there was no escape as a black man from the racism of the white majority could so easily have turned to desperation and violence - and who could have blamed him for succumbing to the desire to give up, or worse, to join in the calls for retaliatory vengeance? Instead, he understood the call to challenge people to sanity in an insane moment in history - to nonviolence.

As this new semester and new year begin, we too have a choice to pay attention to the needs of the moment, or not: listen to the deep fear and anger and pain that are finally coming to speech in our community after decades of silence and invisibility, or bury ourselves in schoolwork and friend circles and all the usual things we would be doing anywhere. We can all come up with perfectly good reasons why we just don't have time to get involved with the uprooting going on around our city - we are all busy people - but we owe it to one another to strive to hear what has led to such immense racial, ethnic, gendered, and socioeconomic divisions all around us, and to respond in love. Stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And know that God is with you until the end.

Patrick Cousins is a member of the Department of Campus Ministry.

Pray with Imagination this semester!

As our community returns, we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which is marked as the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and the end to our season of Christmas.  In the mystery of Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan River, we again encounter and represent the truth of the Lord’s incarnation and His manifestation as the Christ. We find accounts of Jesus’ baptism in all four gospels (Matthew 3:13-17, Mark  1:9-11, Luke 3:21-23, John 1: 29-33).

But in John, the words and the images speak to me and I imagine myself being present:

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!  This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, for he was before me.’  I myself did not know him; but for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.”  And John bore witness, “I saw the Spirit descend as a dove from heaven, and it remained on him.  I myself did not know him; but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”

These images are a reminder of how Ignatius encouraged us to pray.  We may have heard of lectio divina which is meditative or spiritual reading.  We listen with our heart and then reflect on that experience and then respond to the influence of the Spirit.  But let’s take this prayer a step further.  Can we take the words of the Gospel, put ourselves inside the Gospel, and link that to art?  We combine our spiritual reading with spiritual art or visio divina.  

Let’s take a painting by James Tissot, "The Baptism of Jesus (Baptême de Jésus)" from the Brooklyn Museum.

In small simple steps, you can pray with scripture and with art, as I suggest.

Watch what happens; listen to what is being said; see what is happening in the painting; feel the actions with your body.

Become part of the mystery by becoming one of the persons in the story or one of the people in the painting.  Listen, taste, smell, feel, and watch what happens. Allow yourself to interact with the other persons in the event: enter into conversation with them, listen to what they have to say to you and to each other.

Allow the event to unfold through your imagination.

Respond spontaneously in a conversation with God, with Jesus or with one of the persons within the Gospel story.

As our own semester unfolds, I encourage you to take time in prayer daily.  Perhaps you want to use scripture or art; perhaps you have your own method of prayer.  Whatever may be the case, take some daily time to imagine where God is leading you and enjoy your conversations as I do every day!

Sue Chawszczewski

Director of Campus Ministry

An Open Letter to the Saint Louis University Community