Supermoon, May 5, 2012 I wish I had a photo of the campfire, of someone holding up jumbo marshmallows flaming on the end of a stick looking like a torch, or another women eating the gooey treats like a drumstick. Or a photo of a woman sitting by the pond casting and catching fish into the night. Or of the supermoon edging the dark rain clouds with silver and then emerging glorious and bright.

On Saturday I attended the first quarterly potluck at the new Bittersweet Discoveries B&B, a new venture by a friend who, after years of thinking and praying about what to do with her lovely property, decided to jump in and see what happens.

I drove down after a long day at work but was in plenty of time to enjoy food and conversation. I reconnected with an old friend and made some new ones. On each table my friend had papers and pencils. The papers told a bit about her hopes for the B&B and a list of possible retreat or workshop topics that would be of interest to those attending. The offerings ranged from drawing, journaling, centering prayer, nature studies to how to catch and fillet fish. (I think I know who would teach that one after watching her enjoy angling for much of the evening. )

Whatever choices are made and gatherings offered, the central goal of Bittersweet Discoveries is to offer a safe place of nurture and healing for woman, wounded by relationships, family, or just difficult encounters with life. A good idea. A needed ministry.

As the evening turned into night and then late night a few women remained. One, a photographer, had set up her tripod and was taking photos of the moon. A few remained outside, enjoying conversation and red wine. I went inside and stretched out on a huge couch (thinking how nice to have a place that could hold a few of these) and listened as one woman played “Mostly Bass,” and “How Great Thou Art, on the piano.

“I didn’t know you could play piano!” our host said when she entered the room. I have a feeling many surprises await as she opens her home and heart to more women.

“The retreats will be small,” she said. “I don’t have room for many to sleep, and I am not into ‘big,’ ” she said.

I took one last long gaze at the moon, bid farwell to those who remained, and walked to my car with my friend.

“Clever,” I said, pointing the the orange parking spot lines she had spray painted on a grassy space near the barn.

“Well, I thought if I did that for a few times, folks would know where to park when they come back.”

Come back they will. They may return for specific offerings. They may come back for the quarterly potlucks. No matter. They will all return for the support and camaraderie of a gathering of women ready to share their journeys, wisdom gleaned from them, and hope when wisdom is difficult to find.

Emmaus Soup Kitchen run by Benedictine nuns in Eire,PA When I first heard of the Vatican’s recent “crackdown” on the Leadership Council of Women Religious I was angry but not particularly surprised. Brought to us by the same men who brought us the sexual abuse scandal and who still are unable to accept their culpability in it or deal with it responsibly, this document takes the women religious to task for daring to publicly disagree with some Catholic Church teachings and encouraging dialogue. The sisters spend too much time working with the marginalized and being involved in work for social justice. They spend too little time speaking out against abortion, same sex marriage, and other issues of human sexuality.

As if that were not enough, according to the Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, some of the sisters have the audacity to suggest that their dissent from some RCC teaching is prophetic. Impossible, the document says. True prophecy “…is a grace which accompanies the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and ministries within the Church, regulated and verified by the Church’s faith and teaching office.”

Might that have been a surprise to prophets of old? To Jesus himself? It seems to me that many utterances of biblical prophets were not in accord with the thought of existing religious officials. In fact, some recognized religious officials had problems with Jesus’ teachings and how he lived his life. He shouldn’t heal on the Sabbath, or pick grain to munch on while he and his disciples were walking about on the holy day. And the people he hung around with, the food he ate…hardly in keeping with the teachings of those ancient religious leaders. Jesus challenged the status quo.

Still, the Vatican and the magisterium are sure the claim to prophetic action must be wrong: “…it justifies dissent by positing the possibility of divergence between the Church’s magisterium and a ‘legitimate’ theological intuition of some of the faithful.”

Could it be that the faithful might have a “theological intuition” that diverges from the Church’s teaching and that they might be right? It wouldn’t be the first time. Blessed John Henry Newman thought so. He had studied the history of the Arians and used some of that history in his article, “On Consulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine.” Newman pointed out that the Arian heresy was defeated not by bishops or popes, most of whom supported the Arian position. The faithful, mostly the laity, were the ones who steadfastly held to the truth of the divinity of Jesus, sometimes at the cost of their lives. It was the consensus fidelium or consent of the faithful that saved the day.

Newman said that church authority cannot come from the top down. The hierarchy, the magisterium, the pope, must listen to the faithful before declaring doctrine.

Newman again: “I think I am right in saying that the tradition of the Apostles, committed to the whole Church … manifests itself variously at various times: sometimes by the mouth of the episcopacy, sometimes by the doctors, sometimes by the people, sometimes by liturgies … customs, disputes, movements, and all those other phenomena which are comprised under the name of history. It follows that none of these channels of tradition may be treated with disrespect…I am accustomed to lay stress on the consensus fidelium.”

Benedict XVI and the magesterium do not seem to be willing to listen and enter into dialogue with women religious. Instead they want to get them back in line. I, for one, hope they fail. I hope they are forced to listen by a groundswell of support for these members of the church who spend their lives being with the poor, serving the marginalized, and daring to give voice to the sensum fidelium or sense of the faithful.

As Fr. Michael Himes, professor of theology at Boston University, said in a video on sensus fidelium, if the majority of the faithful do not agree with a doctrine or chose not to incorporate it as they live their lives, one of two things can be true. Either the magisterium have not articulated the doctrine in a way that makes sense to the faithful, or the doctrine is wrong.

I once handed a long letter to a cardinal that told the story of my experience with my transsexual daughter. In the letter I wrote that the Vatican needed to trust the Spirit dwelling in ordinary people. It needed to listen to their stories and hear the truth that they had to say. The cardinal said he would read it, but his secretary whisked it out of the cardinal’s hands.

“I always read his mail first.”

I never heard from the cardinal. Probably never will. I don’t know if he ever read the letter or if his secretary deemed it unfit for his eyes.

Someone has to speak the truth to power. In this case, it may be the women religious and members of the Catholic Church who support them. My prayer is that power will listen.

related sites:
Newman: the ‘sense’ and ‘consent’ of the faithful by Denis Coday
We Are All Nuns by Nicolas D. Kristof
Bishops Play Church Queens as Pawns by Maureen Dowd
Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Catholic Women

© 2012 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: Mary van Balen One day last week and friend and I were walking through a small woods near my home.

“Maybe we’ll see a Jack-in-the- Pulpit,” he said.

I had seen them only once before. They are an early spring flower, and one needs to be out at the right time to spot them. As we walked we saw plenty of Mayapples, spreading their leaves and covering large patches of ground, like a crowd of umbrellas on a rainy day. We saw cut-leaved toothwort and whorls of spotted leaves that, while beautiful themselves, probably will sprout a flower in weeks to come. Then we saw it: the Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

Pushing up out of brown leaf cover, the mostly green plant stood straight, the leaf-hood, or spathe, curled protectively over the spadix, a slender spike that hides tiny flowers at its base. I remembered a small church in England I had attended while living with a friend outside London. The pulpit was attached to one of the columns, and had a baffle around and above the preacher, directing the sound of his voice out to the congregation. The sermon was bad enough to send me out early in search of some quiet place to pray which I found on the banks of the Thames.

The Jack-in-the-Pulpit was preaching much more effectively, crying out, as does Psalm 148, for all creation to praise the Creator.Such variety of life on this planet. Such glorious creation to see seen in this Spring’s night skies. A trip back to the woods in a week will reveal more flowers and plants, animals scurrying, water flowing.

The small green plant, easy to miss unless one is looking, was calling out with its simple beauty: “Praise the Lord from the earth, sea creatures and all oceans, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy winds that obey God’s word; all mountains and hills, all fruit tress and cedars, beasts, wild and tame, reptiles and birds on the wing; all earth’s kings and peoples, earth’s princes and rulers; young men and maidens, old men together with children. Let them praise the name of the Lord for the Lord alone is exalted. The splendor of God’s name reaches beyond heaven and earth.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin May 1, 1881-April 10, 1955

This morning, the beginning of a day off work, I walked into my office, lit two candles while singing the old hymn, “Come Holy Ghost,” and sat facing the small collection of sacramentals surrounding the Bible. Having long neglected the practice of Lectio Divina and quiet prayer, I came again to, if nothing else, rest in the presence of God. The plaque above the bookcase reminded me that on the days I do not do this God is no less present to me. (Called or not called, God is present.)

I take comfort in that, not only for myself, but for all humanity, for all creation. Holy Presence animates all and in some way draws all to Unity. I believe that, though I confess ignorance of its workings.

Praying morning prayer, I discovered that today is the fifty-seventh anniversary of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s death in New York city, 1955. An priest and theologian, he was also a renowned scientist in the fields of paleontology and geology. In the late sixties, I began to read his collection of essay’s and prayers, “Hymn of the Universe.” Joining his faith and science, Teilhard wrote about evolution in its latter stages as a conscious choice, a choice of community and love, a choice that will lead all creation to union with the Love.

I have not read Teilhard de Chardin for a long time. Today, I took out some of my books and looked over them, finding what spoke most strongly to me by looking for underlined passages and notes in the margins. His seeing of all things as “sacred,” as the earth and human society as “home,” as the place to transform as we work out salvation not for ourselves alone, but for all, these insights speak to me still.

These two quotes were favorites:

“Nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see it.”

“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and
gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for
the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.’ (“The
Evolution of Chastity,” in Toward the Future, 1936, XI, 86-87)

Today, I am drawn to another. To one that calls to us in a sorely divided nation and world. One that calls for vision. For choosing to see….

“Seeing. One could say that the whole of life lies in seeing — if not ultimately, at
least essentially. To be more is to be more united — and this sums up and is the
very conclusion of the work to follow. But unity grows, and we will affirm this
again, only if it is supported by an increase of consciousness, of vision. That is
probably why the history of the living world can be reduced to the elaboration of
ever more perfect eyes at the heart of a cosmos where it is always possible to
discern more. Are not the perfection of an animal and the supremacy of the
thinking being measured by the penetration and power of synthesis of their
glance? To try to see more and to see better is not, therefore, just a fantasy,
curiosity, or a luxury. See or perish. This is the situation imposed on every
element of the universe by the mysterious gift of existence. And thus, to a higher
degree, this is the human condition.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: The Human
Phenomenon, trans. Sarah Appleton-Weber, p. 3)

The Easter mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection, if believed, compels us to participate in transforming the world, not for personal salvation, but for the final realization of union of all in the Community of Love, Who is our God. Our participation is possible because the Spirit, the creative Presence dwells in each of us, as Jesus promised. It it that power that enables us to choose “to see” as Teilhard says. Continued spiritual evolution must be chosen.

As Telihard says, we must “See or perish.” We must see Christ in one another. We must seek unity and solidarity, not division and discord. We must stand with those who are marginalized and remember that we move forward together or not at all.

Which brings me back to my simple efforts this morning to renew the practice of quiet prayer and pondering the Word in Scripture. Sometimes I must be still to recognize the Easter Presence and respond to it. I must clear my head to see the Risen Christ in the world around me and to embrace the journey of all as my own.

“Sorrow” by Auguste Rodin 1881-1882 Reading reports of the trial of Monsignor Lynn, the first Roman Catholic church official to be tried in the US in the sexual abuse scandal, I remembered a column I wrote two years ago that dealt with the issue of hierarchy culpability and the need for accountability and repentance. During that Holy Week news of widespread abuse in Europe and Ireland was making headlines. The column was never printed. I knew it would not be, yet I had to write it; I had to put into words the betrayal and frustration I, along with many other Catholics, felt.

Two years later, the news again is of complicity and cover up, but this time, an official of the Church is on trial. I say it is about time. The monsignor’s defense claims that he passed the information on to the now deceased Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and others in the Philadelphia archdiocese. No matter. The cardinal is now beyond the reach of civil law, and the defense is the same “passing the buck” that we have heard for over a decade. Civil authorities should have been contacted. The Monsignor could have spoken out. As Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican Church, said two years ago in an interview, when forced to choose between protecting itself and revealing secrets that could damage their image, Christian institutions have chosen the former. He continued, “We’ve learned that that is damaging, it’s wrong, its dishonest and it requires that very hard recognition…which ought to be natural for the Christian church based as it is on repentance and honesty.”

Again the news surfaces during Holy Week, when Good Friday offers theGood Friday offers an opportunity for the Church to admit wrongdoing, repent, and ask for forgiveness, as all Christians are encouraged to do. Will this Good Friday pass as it did two years ago without church hierarchy taking advantage of it? I imagine so. Until it is grasped, and Church leadership is honest with itself and with the world, its credibility is lost and more faithful will find other communities to join for worship and Christian life.

………………………………………………………….Old Man in Sorrow by Vincent van Gogh

Below is my unpublished column from Lent, 2010….

I write this column at the beginning of the Triduum with a few things on my mind. First is today’s feast, the liturgy celebrating the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. I love this liturgy, and attended faithfully until a decade ago when I was “smoked out” by a priest overzealous in his use of incense. As billows of it rolled down the center aisle, I made my way to the closest exit and spent the remainder of the service waiting in the car for my husband. I have attended sporadically since then, always on the lookout for celebrants who insist on using “large gestures” when a smidgen of the smelly stuff would do.

Still, I love the feast. Eucharist is at the center of my spirituality. In times of distress and struggle as well as of quotidian and joy, the desire to receive Communion often is what drew me to church. The scholastic attempt to explain the presence of God with transubstantiation, “substance,” and “accidents” had nothing to do with my experience of the Mystery. Why try to figure out how the “glorious impossible” is possible? I prefer to dance with the mystery of the Holy One’s longing to bring us to union in a most ordinary and extraordinary way. I, and I venture many other Catholics, rely instead on personal experience of the sustenance and strength that floods my being when I share in the Eucharist.

The next day of the Triduum is Good Friday, a time for prayer and reflection on the suffering and death of Jesus as well as on our sin that contributes to ongoing pain and evil in the world. I often am aware of emptiness – Jesus is closed up in the tomb, not yet risen to flood the world with light and hope. Once, walking through the woods on Good Friday night, I stepped on a board that had been left near a narrow creek, perhaps for use in crossing the water. One end of the board leapt up when my foot came down on the other. It seemed tense, eager. I stopped and looked around; the whole wood seemed to be waiting. That is Good Friday’s gift: awareness of emptiness and the need for God to fill it up.

This Good Friday, newspapers report sexual abuse scandals breaking out across Europe. Many Americans are saying “enough already,” having gone through a similar flood of revelations. Some think the Church is being attacked, but I see this as a “Good Friday” event. It is time to face the reality again. We hear familiar outrage against the priests who have committed the crimes and the “zero tolerance” stance that the American Church has taken. What is rarely heard, and in my opinion what must be heard, is acceptance by the hierarchy of their part in enabling the scandal to reach the proportions that it did by shuffling offending priests around under a veil of secrecy.

Today’s news (Gillian Flaccus, AP) reveals a letter written in 1963 by Rev. Fitzgerald, head of the Servants of the Holy Paraclete, an order that treated pedophile priests, warning Pope Pius VI of the danger of returning these men to ministry. The Pope had requested Rev. Fitzgerald to write the letter after the two had spoken in person about the situation. What is particularly disturbing is the rather offhand way Tod Tameberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, dismissed papal responsibility by saying the Pope probably never saw the letter. How can that be, if he requested it? Was the request disingenuous? If not, why was he not given the letter to read. I know such correspondence passes through the hands of secretaries. Understandable. But why would the Pope not have read the opinion he asked for?

These statements, these realities make many Catholics feel betrayed, not only by the priests who committed such acts, but also by those in leadership roles who will not accept responsibility for their complicity. This is surely a Good Friday experience for the Church.

A well-spent Good Friday leads to the celebration of Easter, which is brightening our days this week. I wish a blessed, happy Easter for all. I hope for a resurrection and time of renewal for our Church, which, after owning sins of commission and omission as we all must, will enjoy the new life of Easter.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen I slipped into the pew a little late and noticed the lovely palm branches. Some people held them in their hands, some had laid them on the seat behind them. A few secured them with the hat clips on the pew backs, relics of days when hats were ordinary attire for men. They were not the long slender palm buds that my father had woven into crosses or interesting cone shapes when I was a child. These were the dark green leaves of the Emerald Palm and this was first time I had seen them.

As the familiar passion story was proclaimed, my mind wandered. When the story told of Jesus standing before the high priest, I thought of people today, standing in a court room, perhaps with families and supporters attending; perhaps the accused were alone. What dread fills their hearts? Remorse for the guilty ones? Anger for those wrongly accused? What fear for those who love them?

I thought of the emotions of those gathered in support of Travon Martin’s parents in Miami. Thousands gathered. I wondered about the family and friends of George Zimmerman in the face of a growing movement and escalating tensions across the country. I thought of all those in our prison system. I thought of the obscurity of most of their cases. And I thought of Jesus.

Who could have imagined, in his day, that this drama played out in a garden, a courtyard, a place of execution, would become what I imagine is the most told story in human history? A first century preacher, betrayed by friends, given over to authorities motivated in part by fear, ambition, and ignorance is an unlikely hero.

I listened as the story continued. I thought of those fighting other battles, suffering other indignities and injustices. “Everyone struggles with something that can strangle the spirit if not the body. Most of them I will never know. Most stories do not extend beyond family and intimates.”

So, what comfort the passion story? Jesus has walked in our shoes or sandals. His bare feet were cut and bruised by life and death. God knows our plight. God shared it then. God shares it now. The comfort? We have a companion on our journey who understands how pain and suffering transform as much as love and joy. Perhaps more. We haver a companion who has walked the path and knows it ends, not it death, but in life. When we see only darkness, our Companion reminds of that light will come. Has come. Sometimes, Jesus even lends us his eyes to see. What counts is the journey and what happens to us along the way.

I slip out of the pew early to drive to work as so many do, even on this holy day. On my way out of church, I take a palm leaf from the basket by the main aisle. I will be busy today with people walking their journeys. My prayer is to reflect our Companion’s hope and compassion. To be green with life, like the palm in my hand.

PHOTO: Mary van Balen “This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready/to break my heart/ as the sun rises,/ as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers/ and they open— / pools of lace,/white and pink…”

from “Peonies” by Mary Oliver

Spring has come early this year. Dogwoods that bloom on Mothers’ Day are already holding crowns of pink and white blossoms. Magnolia flowers have come and gone weeks ago along with crocuses, snowdrops, and grape hyacinths. The May flowers are here now, and the earth, soft and fragrant, calls out to be opened and trusted with seedlings and plants.

Still, I am cautious. I have seen 13″ of snow in April. Yet, this spring feels like it is here to stay. I could not resist and I planted some peonies from my parent’s home. I have the perfect place: A long strip of ground running along the south side of my brick flat. I pulled fistfuls of weeds to make room. The earth gave them up easily, having softened in rains and warm days. Using a borrowed shovel, I turned up a patch of ground large enough to hold the plants, just a few inches high.

Now I wait. I don’t know if they will bloom this year, having been moved from their fifty-year old place between our family home and the neighbors to the north. Maybe they will spend a year keeping memories of blossoms bowing down from sheer weight of their delicate pink lace and deep red silk. Maybe they, too, need time to grieve the passing of an era. No matter. I will wait with them, finding memory and promise in the green and red stems, the deeply notched leaves.

One day, I will gather their blooms, as when I was a child looking for something beautiful to place at our homemade May altar. Mary, I was sure, would savor the glorious explosion of petals and fragrance as I did

London School of Economics crest Yesterday I walked a couple of blocks to the local parish’s Lenten fish fry. My sister had recommended it saying the fish was good and the people friendly. My refrigerator was empty and enjoying at least one Lenten fish fry sounded like a good idea.

On my way to the stone church hall, I passed patches of bluets splattered beneath huge trees hung with swelling buds. A close look at harshly trimmed shrubbery growing along stuccoed walls that separated high priced condos from the ordinary sidewalk revealed honeysuckle in bloom. Brave, those flowers, or naive: What of a sudden burst of winter? We have had them before, in April. Winter, denied, shows up for one final display reminding us it can come if it wants to. As I walked, scents of spring filled the air, mingled with birdsong, and I hoped winter would stay where it has hidden these past few months and save its bluster for next year.

The line at the parish hall was long…out the door, donw the entrance steps and into the parking lot. I stood behind a couple who were chatting with friends who had already eaten their fill. Children played at movie making in an area behind the rectory garage: “Take two!,” one shouted at the others, and a young girl posed, looking like she was preparing to sing.

I looked at the sweatshirt of the man in front of me. It was green and emblazoned with an unfamiliar crest: A beaver, old books, and a scrolled banner that read:Rerum cognoscere causas. I studied it and pulled on five years of Latin to translate.I came close: To know the causes of things. As a way of starting conversation, I asked the gentleman where the sweatshirt came from. “The London School of Economics,” he replied. “Our daughter goes there, but don’t ask me what the Latin means.”

“Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea,” I said, and shared my rusty translation. While his wife and I chatted, he called his daughter on his iPhone.

“You were close,” he said. “She said it means “To Understand the Causes of Things.”

The conversation continued. I learned their daughter was finishing her graduate year inin London, that Latin was not a favorite high school subject for him, and that they had moved into the neighborhood not too long ago. We carried our plates piled with delicious fried perch to a round table and joined two couples who were just finishing up. The two husbands had attended a car show, and their wives, happily, had not. We shared pleasant table talk, and I decided that if my work schedule permitted, I would return again before Easter.

On the walk home, I pondered the motto of the London School of Economics. Sometimes we can understand the causes of things. Science helps in that regard concerning physical phenomena. Yeast makes dough rise when I make bread; the spinning of the earth, its tilt and orbit contribute to our experience of light and darkness, changing seasons, and constellations marching across the sky.

The mild winter and untimely blooming of honeysuckle are another thing altogether. Some propose climate warming. Others argue continuation of natural cycles.

But what of other things? How does one understand the causes of violence in the world, or poetic genius, or longings of the heart? What about a God who enters into the very life she created? Or a God that suffers?
What about the sudden rupture of old heart wounds, or the inability to let go things that are harmful to our souls?

There are age old puzzles of doing what we don’t want to do and of evil, of what comes after death. There are immediate ones like why why I can never buy the right amount of groceries for one or why faith once fecund is dry as old bones.

I unlocked the side door and entered my kitchen, hung up my keys, and took a deep breath. Theology is sometimes referred to as “faith seeking understanding.” I guess it is the seeking that counts.