Sacred Self-Compassion

For psychologist and theologian Chanequa Walker-Barnes, offering ourselves self-compassion is connected to our ability to love others:  

There can be no self-care without self-compassion, which is compassion turned inward. It is the ability to connect to our feelings, to respond to our suffering with kindness, and to desire that our suffering be ameliorated. Self-compassion prompts us to treat ourselves in ways that alleviate, rather than cause or amplify, our pain and suffering. While many Christians understand compassion, mercy, and kindness to be essential in our interactions with others, we don’t always see these as core values for our relationship with ourselves. We neglect our self-care, directly and indirectly contributing to our pain and suffering. We judge ourselves for our own suffering, listening to the voice of our inner critic as it rehearses our shortcomings, our errors, and our deficiencies. As James teaches us, it doesn’t have to be this way (James 3:10).  

Implicit in Jesus’s commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves is the assumption that we are supposed to love ourselves. We are supposed to be kind and gentle, caring and nurturing, empowering and forgiving of ourselves. If we are unable to do this, ultimately we may be unable to do it for our neighbors. And if we cannot love our neighbors, whom we can see, we cannot love God, whom we cannot see (1 John 4:20). Self-compassion, then, is not indulgence; it is a necessity for true discipleship. [1]  

CAC friend and Love Period podcast host Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis emphasizes the importance of loving the particularities of ourselves:  

By self-love I mean a healthy delight in your true, imperfect, uniquely wonderful, particular self. I mean an unconditional appreciation for who you are, head to toe, inside and out: quirks, foibles, beauty, and blemishes—all of it. I mean seeing yourself truthfully and loving what you see.  

Honestly, the stories playing out in the world can make it difficult to love yourself, and therefore your neighbor. Messages from the culture that you don’t matter, not just because of your race, but because of your gender, sexuality, economic status, or religion, can thwart self-love. Though her skin gives her some privilege, a white child might grow up in a context of poverty or domestic violence that can cripple her self-love. A child traveling across deserts and rivers to emigrate with his parents might lose some of his self-love in the wilderness. Even if you’re born into circumstances that others consider ideal, messages in the culture can signal that you’re not good enough, light enough, thin enough, smart enough, feminine or masculine enough to measure up to some ideal. The space between those ideals and your realities can make it difficult to embrace your particularities and love them. Learning to love your particularities is not just an individual project; you need your communities—your posse—to see those pieces of you, to accept them, and to love all the parts of you, fiercely. [2]  

God’s Compassion and the Prophets

Sister of St. Joseph Catherine Nerney writes of God’s maternal love and compassion for the world:  

In Exodus 34:6, God proclaims that God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. These attributes of God need pondering.  

According to God’s own self-revelation, “God’s very being is determined by rechem, which is mercy, lovingkindness, compassion.” [1] Translations of the Hebrew most carefully connect rechem with the feminine for womb. God’s way of being poured out in the world is womb-love.… 

A womb provides a safe, holding place for life to grow. Let this space, which God provides for all, become in you a sacred spot, an expansive opening in your own heart, where God and you can indwell—you in God and God in you. As a child lives within her mother, and the mother gives over her very life blood for her child, so the God of life, Compassion itself, gives life to our world. 

The Hebrew prophets remind us of God’s boundless compassion: 

Some of the most poignant images of God’s untiring love and faithfulness are captured in the words of the prophets. In Hosea 11, the prophet has God speak to God’s unfaithful people, who insist on turning away. “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?… My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender” [Hosea 11:8]. Instead of the people being cast aside for their evil ways, the subversion takes place in God’s own heart. God’s compassion flares up, and God decides not to execute [God’s] burning wrath. Mercy is victorious over justice in God. Mercy doesn’t trump justice; it transcends it. Mercy is the profound mystery of who God is. “For I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst and I will not come in wrath” (Hosea 11:9). The fundamental characteristic of God, elevating the divine above all humans, is God’s boundless mercy, God’s womb-like love. With gratitude and awe for such a God, the psalmist prays: “For you, O God, are good and forgiving, abounding in merciful love to all who call on you” (Psalm 86:5) and again in Psalm 103:1—“As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for all who fear Him.” And: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in merciful love” (Psalm 103:8; 145:8)….  

God’s relentless care for those who are poor and suffering is the visible expression of our compassionate God, which moved the prophets from the praying stance of the psalms to courageous action on behalf of God’s children in need (Amos, Hosea, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Baruch, and Zechariah, to name just a few). That God’s very life imprints in us that same dynamic rhythm from prayer to action, from contemplation to lives of compassion, reveals the God in whose image we are made. 

Creating a Community of Compassion

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. —Matthew 14:14  

This week of meditations begins with a homily from Richard Rohr on Matthew 14:13–21. He describes how Jesus created a community of compassion:  

The gospel passage is quite good and delightful because it tells us very directly what God is about. Jesus is all about meeting immediate needs, right here and right now. There’s no mention of heaven at all. It seems we’ve missed the point of what the Christian religion should be about, but we see how the disciples themselves missed the point: “Tell them to go to the village and take care of themselves” (Matthew 14:15). But Jesus does not leave people on their own!  

Look at the setting. Jesus is tired. The gospel begins with him withdrawing to a deserted place to be by himself. Sure enough, the crowds follow after him, but he doesn’t get angry or send them away. He recognizes the situation and moves to deal with it. Then the passage goes further and states, “His heart was moved with pity” (Matthew 14:14). If Jesus is our image of God, then we know God has feelings for human pain, human need, and even basic human hunger. The gospel records that he cured the sick, so we know God is also about healing, what today we call healthcare. Sometimes, we don’t even believe everyone deserves that either! Jesus says, “There is no need for them to go away. We will feed them” (Matthew 14:16). 

The point in all the healing stories of the gospels is not simply that Jesus can work miracles. It is not for us to be astounded that Jesus can turn five loaves and two fish into enough for five thousand people, not counting women and children. That is pretty amazing, and I wish we could do it ourselves, but what Jesus does quite simply is feed people’s immediate needs. He doesn’t talk to them about spiritual things, heavenly things, or churchy things. He doesn’t give a sermon about going to church. He does not tell us what things we are supposed to be upset about today. He knows that we can’t talk about spiritual things until we take away people’s immediate physical hunger. When so much of the world is living at a mere survival level, how can we possibly talk about spiritual things?

The important thing that God seems to want to be doing in history is to create a community of compassion where people care about one another. It is not only the feeding that matters to us, it is also the caring for other people’s hunger and needs. Jesus never once talked about attending church services, but he talked constantly about healing the sick and feeding the hungry. That is what it seems to mean to be a follower of Jesus.  

Mirrored Suffering Leads to Compassion

Father Richard reflects on how sitting with our own suffering allows us to extend compassion to others:  

The outer poverty, injustice, and absurdity we see when we look around us mirrors our own inner poverty, injustice, and absurdity. The person who is poor outside is an invitation to the person who is poor inside. As we nurture compassion for the brokenness of things, and learn to move between action and contemplation, then we find compassion and sympathy for brokenness within ourselves. We, too, are full of pain and negativity, and sometimes there is little we can do about it.  

Each time I was recovering from cancer, I had to sit with my own broken absurdity as I’ve done with others at the jail or hospital or soup kitchen. The suffering person’s pain and poverty is visible and extroverted; mine is invisible and interior, yet just as real. The two sympathies and compassion connect and become one world. I think that’s why Jesus said we have to recognize Christ in the least of our brothers and sisters. It was for our redemption, our liberation, our healing—not merely to “help” others and put a check on our spiritual resume. Rather, when we see it over there, we’re freed in here, and become less judgmental. I can’t look down on a person receiving welfare when I realize I’m receiving God’s welfare. It all becomes one truth; the inner and the outer reflect one another.  

As compassion and sympathy flow from us to any person marginalized for whatever reason, wounds are bandaged—both theirs and ours. We’ll never bandage them all, nor do we need to, but we do need to get close to the wounds. That idea is imaged so well in the gospels with Thomas, the doubting apostle, who wanted to figure things out in his head. He had done too much inner work, too much analyzing. He always needed more data before making a move. Then Jesus told Thomas to put his finger inside the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side (John 20:27). Then and only then did Thomas begin to understand what faith is all about. [1]   

Jesus invites Thomas and all doubters into a tangible religion, one that makes touching human pain and suffering the way into both compassion and understanding. For most of us, the mere touching of another’s wound probably feels like an act of outward kindness; we don’t realize that its full intended effect is to change us as much as it might change them (there’s no indication that Jesus changed, only Thomas). Human sympathy is the best and easiest way to open heart space and to make us live inside our own bodies. God never intended most human beings to become philosophers or theologians, but God does want all humans to represent God’s own sympathy and empathy. And it’s okay if it takes a while to get there. [2]  

Cofounder of the Wild Church Network, Victoria Loorz introduces “edge walkers” who connect across faith traditions: 

My personal spirituality is rooted in the Christ tradition—a term I prefer over Christian, which is a label I find difficult to swallow these days. Rather, I see myself as an “edge walker,” wandering along the hemlines of the Christ tradition. I stand at the inside edge of a tradition that has brought many people, including me, deep pain and has also brought many people, including me, deep joy and meaning…. I’ve adopted this term, edge walker, from nature writer Terry Tempest Williams. [1] The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature describes her edge walking as traveling “the narrow space between the religious tradition she credits for having ‘forged her soul,’ and her direct and very personal experiences in nature that have revealed a truth of their own.” [2]  

Perhaps you are an edge walker too. Edge walkers occupy a thin space and are by definition a bit lonely. Most people inhabit the vast spaces on both sides of edges. But those of us called to the thresholds—the edges between—live in this thin space and recognize one another when we meet. The edges between biosystems are called ecotones. These thresholds usually contain the most biodiversity and therefore are the most resilient….  

The time is coming soon when the edges we inhabit will start to redefine the center. And we will need to lean on and learn from one another as we, together, engage in the work of that redefining. Each of us is characterized by our own unique gifts, communities of influence, and a particular bio-region. But we cannot behave as silos. The more diverse our relationships are, the more resiliently we can hold our own individual edges.  

Loorz reminds us that mystics stand at the edges:  

Every religion has an edge where the mystics live. I once attended a conference organized by Ed Bastian, a Buddhist mystic whose calling is defined by his deep respect for and encouragement of interfaith spirituality. He gathered spiritual leaders from diverse traditions to consider what we had most in common: living on the same planet….  

We talked about how our faith traditions could connect us with the actual soil and water and creatures of Earth. And how that connection could be a spiritual foundation for the environmental movement. What I remember most was a golden thread of mystical connection with divine presence that all of us expressed in our relationships with the natural world. Even in our diversity, we all felt that we had more in common with one another—edge walkers from other traditions—than we did with people more firmly planted in the center of our own faiths…. 

There have always been edge walkers: those who didn’t follow along with the status quo, who didn’t swallow the version of religion offered by those on top of the hierarchy as The Only Way. And at that edge, spirituality and nature are in unbroken relationship.  

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Jesus Calling

 You are on the right path. Listen more to Me, and less to your doubts. I am leading you along the way I designed just for you. Therefore, it is a lonely way, humanly speaking. But I go before you as well as alongside you, so you are never alone. Do not expect anyone to understand fully My ways with you, any more than you can comprehend My dealings with others. I am revealing to you the path of Life day by day, and moment by moment. As I said to My disciple Peter, so I repeat to you: Follow Me. 

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Psalm 119:105 NLT

105 Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

John 21:22 NLT

22 Jesus replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? As for you, follow me.”

In fall 2020, Richard began sending out occasional letters that he called “Letters from outside the Camp,” a reference to the many usages of “outside the camp” in the Hebrew Bible.  

“Outside the camp” is a prophetic position on the edge of the inside, which is described by the early Israelites as “the tent of meeting outside the camp” (Exodus 33:7). Even though this tent is foldable, moveable, and disposable, it is still a meeting place for “the holy,” which is always on the move and out in front of us. It inspires me to wonder how we might maintain that same sense of prophetic freedom outside the contemporary political and religious “encampments” of our day. For those of us who are sincerely and devotedly trying to camp elsewhere than in any political party or religious denomination, we know full well that we must now avoid the temptation to become our own defended camp. 

The prophets exercise their imagination from that place of freedom, as my favorite Scripture scholar Walter Brueggemann describes so well: “Because the totalism [that is, the system] wants to silence, banish, or eliminate every such unwelcome [prophetic] intrusion, the tricky work is to find standing ground outside the totalism from which to think the unthinkable, to imagine the unimaginable, and to utter the unutterable.”  [1] 

The free and graced position found in the tent of meeting is what allowed Jesus and all prophets in his lineage to speak from the privileged minority position. It is always less desirable, compared to the comfortable and enjoyable places at the center and the top; yet it is the Jesus stance, and the place where all Franciscans follow after him. 

The “tent of meeting” is the initial image and metaphor that eventually became our much later notion of “church.” The greatest prophet of the Jewish tradition, Moses, had the prescience and courage to move the place of hearing God outside and at a distance from the court of common religious and civic opinion—this was the original genius that inspired the entire Jewish prophetic tradition. It is quite different than mere liberal and conservative positions, and often even at odds with them. Prophecy and Gospel are rooted in a contemplative and non-dual way of knowing—a way of being in the world that is utterly free and grounded in the compassion of God. 

Somehow our occupation and vocation as believers in this time must be to first restore the Divine Center by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves. If contemplation means anything, it means that we can “safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves” as Etty Hillesum describes it. [2] What other power do we have now? 

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Sarah Young Jesus Calling

Stop judging and evaluating yourself, for this is not your role. Above all, stop comparing yourself with other people. This produces feelings of pride or inferiority; sometimes, a mixture of both. I lead each of My children along a path that is uniquely tailor-made for him or her. Comparing is not only wrong; it is also meaningless.
    Don’t look for affirmation in the wrong places: your own evaluations, or those of other people. The only source of real affirmation is My unconditional Love. Many believers perceive Me as an unpleasable Judge, angrily searching out their faults and failures. Nothing could be farther from the truth! I died for your sins, so that I might clothe you in My garments of salvation. This is how I see you: radiant in My robe of righteousness. When I discipline you, it is never in anger or disgust; it is to prepare you for face-to-Face fellowship with me throughout all eternity. Immerse yourself in My loving Presence. Be receptive to My affirmation, which flows continually from the throne of grace. 

Luke 6:37 NLT

Do Not Judge Others

37 “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.

John 3:16-17 NLT

16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave[a] his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

New Life from the Edges

Father Richard explains how religious orders, positioned on the edge of the inside of the Catholic Church, have helped the church to survive: 

While the mainline Catholic Church organized itself around structural charity and almsgiving, it lost a deeper sense of solidarity, justice, simplicity, and basic understanding of the poor. Christians were no longer called to become poor like Christ but simply to help poor people through charity. It became acceptable to get rich personally, even for the clergy, with the idea of passing on that wealth to the poor. But as good as charity is, it largely became an avoidance of a basic concern for justice.  

This is certainly a step or two removed from what Jesus lived and invited us into. We are no longer the poor ones whom Jesus called blessed; from our position of comfort, we take care of poor “others.” This is good and necessary, but not exactly what he taught.  

Even though the Catholic Church didn’t remain a church of the poor, it sometimes became a church for the poor, usually through specialized groups called religious orders. About two-thirds of Catholic religious orders were founded by wonderful women and men who saw poor boys who were not being taught, poor girls who were not being protected, poor orphans who were not being taken care of. Then one heroic Irish woman would go off and take care of them, and soon we had the Sisters of Mercy, thousands of them.  

I’m convinced that one of the only reasons Roman Catholicism has lasted is because we have these satellites of freedom on the edge of the inside—religious communities of Benedictines, Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, and many more. Bishops have their questions of concern, and we have different questions, as do most of the laity. Structurally, the church survived because the religious orders and most of the laity just got on with trying to live the gospel.  

Father Richard reminds us that a practice of contemplation allows us to remain on the edge of the inside with love:  

The fruit of meditation is that we ask new questions, not in reaction, rebellion, or opposition to religion or the church. We don’t have time for that. It’s a waste of our life to bother with any oppositional or negative energy, because soon it becomes another form of righteousness, and that would be the death of our contemplative life.  

So now we hope to keep one foot in our historic denomination and tradition, grateful for all it gave us, and we put the other foot in prayer groups, service groups, support groups, and meditation groups. That is a rather creative, positive, and hopeful way of renewing the church: no longer seeking to be right, but getting down to the practical work of our own transformation and the transformation of our suffering world.  

New Life from the Edges

Father Richard explains how religious orders, positioned on the edge of the inside of the Catholic Church, have helped the church to survive: 

While the mainline Catholic Church organized itself around structural charity and almsgiving, it lost a deeper sense of solidarity, justice, simplicity, and basic understanding of the poor. Christians were no longer called to become poor like Christ but simply to help poor people through charity. It became acceptable to get rich personally, even for the clergy, with the idea of passing on that wealth to the poor. But as good as charity is, it largely became an avoidance of a basic concern for justice.  

This is certainly a step or two removed from what Jesus lived and invited us into. We are no longer the poor ones whom Jesus called blessed; from our position of comfort, we take care of poor “others.” This is good and necessary, but not exactly what he taught.  

Even though the Catholic Church didn’t remain a church of the poor, it sometimes became a church for the poor, usually through specialized groups called religious orders. About two-thirds of Catholic religious orders were founded by wonderful women and men who saw poor boys who were not being taught, poor girls who were not being protected, poor orphans who were not being taken care of. Then one heroic Irish woman would go off and take care of them, and soon we had the Sisters of Mercy, thousands of them.  

I’m convinced that one of the only reasons Roman Catholicism has lasted is because we have these satellites of freedom on the edge of the inside—religious communities of Benedictines, Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy, and many more. Bishops have their questions of concern, and we have different questions, as do most of the laity. Structurally, the church survived because the religious orders and most of the laity just got on with trying to live the gospel.  

Father Richard reminds us that a practice of contemplation allows us to remain on the edge of the inside with love:  

The fruit of meditation is that we ask new questions, not in reaction, rebellion, or opposition to religion or the church. We don’t have time for that. It’s a waste of our life to bother with any oppositional or negative energy, because soon it becomes another form of righteousness, and that would be the death of our contemplative life.  

So now we hope to keep one foot in our historic denomination and tradition, grateful for all it gave us, and we put the other foot in prayer groups, service groups, support groups, and meditation groups. That is a rather creative, positive, and hopeful way of renewing the church: no longer seeking to be right, but getting down to the practical work of our own transformation and the transformation of our suffering world.  

The True Center

We begin this week’s meditations with a foundational teaching from Richard Rohr on what it means to be “on the edge of the inside”: 

The biblical prophets, by definition, were seers and seekers of Eternal Mystery, which always seems dangerously new and heretical to old eyes and any current preoccupations with status and security. The Hebrew prophets lived on the edge of the inside of Judaism. John the Baptist later does the same with Temple Judaism, and Paul then sharply disagrees with Peter and the new Christian establishment in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:1–14). Francis and Clare continued this classic pattern in their own hometown of Assisi as they physically moved from upper Assisi among the majores to the lower side of town and the minores. There they had nothing to prove or defend. It offered the most opportunities to have fresh and honest experience, and to find their True Center. [1]  

The starting point for the biblical prophet is an amazing positive experience of theophany (as we see in Isaiah 6, for example) that fills their heart, not with cynicism, not with sarcasm, not with negativity, not with opposition, but with ecstasy that has to be shared. That one experience of the absolute is so absolutizing that it has the effect of relativizing everything else. It even relativizes the institutions of religion, which receive the prophets’ most constant and continuous criticism.  

We see this almost perfectly replicated in Jesus. Jesus is constantly critiquing religion and being fought by religion. The prophets come out of religious experience, and yet they find themselves fought most by religion itself. Often, like Jesus, they are killed by the religious establishment. Why is that true? [2]  

People hiding inside of belonging systems are very threatened by those who are not within that group. They are threatened by anyone who has found their citizenship in places they cannot control. Christians call this place “the Reign of God.” When one has found one’s treasure elsewhere and is utterly grounded in the passion and pathos of a transcendent God, they are both indestructible and uncontrollable by worldly systems.  

If we look at some who have served the prophetic role in modern times, like Martin Luther King Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Pope John XXIII, Simone Weil, and Óscar Romero, we will notice that they all held this exact position. They tended to be, each in their own way, orthodox, conservative, traditional clergy, intellectuals, or believers; but that truly authentic inner experience and membership allowed them to critique utterly the exact systems of which they were a part. We might say that their enlightened actions clarify what our mere belief systems really mean. These prophets critiqued Christianity by the very values that they learned from Christianity. [4]  

Inside/Outside People

Father Richard describes prophets as “inside/outside” people, another way of saying they lived on the edge of the inside. 

None of the prophets held highly established or institutional roles within Israel. They were by definition inside/outside people. I’ve heard it said that in the world of business and management, after we’re in a company for about two months, we begin to lose our ability to criticize that business or company because we’re a part of it. Unless we somehow retain our distance, and have healthy and balanced outside voices, we become an insider and start protecting the institution. We start shoring it up and building it up. That’s what happens to all of us in any system we get into. Once we accept these rules and this game, to a certain degree, we lose the ability to creatively criticize it anymore. 

There are also those people who forever stand outside criticizing. Such people never participate and never become involved. There are those kind of people in every prayer group, and every parish, and every family, and every church. They go to services, but they never lay down their lives. They critique from without, and that doesn’t work either.   

We can only criticize something if we walk the narrow line of being an inside/outside person that the prophets dared to walk. I find so few people can do that. I think only the Spirit can create it. There are a few prophets who can love their church, their country, or their company so much that they see it clearly and deeply and are free to criticize it. But there’s a difference when critique comes from anger and rebellion and spite, and when it comes from love. All of our actions and prophetic words must come out of an experience of gratitude for what is given. Only out of the joy and the fullness of what is given can we dare to speak against what is not given. Because if we speak against what is not given merely out of our own resentment and compulsion, we’ll destroy ourselves and probably others too. 

How many cynical and bitter people do we know in the church and religious life? How many clergy have lost the ability for that creative balance? No one has taught them how to walk that narrow road of being inside/outside people. Maybe the church didn’t allow many examples to stay around to show us, because for years we’ve eliminated the prophets. Anyone who didn’t speak the party line was deemed a heretic. Anyone who didn’t say it in the one and only orthodox and appropriate way to say it was kicked out. So, we lost those creative models to show us how to be inside and yet creatively speaking from an outside perspective. That’s the wisdom we need. The model of the prophet is one who can love and yet criticize, and who can speak words of correction out of an experience of gratitude.  

Love and Criticism

Dorothy Day (1897–1980) lived on the edge of the inside, and the deep love she had for her church and nation expressed itself in passionate critique. Writer Julie Leininger Pycior describes a moment of prophetic challenge Day offered during a conference session on Women and the Eucharist:  

Nearing eighty, and long plagued by heart ailments along with arthritis, [Day] was felled by a serious heart attack in September 1976 [not long] after giving a talk to eight thousand people at a Eucharistic congress in Philadelphia. One also could say, however, that that event broke her heart…. 

As they made their way to the session, Day confided to [her friend Eileen] Egan that she was sick at heart. The congress included a Mass in honor of the U.S. military, and, like the women’s session, was scheduled for August 6, which happened to be the anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. The Catholic Worker leader felt obligated to decry that military theme, even though she considered the Mass more important than life itself, containing within it that most precious of gifts: the Eucharist—and even as the congress, of course, was dedicated to the Eucharist.  

For Day, a devout Catholic, her love of the Eucharist compelled her to speak out about war as a sin for which penance is needed, especially with the anniversary of the Hiroshima nuclear attack in her heart and mind:  

[Day’s] remarks, which she titled “Bread for the Hungry,” [1] opened with a devoted evocation of the Eucharist. Day shared with her listeners her deep, abiding “love and gratitude to the Church” as nothing less than a mother “who taught me the crowning love of the life of the Spirit.” But love in action can be a harsh and dreadful thing, and now she plunged ahead, noting that this mother “also taught me that ‘before we bring our gifts of service, of gratitude, to the altar—if our brother has anything against us, we must hesitate to approach the altar to receive the Eucharist.’”  

Speaking with an anguish made even more dramatic by her careful, understated manner, Day said, “And here we are on August 6th.” Acknowledging other holocausts, notably the Turkish attacks on the Armenians and the Nazi persecution of Jews, “God’s chosen people,” she then sounded like a prophet. “It is a fearful thought that unless we do penance, we will perish,” she firmly stated, reminding her listeners that, at that very moment, military leaders were processing into the cathedral nearby.… She called for “fasting, as a personal act of penance, for the sin of our country, which we love.” Asking why that religious service could not have been held on a different date, “I plead,” she said, “that we will regard that military Mass, and all our Masses today, as an act of penance, begging God to forgive us.” That her audience broke into resounding applause only partly salved Day’s wounded heart, which suffered an actual physical attack a few weeks later. 

A Franciscan Renaissance would be ecological, nonviolent, economic, and inclusive. —Brian McLaren and Patrick Carolan  

CAC teacher Brian McLaren joins with Catholic activist Patrick Carolan to call for a renewal of the Franciscan way in Christianity: 

We have a proposal that addresses both the crises in the world at large and the crises in the Christian church: the possibility of a Franciscan Renaissance…. 

First, at this time of ecological crisis, the Franciscan legacy is powerfully ecological…. We need a spiritual vision that integrates love for God and love for our neighbor with love for the earth….  

The ecological vision of Francis was about … the interconnectedness of all creation, so that we see every creature as sister or brother.… 

Second, in this time of violence, this time of school shootings and war in Europe, this time when many politicians seem to believe that the more guns we have the safer we’ll be, or the more bombs we have the safer we’ll be, we need St. Francis’ message and example of nonviolence as never before…. 

Over the centuries, many forms of Christianity have become religions of fear. But Christianity wasn’t always like that. It began as a nonviolent peace movement, a community known for love, a community gathered around a table of fellowship and reconciliation, a people armed with the basin and towel of service, not the bomb and gun of violence. A Franciscan Renaissance would invite us to become, in the language of St. Clare, not violent warriors, but nonviolent mirrors of Christ for others to see and follow.   

Third … the Franciscan vision is deeply economic. Today, a larger and larger percentage of wealth is being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals and families…. St. Francis arose in the early stages of modern capitalism, and he saw its potential dangers. He exemplified an alternative value system where the poor, the leper, and the outcast matter more than money, luxury, and power. Our current economic model places no intrinsic value on creation, except as a source for raw materials that we consume…. A Franciscan Renaissance would help us “redeem”—which means to re-assess and revalue—everything, so we rediscover the priceless beauty of the earth and its creatures, including our neighbors and ourselves.   

Fourth, we live in a time of exclusion, division, classism, racism, and religious prejudice. We need the example of St. Francis and St. Clare, who clearly modeled deep inclusiveness and solidarity…. In this spirit of solidarity, I see that my life and your life are interconnected. I refuse to settle for my own happiness, because my life is in solidarity with yours as my neighbor. 

The relationship between Francis and Clare modeled this: we’re all equal—male and female, rich and poor, healthy and sick, well-clothed and clothed in rags, Pope and Bishop and lay person. Francis even teaches us to refuse to discriminate between Christian and Muslim, Jew and Atheist, for we all are beloved by God. 

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Jesus Gets Us

Jesus Let His Hair Down Too

Jesus was no stranger to joy. He went to weddings. He shared lively meals with his friends. He drank with them. He had so much fun and acted so freely around the dinner table that the uptight religious leaders called him a glutton and a drunkard. Jesus was joyful. But what does that mean?

These days it’s very easy to conflate joy and happiness, but Jesus hardly ever used the word happiness (or at least the Aramaic equivalent), and he frequently used the word we translate as joy. That word? In Greek, it’s “chara,” and it means a feeling of inner gladness, delight, or rejoicing. You see, the joy Jesus talked about and lived out isn’t dependent on circumstances, and it isn’t a reactionary feeling — it’s a lasting emotion, a deep-seated assurance, and a way of life.

That gives a different perspective to the picture of Jesus eating and drinking with friends and strangers. It wasn’t the food, drink, or company that brought Jesus joy — he already had it. It’s actually the other way around. It was his joy that gave him the freedom to hang out with people that others thought were shady. It was his joy that allowed him to be uninhibited in his pursuit of compassion. It was his joy that let him throw worry about his reputation to the side as he lived life to the full. And it was that same joy, that deep-seated emotion that works inside out, that allowed him to forgive his captors on the cross.

In good times and bad, Jesus was joyful, and he wanted the same for the people who would listen to him. During his last meal with his disciples, Jesus shared plenty of wisdom. After a good chunk of it, he was sure to explain that he was sharing it all “so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” And then, without pause, he continued: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” If you’re looking for the secret to Jesus’ joy, try starting there. He knew what he was doing.

Scripture References:

John 2:1-11,

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ² Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. ³ And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

⁴ Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

⁶ Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. ⁷ Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸ And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it. ⁹ When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. ¹⁰ And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”

¹¹ This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and ^[a]manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him.

Matthew 11:19, The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.

John 15:11-12; I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.