Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 22, 2008
Reflections on Jeremiah 20:10-13
Romans 5: 12-15
Matthew 10:26-33
by Patricia Crowley, OSB.
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I. Introduction
Would you call yourself a “rainmaker” or a “weather forecaster”? Think about that, as we reflect together on this day of jubilee and on today’s scripture passages.a. Today is a time to celebrate the past 25 years in the lives of three women and in the life of this Benedictine community to which they came in the early 1980’s.
b. Today, in our liturgical year, we celebrate the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time. I know that today feels anything but “ordinary”! The 12th Sunday is one that focuses on God’s tender and loving presence in the midst of a world filled with fear and with terror and with sin.
c. Today is a day of jubilee. Traditionally, “Jubilee”, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, is a time to assess the equities and the inequities of the past and the present. Jubilee is a time to forgive debts and to make a re-distribution land.
d. Jubilees are opportunities for self-reflection; they are opportunities to stop to give thanks for what has been.
e. Jubilee is a time to lay the groundwork for a better future. There are many ways to look at the future. On a recent retreat, I heard two images that represent two different ways:
i. A “weather forecaster” is one who looks at current conditions and lots of pertinent data and, based on that data, predicts the weather that is coming or that might come.
ii. A “rainmaker” is one who looks at the future and says, “What is our preferred weather and how can we make that happen?”II. The three readings, we just heard, are short and powerful in a somewhat unexpected way for such a joyous occasion.
f. Jeremiah
In the midst of terror and fear, Jeremiah, with lots of emotion, persists in his clear grasp of the very real presence of God with him and in the world.g. Romans
Paul, in the second reading, presents a world immersed in sin and negativity. In the midst of that reality, Paul presents a very clear notion that “the kindom of God is, indeed, “inevitable” and that life in Christ is very real. Through Christ, human life is vibrant and totally transformed.h. Matthew
Matthew recognizes the predominance of fear and worry in our human experience and then, gives us a powerful image to help us realize how very valuable each of us is!i. Gandhi told us “Let our first act every morning be to make the following resolve for the day: “I shall not fear anyone on earth; I shall fear only God.”
j. We can allow ourselves to get caught up in the fear all around us, in the terror our world, and Jeremiah’s world, knows, in sin, or in negativity. Or, we can, as Jeremiah, Paul, Jesus, Louise, Kathy, and Patti, we can
k. “Fear no one. Do not be afraid.”
l. The Rule of Benedict reiterates that theme with its emphasis on the uniqueness of each individual in community. Each of us is so very important in God and in community.
III. Three women / 25 years of vowed Benedictine life.
Each of these three women looked at their past in the late 1970’s and made a decision to join this Benedictine community of women in 1981.
1. Sister Patricia Cielinski, better known as “Patti”, came from the corporate and retail world of Chicago. Prior to entering she went around the world in less than 80 days. Patti has many gifts of exquisite service, superb abilities to arrange and organize things from flowers, to community centers, to monastery festivities, to the planning and the events of another nearby religious order. She values the rich relationships she has developed in community and credits those with an ever-deepening relationship with God.2. Sister Louise Eggen came from Missouri and from the world of special education. Louise came to our community via Camp San Benito in Colorado, where she later spent time at our academy there. She, also, has many gifts and most recently has used them in pastoral and organizational administration in health care. Louise now is in charge of our infirmary and is a listening ear for so many. She never ceases to amaze me with her creative cookie making and lovely crafts and fresh ideas. She is a woman of prayer and has shown her deeply inclusive approach to life in her relationships to people and to the God whom she seeks.
3. Sister Kathleen Maloney (Kathy) came from the south side Catholic world and from the world of parish education. She has never lost her deep love of and commitment to parish life as a way of building up the people of God. A few years ago she gave up that parish work in response to a call from community to serve as our treasurer. Her clear thinking and organized approach to finance and business coupled with her deep love of community allow her to face the challenges of balancing her parish ministry with equally demanding financial and business responsibilities here at home. With her calm and utter kindness, Kathy is present to so many, is always approachable, and is a woman of deep faith.
With very different backgrounds, each of these women faced her fears of the unknown and courageously moved out of the life she had led to embark on a new way of life. These three entered at a time of great change in the world and in our church. Those times were at the end of the 70’s. Our country had come out of a new kind of war in Vietnam. The first space shuttle had been launched. The first IBM PC’s were being marketed. The reality of the AIDS epidemic had become only too evident. The first artificial heart transplant occurred. Women’s role was changing with the first female Supreme Court Justice being named and the ERA amendment being put to a vote in each State. John Paul II had just become the first Polish Pope in 1978. The Catholic Church was in the throes of trying to meaningfully implement the dramatic changes that had been approved at Vatican II.
The world then, and the world now, is filled with fear and terror and many unknown things.
Each of these women came to community seeking God and recognizing the wisdom of the Benedictine way of life throughout the ages, each has lived out that call for the past 25 years.
The great British writer G.K. Chesterton once said :
The Christian ideal has not been found, tried, and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.These three women have not left it untried.
IV. Conclusion
As our scriptures told us today, God’s grace transforms our lives from the inside out and allows us to know deeply God’s presence and to embrace the wonder of that reality.
That presence is the base from which we look to the future.
Jubilees are times of making some changes toward the future and I suggest that Jubilee calls us to be “rainmakers”! As we look back and we look forward let us ask ourselves as “rainmakers”: “What is our preferred weather and how can we make that happen?”
At this time of jubilee, let us rejoice in our life immersed in the wondrous presence of God.
Let us continue going beyond our fear into a future immersed in this reality of God.