Stations of the Cross

Notes from a Lecture: The Two Francises, by Fr. Michael Perry, OFM

Steve · January 31, 2018 · 2 Comments

Last night I had the good fortune to attend a lecture at Washington University (where I work) by Father Michael Perry, the American Franciscan friar who is the minister general of the Order of Friars Minor. Sponsored by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics, Fr. Perry spoke on this theme: “What Do Francis of Assisi and Francis of Buenos Aires Have in Common? A ‘Franciscan’ Perspective on the Common Good.” My write-up here is by no means exhaustive of his roughly one-hour presentation but rather represents what most resonated with me and what I was able to capture in my little notebook…

A little background on Fr. Perry, just to give you an idea of his breadth of experience and education. He spoke from a deep, humble and well-educated place. Born into an Irish household in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1954, Fr. Perry entered the Franciscan seminary at Quincy University in Illinois where he studied philosophy and history. While still a theology student, he went to the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire) where he served as pastor, researcher, and professor of mission and cultural studies. He completed his doctorate in social anthropology (religious anthropology) at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and went on to serve as a foreign policy adviser to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and later as an adviser on African religion and social policy at Franciscans International, U.N./New York. He also served as a policy and programs adviser at Catholic Relief Services. From 2009-13, Fr. Perry served as the Vicar General of the Order of Friars Minor in Rome. Since 2013, he has served as the Minister General (leader) of the Order. He maintains an active interest and engagement in the promotion of peace and reconciliation in Africa, and in the promotion of inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue.

The Seven Last Words: Spirit

Steve · March 26, 2016 · Leave a Comment

During the hours when Jesus hung on the cross leading up to his death, he uttered seven “words” (actually short sentences, as recorded across the four gospels), and these words continue to be meaningful and insightful to us today if we’re willing to spend some time in quiet with them. For they are not only remembrances of that day and of Jesus’ suffering and death, but also serve as reminders of how we are to live in our own moments of suffering. As we enter Holy Week, I offer seven short reflections on these words and ask you to consider what they might mean to you, today.

Jesus 7 — Into your hands I commend my spirit. SJG photo

Seven: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Luke 23: 44-46

It is the middle of the afternoon and darkness has descended over Jerusalem and its environs. This is no passing storm. Even the universe is rebelling, it seems, against the injustice of what is happening on Golgotha. The sun has been eclipsed, covered over by a lesser light, as seemingly has the life of Jesus the Christ. The veil of the temple — separating the Holy of Holies from the people — has been torn down the middle. There is no longer this hidden distance between God and humans. Jesus summons one last burst of energy and cries out, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” With those words, he breathes his last. Will this be the end of him and his idea of a new kind of kingdom where love reigns?

For those who believe, we know this is not the end of the story but rather the beginning of something new. It is a communion between God and the rest of us, born out of this painful death and Jesus’ surrender and giving up of his Spirit. For as Jesus gives his last breath he gives the promise of a new breath and new Holy Spirit that will continue to live in us — as Church, as individuals, as citizens of the world who must come to know that we need each other. (How are we doing with that?)

It is, indeed, his Spirit that matters. “Spirit,” from the same Greek word — pneuma — that gives us “breath,” Jesus is leaving us more than a memory. He is giving us an indwelling of God in our lives. Never again will we be alone, if we are prepared to watch and listen for the Spirit’s gentle movement. For like the gentle Jesus, this Holy Spirit is more like a whisper than a roar. More like an expired breath than a shout for attention. More like love than anything we can imagine.

Ask yourself in silence: How can I better still myself to experience the spirit of God breathed on the world?

Happy Easter to all!

The Seven Last Words: Finished

Steve · March 25, 2016 · 1 Comment

Six: “It is finished.” John 19:30

Jesus sips the sour wine and — in this last purely human act — knows that his end has come. But notice his words. Not “I am finished” but “it is finished.” This tragic scene before us, filled with passion and drama, is about much more than a man dying. This is beyond a sad tale of a failed prophet and teacher. This is the end of something bigger. This is the culmination of the Father’s plan for the salvation of the world.

From the manger in Bethlehem to the cross on Calvary, the Incarnate Word of God visited earth and lived among us so that God might draw us all to himself. That experiment in divine interaction was coming to a close, and none of us would ever be the same. Bowing his head, Jesus handed over his spirit.

The overall scene is brutal, violent and bloody, but the end reflects the gentleness of a God who only wants us to embrace and say yes to him. As he has done throughout his ministry and passion, Jesus does not lash out. He does not hate. He does not promise retribution to those who persecuted and killed him. He does not scream. He bows his head and “hands over” his spirit. No one has taken his life from him, for he has freely given it.

Here, in these simple and surely whispered words, is the model of living and dying that he has left us. Even as Jesus pours out his life for us, we are called to a life of surrender to God, to the creator and author of life who knows us better than we know ourselves. I am reminded as I write this of a prayer called the Suscipe from the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, that prayer of abandonment and detachment from the things of this world in exchange for something much greater — the presence and grace of God:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.
You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.
Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

Perhaps the best and most authentic response to the grace offered to us on the cross is giving away our own lives to others and to God. We are called to be servants. We are asked to be more for others than for ourselves. We are invited to love in the face of fear, confusion and hatred.

Ask yourself in silence: What in my life needs to change so I can pray, “Take, Lord, receive…all is yours now?”

Tomorrow: Commend

The Seven Last Words: Thirsty

Steve · March 24, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Five: “I thirst.” John 19:28-29

Jesus, on the cross for many hours now, is losing bodily fluids like a wrung-out sponge. He is growing weak, his body emaciated and dehydrated from sweating, crying, even breathing. He needs to drink something. There is not much time left, he senses. His lips are parched and dry, his head spinning. Aware of the end, and in order that once again scripture might be fulfilled and we all might come to belief, he says quietly — for certainly the time for crying out has now left him — “I thirst.”

Once again, he is hearkening back to the psalms of his Jewish heritage (Psalm 69:21-22):

Insult has broken my heart, and I despair;
I looked for compassion, but there was none,
for comforters, but found none.
Instead they gave me poison for my food;
and for my thirst they gave me vinegar.

Indeed, there was a vessel nearby filled with common sour wine. So someone — was this person helping him with such a drink or not? — soaked the simple wine on a sprig of hyssop (the same small branch from the mint family that Moses dipped in blood for the Passover sacrifice) and put it up to his mouth. Jesus sips from the “sacramental” wine — however sour — and prepares for his final words.

If we have any doubt of Jesus’ humanity — and that he is truly suffering — this simple and natural urge to slake his thirst ought to set us straight. Throughout his life, Jesus shows us over and over again the emotions, traits and urges that make him human. He weeps and cries, he mourns, he gets angry, he becomes tender, he eats and sleeps and thirsts. It is his incarnation — Word of God into flesh and bone —that binds and attracts us to him. God the Father knew we would need this, would need someone like us, if we were to believe and be drawn back to God despite our sins that separate us from the Divine.

As Jesus thirsted for drink — a human need in the midst of his physical and spiritual turmoil so, too, do we thirst. We thirst for God and for a relationship with him. We thirst for spiritual nourishment in the midst of our busy, physical lives. We thirst for the one thing that cannot come from any place other than Jesus — living water that never dries up and never fails to satisfy. Tonight at our Holy Thursday mass we sang:

O let all who thirst, let them come to the water.
And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord.
Without money, without price.
Why should you pay the price, except for the Lord?

John Foley, SJ (Come to the Water, 1978)

Ask yourself in silence: In my life, for what I am most thirsty? How do I feel as I answer that honestly?

Tomorrow: Finished

The Seven Last Words: Forsaken

Steve · March 23, 2016 · 2 Comments

spear — Pierced for our transgressions. SJG photo.

Four: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:33-34

It was perhaps Earth’s darkest three hours ever, from noon to three o’clock on that first Good Friday, when the world was draped in a gray veil and Jesus hung heavy and nearly lifeless on the cross, his life slowly ebbing away and his breathing labored and weak. It is the man Jesus — the human just like us — who cries out loudly these words of hopelessness and utter dejection: “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

They are words prayed in fulfillment of the psalms (Psalm 22) that he certainly heard as an attentive young man in the temple:

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish?
My God, I call by day, but you do not answer;
by night, but I have no relief.

But this was no mere repetition of a childhood prayer in a moment of anguish. For he had good reason to wonder where God was. After all, he had done everything right. He was certainly innocent of these so-called crimes. He knew the Father loved him and approved of his life and ministry. His miracles and healings and feeding of thousands were the work of the Father through him. He had never been alone before.

Yet even as he knew all this, even as he was accomplishing and fulfilling the purpose for which he became “Emmanuel,” he feels the emptiness and pain of being a man seemingly forgotten — the suffering servant of God. With the weight of the world on him, he was still “man enough” to feel like a man, to sense abandonment by the One who loved and sent him. He can’t help but ask the question: Why?

Because he is fully man, no pain escapes him. The suffering is as real for him as it will be for us. As we come face to face with our own moments of pain and death, we, too, may be pushed to the brink of doubt and faith, seemingly forsaken by the One who loved and created us. And we will not be able to not ask the same question: Why? Why come so far to end like this? Why here and why now? Why, God, if in fact you are God…

For when it comes to pain, suffering and death, we don’t get a “get out of jail free card” because of our faith. Faith in Christ doesn’t promise us “easy,” but it does promise us what Jesus came to experience in the fullness time — life in the eternal presence of God.

Ask yourself in silence: When have I felt forsaken? When have I felt the eternal presence of God?

Tomorrow: Thirsty