Happiness Redefined

We all want to be happy, and all our drives and struggles revolves around the desire to be happy. Growing up, some of us probably observed our parents shuttle between jobs day and night to keep things going for the members of the family. In the midst of all that, some of them enroll into full or part time programs to acquire higher certification and advance themselves in the midst of already crazy schedules. This is because most good parents want the best for their family even if it means putting up with enormous daily toil and hard work. Hard work is rewarding, it can creates economic empowerment, which can be a stepping stone for a better future. So when everyone in the family is happy, parents are happy too because they helped to create it for everybody. There is nothing better than that when one rejoices in his or her work says Ecclesiastes. (3:22) Notice I said when parents work hard to help their children succeed, everybody is happy. The same thing applies to parents also. When parents grow too old to care for themselves, their child/children or Stepchildren take over their upkeep. Responsible adults ought to look out for their aging and sick parents. They ought to make sure that their parents are safe, secured and happy. There is always a sense of comfort and happiness associated with knowing that we have done the best for our parents who are no longer able to take care of themselves.

But how we treat those dearest to us is exactly the same way God wants us to treat everybody. We are one huge global family, seeking and desiring similar things, including comfort, stability, security and happiness. As we work hard to secure our individual futures, let us remember to play the role of children and parents to those who need it for we are not all equally gifted and because God intends that all the gifts of the earth, including wealth, talents be recycled. Everything is to be placed at the service everyone. When we truly play our part as co-creators of happiness, unimaginable measure of happiness, pressed down, shaken together and flowing over will our portion in time and eternity. Luke 6:38

 

Divine Nudging

"There is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace. This desire lies at the center of our lives, in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep recesses of the soul. At the heart of all great literature, poetry, art, philosophy, psychology, and religion lies the naming and analyzing of this desire. Spirituality is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire. What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality Augustine says: ‘You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ Spirituality is about what we do with our unrest.”   ― Ronald Rolheiser

I  returned from Sunday mass this morning in high spirits. Where I live is next door to Holy Cross Parish, but for some reason, I have not been going there for Sunday masses. In the past ten months, I may have only attended mass at Holy Cross on on 3 occasions. And the only reason I can think about at the moment is because of my preference for early masses. I like going for early masses so that I can have the rest of day to do personal stuffs. But today I decided to go to Holy Cross, I returned with a deep sense of fulfillment.

Three Fridays ago it was announced at morning mass that grade school children will form a choir, to sing at the 10:30 a.m. mass. As soon as I heard that, I felt a strong urge to volunteer to be part of that. But by the end of the mass, I changed my mind. I told myself that my presence will not make much of a difference, and that others are available to do it. But the desire to volunteer refused to dissipate. So last week I decided to make more inquiries. I got the phone number of the choir director, and offered my help. He told me that he will be happy with whatever assistance I am willing to offer. So at mass this morning, I offered the gift of my voice, my ability to harmonize songs and my gift of playing the tambourine. Surprisingly, it seemed to make a little difference in the songs, people seemed to like it. At least three parishioners came to hug and thank me for the flavour my gifts added to the liturgy. The real highlight however, came from a particular parishioner who I will call "mr. Stabbler" to provide his privacy. Mr. Stabbler revealed that although he is also at mass, and can sing, today is the first time in 5 years that he has actually opened the hymnal. What Mr. Stabbler said brough chills all over my body. He praised the choir director for using the right pitch, acknowledged our blended voices and said he was elated with the music. That proclamation of faith made my day and I encouraged Mr. Stebbler to join the choir. He said he would think about it.  

The more I reflect on this, the more I am convinced that it is God himself who has led me into this unique encounter with him. Our shared faith experience of him at mass today lifted our hearts to praise and worship in a deeper way tby singing well, and a little differently. It has also helped me to realize that not only can a single person make a significant difference, but that we have all been given whatever gifts we have for the benefit of others. Yes, it is possible to enter into a more concrete experience of God through the ordinary things of life such as singing and playing tambourine. I pray that we will continue to remain open to the Spirit of God who continues to draw us into new and exciting encounter with him.

The Legacy Continues

 

The legacy of Blessed John Martin Moye continues as the wheel of life continues to turn. This beautiful picture was taken two weeks ago in Mary's garden at our Provincial House in Melbourne, Ky. Sr. Mary Echo Perry C.D.P. and I were hanging out with Sr. Mary Mansueta Martineau C.D.P. At 101, Sr Mansueta still attends most community activities, reads and listens to daily news and faithfully watches the Reds whenever they play. Mansueta's ready smiles, attentive ears and pleasant aura distinguishes her as an amazing woman of Providence.  

 Sr. Echo professed her first vows in August 2015, making her the newest member of the Province. Hopefully I will be next in line in the nearest future. As the newest and second youngest members of the Province, we are grateful for the opportunity to know and experience our Jewel of inestimable value Sr. Mansueta, who happens to be our oldest living C.D.P. sister.

In Nigeria where I come from, elders are respected and held in high esteem. Like the book of Proverbs, we, the Ibos. believe that "Gray hair is a crown of glory" (16:32) especially for people like Sr. Mansueta who have made the Lord their heritage. Elders are respected for their roles in teaching, guiding and impacting good examples on the young. Most importantly, the wisdom of elders makes the geniuses in their particular callings.  

With over 70 years of experience of living community and being in active ministry, I could become a happy, holy, prayerful C.D.P even if I learn by just carefully obeserving how Sr. Mansueta lives out our C.D.P. charism. She once told me that everything is possible for those who are open to life, to God and to new beginnings. She definitely seems to live what she believes because whenever I pass her room at Holy family Sr. Manueta is doing something productive which continues to enhance her as person and continues to help her be what God want her to be. She also told me that when we truly trust God like our beloved founder Blessed John Martin, we will find it easier to pray, trust and abandon ourselves and everything about us to God.

I like hanging out with Sr. Mansueta because she inspires me/us and she is teaching us all that she knows. We are blessed to have her and because of her wisdom, we will see  and go far because according to an Ibo proverb, "What an old woman sees sitting down, a young woman cannot see standing up"  

 

 

Emerging Intertwined Boundaries

I attended the National Giving Voice Conference for religious women under the age of 50 in Kansas City this past August. More than 70 women in different stages of religious formation gathered from different parts of the country/world to reflect on the changing face of religious life in an increasingly diverse intercultural/inter generational American church. The three days event offered us a great opportunity to pray, dialogue and dream together. The event was filled with a lot of shared energy which helped us articulate our collective reality as well discern direction for the future. Conference speakers, Holy Name Sister Sophia Park SNJM and Incarnate Word sister Teresa Maya CCVI led us in the reflection around the theme  “Crossing Boundaries in Religious Life” Both speakers were equally wonderful in their respective approach to the topic. With the use of charts and graphs both Teresa and Sophia showed how the declining, changing and diverse nature of religious life in the Unites States is calling for a new outlook and leadership for the future. Although women under 50 constituted only 10% of those entering religious life today, we rejoiced that our presence affirms the fact that religious life is still here and will continue through us. As a small cohort on the margins, our speakers helped us see that we are in a privileged position to both articulate our present reality as well as see future horizons more clearly. Smaller size also means that we can be lighter, more flexible and fast. One of the important directions of our time is also the issue of leadership. In her recent article “Beyond Middle Space” in “Global Sister” Sr. Tracy Kamme, S.C. beautifully articulated how the changes in religious life seem to be calling for three main types of emerging leadership styles (A leadership style that is able to harmonize all the different facets of religious life discussed at the conference) as we march into the future. Those who feel called to continue with things the way they are, those, the dreamers who have more thrust for the future and those who are in-between. So while it is important for Congregations to focus on retirement and the need of older sisters, we affirmed the need for them to realize we are also here, that our stories, our questions and experiences are all equally relevant and emerging.

  The event helped me realize that, as a group, we are all grappling with the same issues, asking the same questions bordering on size, diversity and resources. I found it enriching to be on  common ground where we could openly voice our hopes and dreams while acknowledging the challenges ahead of us. Hearing our hopes and fears spoken out loud helped us turn our hearts to God whose spirit is at work in us as a discerning group in an emerging church/world. In this space, we also realized that one of our major roles is to continue to build bridges for the future, a future that we are all part of and which we are all moving towards. As the present and future of the church, we are encouraged to continue to rend our voices because whatever we have to say is authentic, even as we respectfully acknowledge the disappearing past which our older sisters are grappling with. We cannot let our voices be stifled by the fear of a disappearing familiar past or concerns about an uncertain future.  

The speakers also discussed how to bridge age gaps, cultural and racial divides. As emigration into United States continues to affect it’s demographic, it is clear that future religious life is not going to be any different. During one of the session, a random sampling of the group’s diversity was conducted by Sr. Teresa who asked all those born outside of the United States to raise their hands. At least 25% of the group indicated that they were born in another country. As a group, I think that GV is well ahead in preparing for an emerging coordinated interconnected/intercultural future religious life. For example, the entire event was translated in both English and Spanish. I think that this type of initiative is great in providing the framework for bridging gaps and creating common ground. This is also why the event has a personal thrust for me. The topic helped me confront some of my own personal challenges as someone coming from a vibrant church discerning a vocation in a church/religious Congregation where things are beginning to slow down or die out. In Nigeria where I come from, the church is still very vibrant, pews are filled to the brim on Sundays and Holy days of Obligation, and religious life and seminaries are still getting lots of vocations. But I have moved from comparison to appreciation. I have personally experienced the type of inclusivity demonstrated at GV and which also happens to be the chapter call of my Congregation this year. I live with older sister whose cultural experiences are different from mine, but whose love, acceptance and openness is constantly challenging me to recognize and share my gifts. And that is the essential in being an effective witness of the Gospel. Recognizing and using my gifts is not limited to space nor place. The world is God's and everything there-in. Where I flourish is not as important as using my talents. 

How can we make religious life more inter-culturally relevant in our society today? No group, culture or generation can represent the entire picture of religious life. Like the universe, the church and religious life is in the process of evolution and each individual, group, and generation can only represent his/her/their experiences in the context of the culture in which they exist. In other words, part of our reflection is to see the whole picture of religious life, the past, the present and the future, to see how this evolution is part of God’s on- going creation Isiah 49:13. I am undoubtedly energized with hope for the future. The space provided at GV helped me not just to articulate the emerging themes of the reality of religious life in the United States but to realize how my personal story and experiences are part of God’s unfolding plan. My cultural background means that I bring an entirely unique outlook which is my gift to my Congregation/church/world. The conference reinforced my optimistic outlook on life/vocation to the religious life. I am at peace because I know that religious life is the work of God expressed in one language – Love. The culture of religious life, like all cultures, is not diminishing, will never extinguish as long as people walk the face of the earth. Rather it is evolving along the pathways specific to it, which is why GV is such a gift we must continue to treasure. Yes, the future may be smaller, inter generational, and multicultural but nevertheless a precious gift of our time. I am excited to be part of the future of religious life, energized in my present role in being the voice, the change the church and the world are waiting for. As a person/group, I/we are called to continue to build bridges for the pregnant future and remain open to accept it as it unfolds. I know that this is possible because we are united in our love for God and are motivated by our passion to bring about the reign of God through our services to the church/world.

Addicted

As I approached Holy Cross parish for mass this morning, I was humming one of my favorite songs. I was happy about a new encounter with my Lord today and beginning my day with him as usual. But as I got closer to the church, my heart sank for a moment. Did I miss something? I wondered. When was mass cancelled? I thought out loud. Suddenly I stopped singing and looked frantically for signs of people around the church. In particular, I looked for a little old blue Toyota car which belonged to an elderly couple that frequent the mass every morning. When I did not see it, I concluded that mass had been cancelled or postponed and I did not know it. The thought made me sad because I was looking forward to yet another great encounter with my friend Jesus in the Eucharist. I just have to have my daily dose, I said. Nevertheless, I decided I would go into the church anyway to pray, mass or no mass for an hour because it is my time with the Lord. However, as soon as I opened the front door, the huge church bell started to ring and I quickly yelled “YES!!!” and quietly went inside.

I have been a Christian all of my life and have always gone to church but have never been this in love with Jesus. Looking back, I see a huge difference in my faith journey. I my understanding of Jesus’ love for me has grown and deepened. As a child, perhaps I had associated Sunday masses with putting on nice Sunday outfits and eating rice which was the traditional meal cooked every Sunday when I was growing up. Perhaps growing up, I even emulated St. Paul whenever I would chide my friends for committing “mortal” sin against God by not coming to church the previous Sunday. As a child, I kept a good list of my “sins” and went to confession every Saturday so I would receive communion the following Sunday. I did what I assumed was right, did what I thought was love. But now I know that my obsession with showing God how much I love him was grounded in my fear of his judgment and impending punishment in Hell. I despised my shortcomings and assumed that I God saw me the same way I saw myself.  Whenever I was sick or something goes wrong in my life or family, I would see it as punishment from God for some sin I have committed.  

Thank God for opening my eyes to see that my relationship with him begins by discovering his love for me. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (I john 4:10) God wants us to always remember his unconditional love. God does not want us to seek his love but to receive his love and freely share it with others. Until we recognize and accept God’s undeserving love of us, we will continue to miss the point like I did as a child.

There is always a longing that comes from experiencing the goodness of the Lord. I am addicted to Jesus because his love compels me, continues to invite me to respond to him. I love it and it makes all the difference in the way I see myself. My constant awareness of God’s presence continues to lead my mind back to him over and over again. I know that when I set the Lord always be before me (psalm 16:8), then I am more confident of myself and is less likely to worry about making mistakes for God has promised to show me the way of life, and grant me the joy of his presence and the pleasures of living with Him forever. I will always remain addicted to Jesus for then my soul will rejoice in the LORD and delight in his salvation (Psalm 35:9)

God’s Majesty at Cumberland

At Cumberland Falls

The heavens, the earth and the river meet

It is beauty personified

Trees in all sizes and shades of green adorn the park

Leaves sway as if responding to some rhythmic music

Gentle winds make whistling sounds as birds chirp in the sky

And water like lightening flows downstream from the falls

The splash of water a warn relieve from the scorching sun

At Cumberland falls

I saw a glimpse of God

In the sights and sounds of the park

In the guests, their smiles and the serenity of the place

Aghast and lost in profound wonder, my gaze lingered  

I could not stop myself from singing

Praise indeed is the God for this 250 million years work of art

How could I stop from singing and adoring so great a God?

Yes, Cumberland is a piece of God’s majesty. 

Evolving Providence

This is  the fourteenth Liturgical Sunday in Ordinary time. My reflection on the Gospel kept reminding me of an interesting conference I attended recently. The reading from the Gospel of Mark 6: 1 - 6 explained the exchange between Jesus and his townspeople. Jesus came to his hometown ready to cure, heal and restore people back to God. The towns people listened as he preached, taught and explain the scriptures. They observed his zeal, enthusiasm and passion for proclaiming the coming of the reign of God. They even acknowledged that Jesus had extraordinary powers, and were astounded with the miracles they witnessed. But they were not convinced that there was more to Jesus than the village carpenter who lived down the street. They closed their minds to the truth which they witnessed and which their hearts affirmed and instead questioned how a mere carpenter could possess the type of power that Jesus had.

Unlike Jesus' townspeople, my eyes were significantly opened by the insights from Sr. Ilia Delio’s presented during the Conference of Women of Providence in Collaboration conference I attended with some of our CDP sisters in June 2015.

With Ilia Delio

CDP Sisters and Associates

Liturgical Dance

With other Liturgical Dancers

Delio gave an expansive understanding of evolution and elaborately explained why we need to reimage our traditional notions of God and creation. Delio  explained that evolution has come to be understood not as some narrow theory explaining biological phenomena, but a cosmic process that challenges the plausibility of a static and unchanging notion of God and God’s relationship to all of reality. She claims that evolution, the meta-narrative of our age, implies that all being is whole and is advancing in complexity and unity through time. This cosmic process she said, is and has always been at work, is accelerating, and has implications for religious systems and for theology

In the Conference, Delio began by detailing the medieval Ptolemaic worldview with its theological and cosmological implications and then explores Copernicus’ heliocentrism, which challenged existing notions of the hierarchy of being. With God no longer the source of unity, a disconnect emerged between God, the human and the cosmos. By the 18th century, said Delio  the divide between science, especially cosmology, and theology widened further, relegating theology to fixed speculation and allying science with dynamic change. Delio said that evolution, at first interpreted narrowly, came to be understood as the dynamic process that generated novelty, change, complexity and convergence, a process that impelled and attracted all toward the future.

But for her, the preoccupation of science with objectivity gave only a partial understanding of this process. What was needed according to Delio, is some way to capture its wholeness and explore its force of attraction, its energy.  Delio then borrows heavily from the mystical Teilhard, who suggested that the evolutionary process, with its orientation toward unity, complexity and consciousness, is driven by the fundamental energy of love. Delio proffers that love is the means by which global wholeness will emerge.

What are the implications for Christian life?
Delio described how the medieval understanding of the unity of being unraveled and the devastating consequences for intellectual life and human well-being. She explored the synthesis of evolution and its ramifications for many aspects of inquiry, and then using the insights of Teilhard she attempts to show through contemplative understanding the meta-narrative of evolution how the Christian might re-imagine how to live. Delio said that religion must grow and redefine itself. She is also convinced that the kind of religion that humanity lacks cannot be found in the religious traditions of the past which are linked to static categories. What is needed she said, is a new religion full of dynamics and conquests. One that can use all the free energy of the earth to build humankind into greater unity. Delio believes that today people are looking for a religion of mankind and of earth, because faith in God in this world are a source of great spiritual energy in human being. Quoting Teihard, Delio explained that Christianity is a religion of evolution, why is why Christ cannot be limited to any one religion.  So the “stasis of religion, is the stifling of religion” convergence of all religion is possible said Delio when we harness the energies of love for the forward movement of evolution. So as humans, Delio believes that we are a process and unfolding, we evolve to never stop evolving. We experience inner evolution by letting go in other to let flow, by leaning into suffering, by recognizing our deep relatedness to all of creation and by openness, kenosis. Since now is all we have, Delio advised that we should learn to live in the now, mind body, heart and create structures to fit the moment, structure that change as needs change. She also said that we should remain open to new ideas, new patterns and not to allow ourselves to be fixated because we are still been created. As dynamic becoming, we also need to recognize that we live in an unfinished universe where everything is connected. We have to accept the truth of our nature which is incompleteness. This enables us to live in the primacy of love as well as recover the capacity of wonder and awe. For Delio, we evolve to never stop evolving, to be alive is to ceaselessly beginning, every end is a new beginning and every arrival, a new departure. We can change the world only when we change the way we think. Unless we change the way we think we cannot change the way we act said Delio.  God is the power of the future who is within us and up ahead. So we must advance all together in a direction in which all together we join and find completion of the earth – that all may be one.

I learned a lot from all that I heard, and the passion with which Ilia Delio talked about her prophetic message for the world. I defiantly agree that we need to change a lot of how we have been oriented to think and act. I hope that as you read this, you will take this message to heart and act as God’s spirit moves you.

Link to Ilia Delio’s books http://www.amazon.com/Ilia-Delio/e/B001JS2T2E

YouTube Videos:  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ilia+delio