Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We did indeed raise over $10,000 for the congregation of Cristo Rei in Cidade de Deus, one of Rio de Janeiro's poorest neighborhoods.
Details here.
Later today (I have to work now) I will add a label called "Christmas Appeal and Theology 2008" to all those posts titled "[Number] Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal" so readers can more easily get access to the series I posted for the twelve days of Christmas. It may be a good resource for those of you interested in Latin America, poetry, liberation theologies, feminist theologies, contextually conscious theologies, and theology and Christianity in general. It will also enable you to read the posts in sequence and all in one place.
Most of all, HURRAH AND THANK YOU!
Showing posts with label Christmas Appeal and Theology 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas Appeal and Theology 2008. Show all posts
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Well over $9,000 for the City of God! and still counting!
Let's make it $10,000, folks!
You heard it here first. C',mon. Give our friends five figures.
From a wonderful circle of cyberfriends in several countries gifts have come for the parish of Cristo Rei in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro. The Episcopal Church of St. Paul (Chatham, NJ, U.S.A.) and St. Francis Church (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, U.K.) have been receiving cheques ("checks" for you estadounidenses), and St. Paul's has set up a PayPal, as many of you already know.
See details here.
TOMORROW DURING THE DAY (Monday, January 7, 2008) IS THE CUT-OFF DATE! (And we'll still take a check if you mail it tomorrow. )
All the financial transactions are being processed by an ultra-scrupulous, competent, honest, keeping-track-of-everything, transparency-is-our-motto church financial officer.
We intend to be a place where all are welcome to be free, especially in the Cidade de Deus (City of God) neighborhood, where poverty, violence and hunger are so well-known. And in order to live this Gospel of liberation and reconciliation of the entire world through Christ Jesus, we also seek to integrate the Church with society, through several social projects. Our mission is bold: to say that Christ is the King is to say that love has the last word in the midst of this world of calamities. However, we are sure that, with Him, we are victorious. (Luiz Coelho on the congregation of Cristo Rei)
AND DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR ANIMAL COMPANIONS TO GIVE! Maya Pavlova says "If I did it, you can too!"
(She'll also whack you with her Prayer Book if you don't comply with her orders.)
You heard it here first. C',mon. Give our friends five figures.
From a wonderful circle of cyberfriends in several countries gifts have come for the parish of Cristo Rei in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro. The Episcopal Church of St. Paul (Chatham, NJ, U.S.A.) and St. Francis Church (Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, U.K.) have been receiving cheques ("checks" for you estadounidenses), and St. Paul's has set up a PayPal, as many of you already know.
See details here.
TOMORROW DURING THE DAY (Monday, January 7, 2008) IS THE CUT-OFF DATE! (And we'll still take a check if you mail it tomorrow. )
All the financial transactions are being processed by an ultra-scrupulous, competent, honest, keeping-track-of-everything, transparency-is-our-motto church financial officer.
We intend to be a place where all are welcome to be free, especially in the Cidade de Deus (City of God) neighborhood, where poverty, violence and hunger are so well-known. And in order to live this Gospel of liberation and reconciliation of the entire world through Christ Jesus, we also seek to integrate the Church with society, through several social projects. Our mission is bold: to say that Christ is the King is to say that love has the last word in the midst of this world of calamities. However, we are sure that, with Him, we are victorious. (Luiz Coelho on the congregation of Cristo Rei)
AND DON'T FORGET TO GET YOUR ANIMAL COMPANIONS TO GIVE! Maya Pavlova says "If I did it, you can too!"
(She'll also whack you with her Prayer Book if you don't comply with her orders.)
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Twelfth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
TOMORROW IS THE VERY LAST DAY YOU CAN MAKE A GIFT to the congregation of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) in Cidade de Deus (the City of God), one of the poorest neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Our friend Luiz writes of Cristo Rei parish:
We intend to be a place where all are welcome to be free, especially in the Cidade de Deus (City of God) neighborhood, where poverty, violence and hunger are so well-known. And in order to live this Gospel of liberation and reconciliation of the entire world through Christ Jesus, we also seek to integrate the Church with society, through several social projects. Our mission is bold: to say that Christ is the King is to say that love has the last word in the midst of this world of calamities.
Details here. One last push for Epiphany! And for the children.
Tonight's reflection is from Elsa Tamez's book When the Horizons Close: Rereading Ecclesiastes (1998, English translation 2000).
The publisher of this book, Orbis Books, writes on the back cover:
On its surface the Book of Ecclesiastes appears to offer a type of "wisdom" that bears little reference to social or historical issues. But from her own perspective in Central America Elsa Tamez finds in this ancient book a surprisingly current message. Ecclesiastes reflects a time when utopian hopes have been crushed, when the prospects for change seem remote, and the challenge is how to live faithfully in the present while maintaining some openness to a different future. Because that describes the situation of many people today, especially in the third world, the Book of Ecclesiastes bears a message of unusual relevance.
From the beginning of the book:
An insistent concern with the theme of hope, now at the end of the millennium, reveals a crisis of hope and a need to rebuild utopia in our time. [Tamez then speaks of the "culture of despair" and the role of the ideology of capitalism in the present loss of hope.]...
A reason for living, or the meaning of life, is one of the most profound and universal questions that human beings have asked through the centuries. It entails an effort, often in vain, to understand future events in history and even beyond earthly existence. To seek the reason for living is not just a philosophical concern; it comes from our desire to live with dignity in the face of conflicts and challenges, whether these are economic, cultural, social, or political.
It would seem that when the future becomes so terribly inscrutable, utopia hides itself; it is nowhere to be found. When utopia cannot be created, human fulfillment is also impossible. And when human fulfillment is impossible, so is the society we seek to create.
The book called Ecclesiastes, or Qoheleth, written around the second half of the third century B.C.E., during the Ptolemaic empire, raises this problem. The narrator experiences reality as a great emptiness, masked by the change and agitation around him; he is anguished by his inability to envision a liberating future; and amid this crisis of meaning he reflects on the inevitability of death and the impossibility of effectively challenging God's intentions. He exhorts the people at that crossroad to enjoy the happy moments of the present: to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil. This approach to history is an anomaly in the biblical history of salvation, which usually overflows with messianic promises and hopes.. What is the meaning of Qoheleth's unusual way of confronting uncertainty? Can this proposal be valid for our time? How should be interpret his approach and the reasons for it? These are some of the questions we shall ask...
Perhaps we shall find in this canonical book some critical word to give us a better understanding of certain modern-day situations and attitudes that occur when horizons are closing. It would seem that this is the only book of the Bible that "abandons the biblical vision of history understood as a divine project in progressive linear, 'messianic' development."
Tamez notes that the Hebrew word hebel is usually translated as "vanity" but, she says, that word does not fully translate what Qoheleth is trying to say nor the malaise which is reflected in the opening verses of the book. In modern slang perhaps, less abstract words than vanity or absurdity --such as "worthless," or "rubbish," or "shit" -- would better express his frustration with what goes on under the sun.
She adds: We might read the repetitive superlative in 1:2 as follows: "A big mess, says the Teacher, a big mess! Everything is messed up." Gianfranco Ravasi prefers to translate the Hebrew superlative as "an immense emptiness." In a way, that feeling --like "an emptiness in the stomach"-- is what comes when reality is perceived as a mess, when apparently there is no way to change the course of history and there are no visible signs that human fulfillment is possible.
And from the end of the book:
Obviously the reading of Qoheleth presented here has been done in the context of our present reality, with the globalization of the free market. But there is an extraordinary similarity between those Hellenistic times and our own. Therefore there is no need to draw a separate application for our own times. ...
... Qoheleth recommends four ways of resisting frustration in a present whose horizons are closed. First, by affirming the faith that there is a time and a season for everything; that is, at some point the horizons will have to open up. Second, by affirming real life, now, as a rhythm of life in opposition to the rhythm of a society that has no interest in human beings. Third, the fear of God as a recognition of the human condition, finite and limited in what it can do. And fourth, the attitude of discernment and wisdom in the everyday tasks of the "meanwhile," in a society whose ideology seems to be "save your own skin!" Thus it offers plenty of advice for surviving and avoiding premature death. It also recommends solidarity: "two are better than one," because "a threefold cord does not break."
The question remains: Is embracing the present sufficient for human fulfillment in our world today? Doesn't it lead to the trap of postmodern sentiment? But in spite of the issues it raises, for example, its lack of praxis, we cannot deny the importance of discussing Qoheleth's proposal in depth.
Before closing I would like to reflect briefly on the relationship between wisdom literature and apocalyptic literature. They both deal with similar situations, although there is a great difference between them: in the apocalyptic literature, the horizons remains open.
... Apocalypticism arose in the popular sectors and was widely accepted there. The vision of Qoheleth... comes through the eyes of a renegade aristocrat under foreign domination. But both offer an important word of resistance to the situation.
Our present life seems different, however. The cry of suffering --"How long, O Lord?"-- which is characteristic of apocalypticism, has taken precedence over the imperative, "Let us eat and drink joyfully in the midst of hard labor, for there is a time and a season for everything!"
In order to build liberating utopian horizons and live the first fruits now, with dignity, it seems important to keep both literary genres in mind. The wisdom literature is not enough to help us see the world from a structural perspective. But the apocalyptic vision, which takes in all of history at a glance, does not help us to live life from day to day, night to night, moment to moment, in the midst of enslaving labor and sorrow.
Elsa Tamez is a Mexican theologian known equally for her work in women's theology and scripture study. She is professor of Biblical Studies and President of the Latin American Biblical University (Seminario Biblico Latinamericano) in Costa Rica. Her other books include The Bible of the Oppressed, Against Machismo, The Amnesty of Grace, and The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works is Dead.
I've read the works from which I posted the last 12 days, but this one is new to me. I've had it on my shelf for at least a year and hadn't cracked it open. It seems good. Interesting to have both Tamez and Gutiérrez reflecting on books from the wisdom tradition (from the Writings, as opposed to the Torah and the Prophets) which, as Tamez notes, are not the ones with a focus on what we've come to call the history of salvation (salvation broadly speaking and including or equated with liberation and communal salvation, salvation of the world). Earlier in liberation theology the big texts were the Exodus and the Magnificat.
THANKS, friends!
Our friend Luiz writes of Cristo Rei parish:
We intend to be a place where all are welcome to be free, especially in the Cidade de Deus (City of God) neighborhood, where poverty, violence and hunger are so well-known. And in order to live this Gospel of liberation and reconciliation of the entire world through Christ Jesus, we also seek to integrate the Church with society, through several social projects. Our mission is bold: to say that Christ is the King is to say that love has the last word in the midst of this world of calamities.
Details here. One last push for Epiphany! And for the children.
Tonight's reflection is from Elsa Tamez's book When the Horizons Close: Rereading Ecclesiastes (1998, English translation 2000).
The publisher of this book, Orbis Books, writes on the back cover:
On its surface the Book of Ecclesiastes appears to offer a type of "wisdom" that bears little reference to social or historical issues. But from her own perspective in Central America Elsa Tamez finds in this ancient book a surprisingly current message. Ecclesiastes reflects a time when utopian hopes have been crushed, when the prospects for change seem remote, and the challenge is how to live faithfully in the present while maintaining some openness to a different future. Because that describes the situation of many people today, especially in the third world, the Book of Ecclesiastes bears a message of unusual relevance.
From the beginning of the book:
An insistent concern with the theme of hope, now at the end of the millennium, reveals a crisis of hope and a need to rebuild utopia in our time. [Tamez then speaks of the "culture of despair" and the role of the ideology of capitalism in the present loss of hope.]...
A reason for living, or the meaning of life, is one of the most profound and universal questions that human beings have asked through the centuries. It entails an effort, often in vain, to understand future events in history and even beyond earthly existence. To seek the reason for living is not just a philosophical concern; it comes from our desire to live with dignity in the face of conflicts and challenges, whether these are economic, cultural, social, or political.
It would seem that when the future becomes so terribly inscrutable, utopia hides itself; it is nowhere to be found. When utopia cannot be created, human fulfillment is also impossible. And when human fulfillment is impossible, so is the society we seek to create.
The book called Ecclesiastes, or Qoheleth, written around the second half of the third century B.C.E., during the Ptolemaic empire, raises this problem. The narrator experiences reality as a great emptiness, masked by the change and agitation around him; he is anguished by his inability to envision a liberating future; and amid this crisis of meaning he reflects on the inevitability of death and the impossibility of effectively challenging God's intentions. He exhorts the people at that crossroad to enjoy the happy moments of the present: to eat and drink and find enjoyment in their toil. This approach to history is an anomaly in the biblical history of salvation, which usually overflows with messianic promises and hopes.. What is the meaning of Qoheleth's unusual way of confronting uncertainty? Can this proposal be valid for our time? How should be interpret his approach and the reasons for it? These are some of the questions we shall ask...
Perhaps we shall find in this canonical book some critical word to give us a better understanding of certain modern-day situations and attitudes that occur when horizons are closing. It would seem that this is the only book of the Bible that "abandons the biblical vision of history understood as a divine project in progressive linear, 'messianic' development."
Tamez notes that the Hebrew word hebel is usually translated as "vanity" but, she says, that word does not fully translate what Qoheleth is trying to say nor the malaise which is reflected in the opening verses of the book. In modern slang perhaps, less abstract words than vanity or absurdity --such as "worthless," or "rubbish," or "shit" -- would better express his frustration with what goes on under the sun.
She adds: We might read the repetitive superlative in 1:2 as follows: "A big mess, says the Teacher, a big mess! Everything is messed up." Gianfranco Ravasi prefers to translate the Hebrew superlative as "an immense emptiness." In a way, that feeling --like "an emptiness in the stomach"-- is what comes when reality is perceived as a mess, when apparently there is no way to change the course of history and there are no visible signs that human fulfillment is possible.
And from the end of the book:
Obviously the reading of Qoheleth presented here has been done in the context of our present reality, with the globalization of the free market. But there is an extraordinary similarity between those Hellenistic times and our own. Therefore there is no need to draw a separate application for our own times. ...
... Qoheleth recommends four ways of resisting frustration in a present whose horizons are closed. First, by affirming the faith that there is a time and a season for everything; that is, at some point the horizons will have to open up. Second, by affirming real life, now, as a rhythm of life in opposition to the rhythm of a society that has no interest in human beings. Third, the fear of God as a recognition of the human condition, finite and limited in what it can do. And fourth, the attitude of discernment and wisdom in the everyday tasks of the "meanwhile," in a society whose ideology seems to be "save your own skin!" Thus it offers plenty of advice for surviving and avoiding premature death. It also recommends solidarity: "two are better than one," because "a threefold cord does not break."
The question remains: Is embracing the present sufficient for human fulfillment in our world today? Doesn't it lead to the trap of postmodern sentiment? But in spite of the issues it raises, for example, its lack of praxis, we cannot deny the importance of discussing Qoheleth's proposal in depth.
Before closing I would like to reflect briefly on the relationship between wisdom literature and apocalyptic literature. They both deal with similar situations, although there is a great difference between them: in the apocalyptic literature, the horizons remains open.
... Apocalypticism arose in the popular sectors and was widely accepted there. The vision of Qoheleth... comes through the eyes of a renegade aristocrat under foreign domination. But both offer an important word of resistance to the situation.
Our present life seems different, however. The cry of suffering --"How long, O Lord?"-- which is characteristic of apocalypticism, has taken precedence over the imperative, "Let us eat and drink joyfully in the midst of hard labor, for there is a time and a season for everything!"
In order to build liberating utopian horizons and live the first fruits now, with dignity, it seems important to keep both literary genres in mind. The wisdom literature is not enough to help us see the world from a structural perspective. But the apocalyptic vision, which takes in all of history at a glance, does not help us to live life from day to day, night to night, moment to moment, in the midst of enslaving labor and sorrow.
Elsa Tamez is a Mexican theologian known equally for her work in women's theology and scripture study. She is professor of Biblical Studies and President of the Latin American Biblical University (Seminario Biblico Latinamericano) in Costa Rica. Her other books include The Bible of the Oppressed, Against Machismo, The Amnesty of Grace, and The Scandalous Message of James: Faith Without Works is Dead.
I've read the works from which I posted the last 12 days, but this one is new to me. I've had it on my shelf for at least a year and hadn't cracked it open. It seems good. Interesting to have both Tamez and Gutiérrez reflecting on books from the wisdom tradition (from the Writings, as opposed to the Torah and the Prophets) which, as Tamez notes, are not the ones with a focus on what we've come to call the history of salvation (salvation broadly speaking and including or equated with liberation and communal salvation, salvation of the world). Earlier in liberation theology the big texts were the Exodus and the Magnificat.
THANKS, friends!
Friday, January 4, 2008
Eleventh Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
They Have Threatened Us With ResurrectionJulia Esquivel
It isn't the noise in the streets
that keeps us from resting, my friend,
nor is it the shouts of the young people
coming out drunk from the "St. Pauli,"
nor is it the tumult of those who pass by excitedly
on their way to the mountains.
It is something within us that doesn't let us sleep,
that doesn't let us rest,
that won't stop pounding deep inside,
it is the silent, warm weeping
of Indian women without their husbands,
it is the sad gaze of the children
fixed somewhere beyond memory,
precious in our eyes
which during sleep,
though closed, keep watch,
systole,
diastole,
awake.
Now six have left us,
and nine in Rabinal, 1
and two, plus two, plus two,
and ten, a hundred, a thousand,
a whole army
witness to our pain,
our fear,
our courage,
our hope!
What keeps us from sleeping
is that they have threatened us with Resurrection!
Because every evening
though weary of killings,
an endless inventory since 1954, 2
yet we go on loving life
and do not accept their death!
They have threatened us with Resurrection
Because we have felt their inert bodies,
and their souls penetrated ours
doubly fortified,
because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve us
who carry the strength
to reach the finish line
which lies beyond death.
They have threatened us with Resurrection
because they will not be able to take away from us
their bodies,
their souls,
their strength,
their spirit,
nor even their death
and least of all their life.
Because they live
today, tomorrow, and always
in the streets baptized with their blood,
in the air that absorbed their cry,
in the jungle that hid their shadows,
in the river that gathered up their laughter,
in the ocean that holds their secrets,
in the craters of the volcanoes,
Pyramids of the New Day,
which swallowed up their ashes.
They have threatened us with Resurrection
because they are more alive than ever before,
because they transform our agonies
and fertilize our struggle,
because they pick us up when we fall,
because they loom like giants
before the crazed gorillas' fear.
They have threatened us with Resurrection,
because they do not know life (poor things!).
That is the whirlwind
which does not let us sleep,
the reason why sleeping, we keep watch,
and awake, we dream.
No, it's not the street noises,
nor the shouts from the drunks in the "St. Pauli,"
nor the noise from the fans at the ball park.
It is the internal cyclone of kaleidoscopic struggle
which will heal that wound of the quetzal
fallen in Ixcán,
it is the earthquake soon to come
that will shake the world
and put everything in its place.
No, brother,
it is not the noise in the streets
which does not let us sleep.
Join us in this vigil
and you will know what it is to dream!
Then you will know how marvelous it is
to live threatened with Resurrection!
To dream awake,
to keep watch asleep,
to live while dying,
and to know ourselves already
resurrected!
***—Geneva, March 8, 1980
from Julia Esquivel, Threatened with Resurrection; Prayers and Poems from an Exiled Guatemalan (Ann Woehrle, trans. ; Brethren Press, 1994)
Julia Esquivel is a Guatemalan poet and theologian living in exile in Mexico. She has worked with several human rights organizations, and her poetry has been widely recognized in Latin and North America. She is also the author of The Certainty of Spring.
Notes
1. Rabinal: town in the province of Baja Verahaz where massacre took place.
2. Inventory since 1954: year in which the government of President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by a CIA-backed mercenary army coup, which initiated the unrelenting and ever-mounting repression by the military regimes in continuous power since then.
Notes and text courtesy of the journal Spiritus
P.S. Two more days till Epiphany! Please give. See below for good news and dunning letter to your household animals.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Tenth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
What, you gave and your cat, dog, or guppy did not? Look for their secret stash of cash, and run, don't walk, to the post office or to PayPal, and send those spare pennies to the OCICBW... Community Christmas Appeal for the parish of Cristo Rei in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!
That's right, I just realized I had given, but Miss Maya Pavlova had not. Mea culpa. We want Total Household Giving here!
We have passed the $7000 mark and are headed toward $8000. Get those cats to cough up!
Project and payment details here.
And now for your daily reflection. Today again, Ivone Gebara, from the early 1990s interview she gave Mev Puleo. This interview is in the same book (The Struggle Is One) from which I quoted Pedro Casaldáliga and Maria Miguel.
I have the impression that most people from the rich or middle-classes feel sorry for the poor, but this sorry doesn't go very far. Ultimately, people want to save their own skin and have their place in the sun.
I'm convinced of the terribly urgent necessity for the rich and middle-class to open up to a more human dimension of their own riches, which, most times, are made from the direct or indirect exploitation of the poor. To discover the human meaning of wealth is to discover a happiness, a well-being, a meaning for that which is the fruit of human hands, that every person has a right to.
The wealth of the rich is inhuman because it rests on the death of others. So we need a movement of collective consciousness to change the rules of the economic game, the political game, the ideological game. If the rich keep guarding their own interests, then, without a doubt, they'll be the first ones responsible for the destruction of human life and all life on the face of the earth.
... I think a revolution is possible. I'm not talking about taking up arms, but the revolution of people who are beginning to build from little things, obeying the values deep within themselves that will save humanity and the earth.
*********- Ivone Gebara
That's right, I just realized I had given, but Miss Maya Pavlova had not. Mea culpa. We want Total Household Giving here!
We have passed the $7000 mark and are headed toward $8000. Get those cats to cough up!
Project and payment details here.
And now for your daily reflection. Today again, Ivone Gebara, from the early 1990s interview she gave Mev Puleo. This interview is in the same book (The Struggle Is One) from which I quoted Pedro Casaldáliga and Maria Miguel.
I have the impression that most people from the rich or middle-classes feel sorry for the poor, but this sorry doesn't go very far. Ultimately, people want to save their own skin and have their place in the sun.
I'm convinced of the terribly urgent necessity for the rich and middle-class to open up to a more human dimension of their own riches, which, most times, are made from the direct or indirect exploitation of the poor. To discover the human meaning of wealth is to discover a happiness, a well-being, a meaning for that which is the fruit of human hands, that every person has a right to.
The wealth of the rich is inhuman because it rests on the death of others. So we need a movement of collective consciousness to change the rules of the economic game, the political game, the ideological game. If the rich keep guarding their own interests, then, without a doubt, they'll be the first ones responsible for the destruction of human life and all life on the face of the earth.
... I think a revolution is possible. I'm not talking about taking up arms, but the revolution of people who are beginning to build from little things, obeying the values deep within themselves that will save humanity and the earth.
*********- Ivone Gebara
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Ninth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
EPIPHANY IS COMING!
The fund-raiser for the City of God ends on the Twelfth Day of Christmas.
According to traditional eschatology, all humanity, corrupted by the fall, is in its entirely promised eternal salvation. To the universality of sin is opposed the universality of salvation, and this salvation is imposed by force or, as some Pentecostal churches do, by using radio and television to spread a simplistic and dangerous message. Salvation is offered; it is enough merely to accept it. These churches, like the global market, dominate people and encourage people to become dangerously alienated, often leading to their human damnation in concrete history. In the face of the actual manipulations of the salvation of the afterlife, I say that I prefer the known and unknown limits of this earth rather than to fly off to a heaven proposed by theologians but one whose substance I do not know. I prefer to stay enmeshed in the dust of the earth rather than to mount to a sky white and perfect. I prefer, for my last sigh and my last repose, the arms of the earth --which, according to the book of Genesis, is the place where God walks.
The fund-raiser for the City of God ends on the Twelfth Day of Christmas.
This means we only have a few days left in which to give.
Dig deep, folks. Our sisters and brothers in Cidade de Deus could use some of our cash, hard-earned or easily won. It's all useful. Five dollars, five hundred dollars, seven euros, seven hundred euros, eighteen pounds sterling, eighteen hundred pounds sterling. No gift too small, no gift too large.
More dramatic appeals from cyber-friends friends here and here and here. With photos! And the occasional hard sell, complete with threat to cute puppies.
Please give! Details here.
Checks or cheques, however you prefer to spell the word. Also PayPal. Take your pick. Or do both!
And now, your theological reflection for the day.One jargon theological word explanation: "eschatology" is the part of theology that deals with "the last things" i.e. the end of time, the goal of salvation, life beyond this life, the end of the world as we know it, the future of our lives. It is related to how Christians understand history, salvation, liberation, suffering, and the present.
Okay, now the reflection.
Ivone Gebara writes:
According to traditional eschatology, all humanity, corrupted by the fall, is in its entirely promised eternal salvation. To the universality of sin is opposed the universality of salvation, and this salvation is imposed by force or, as some Pentecostal churches do, by using radio and television to spread a simplistic and dangerous message. Salvation is offered; it is enough merely to accept it. These churches, like the global market, dominate people and encourage people to become dangerously alienated, often leading to their human damnation in concrete history. In the face of the actual manipulations of the salvation of the afterlife, I say that I prefer the known and unknown limits of this earth rather than to fly off to a heaven proposed by theologians but one whose substance I do not know. I prefer to stay enmeshed in the dust of the earth rather than to mount to a sky white and perfect. I prefer, for my last sigh and my last repose, the arms of the earth --which, according to the book of Genesis, is the place where God walks.Beyond what is imagined by reason, there is something imagined by desire, poetry, beauty. This concept of the imagination bets on life without mathematical certitude; it bets simply because life is worth being loved and lived to the full. It is so little, but it is so beautiful! It is beautiful in its fragility, and everything beautiful has something fragile in it and something ephemeral. This eschatology commingled with earth --the cycle of life, the year's season, the bodies of animals, plants, and flowers-- this human and larger-than-human eschatology warms the heart a great deal. It matters in the being and thought of many women; it mobilizes their art, their politics, their philosophy, their cuisine, their tenderness, their history, and their theology.
I daresay that we women, while having respect for the "kingdom" of God, which epitomizes the ministry of Jesus, do not proclaim any kingdom, because even the notion of the kingdom of God seems to have a face too male and authoritative. We proclaim quite simply the deep desire and the urgent necessity of having our individual and collective body more widely respected. We dream of a tender justice; we yearn for democracy and respect for the res publica. Our theology is one of gratuitousness, one that goes beyond rationalist discourse, bypasses it, does not enter the prison of rigid concepts. We believe in the dimension of "not-knowing," a fundamental dimension of our being, a not-knowing that makes us more humble and at the same time more combative in order to gain respect for differences and the possibility of building an interdependent society. We look for a Wisdom in life, a Wisdom that teaches us to share our goods and the goods of the earth, so as not to have any "needy person" among us (Acts 4:34).
Beginning from this vision, which forms part of our daily life and of our body, we may recover an ethical, fundamental dimension for the life of every being. This is a matter of living an ethic that forms part of the core of the human being, of our body of our possibilities for tenderness and solidarity, of our questions of every day. This new vision, including both male and female, can be one contribution of feminist theology of Latin America to our Western theological tradition.
*****- Ivone Gebara, Out of the Depths: Women's Experience of Evil and Salvation (2002; original edition 1999, in French)
Ivone Gebara, a Brazilian Sister of Notre Dame, is one of Latin America's leading theologians. She holds doctorates in both philosophy and theology and taught for many years at the (now defunct) Theology Institute of Recife, where Dom Helder Camara was archbishop. She is the author of many books and articles including Mary: Mother of God, Mother of the Poor (1989, written with Maria Clara Bingemer) and Longing for Running Water: Ecofeminism and Liberation (1999). She ran into trouble with the Vatican for having favored the legalization of abortion in Brazil. From living in a poor neighborhood and daily contact with poor women, she knew the circumstances that drove women --many of them already devoted mothers-- to seek illegal abortions and the way in which these often resulted in maternal deaths. Legalization, writes Gebara's translator (for the book quoted above) Ann Patrick Ware, "was only one small aspect of a broader struggle in what she called 'an abortive society,' that is, a society that does not offer jobs, health care, housing, or education to poor women.
For a handy summary of the three phases of Latin American feminist theology according to Elsa Tamez (Costa Rica and Mexico) and Ivone Gebara (Brazil) --the summary is by Judy Ress (U.S. and Chile)-- see here.
How did Ivone Gebara, who lived for many years in a poor neighborhood of Recife, in Northeast Brazil, become involved in feminist theology? According to an article in U.S. Catholic (January 2003), Gebara said:
Let me tell you about a key event for me. I was leading a Bible study for a group of about a dozen workers in Recife, where I live. I was the only woman in the group.
The wife of the worker at whose home the meetings took place never joined the discussions. I kept asking her to join us, but she wouldn't. I felt really uncomfortable about that, so I decided to visit her one day. I asked her, "Why don't you want to study the gospel with us?"
She said, "You really want to know?"
I said, "Of course!"
And she said, "Because I do not understand what you are saying. You have a male language."
I said, "Me?" I was so upset! "No, I don't have a male language."
She said I did. I asked her for an example. So she said, "When you read the gospel, you always take examples from the life of industrial workers in the union. You analyze political issues. You talk about how the workers need to get together and discuss issues."
I said, "Yes, that's true."
"But you never talk about how we women are suffering. You never talk about Friday."
"Friday?" I asked. "Why Friday?"
She said, "Because Friday is the last day of the week, and it's the worst day for women because we have no money to buy our children food. And you never talk about our sexuality. You do not know about men and women's sexuality--what we can suffer. You never talk about children's education or the absence of men in our home. You never talk about the way we women want or need to be loved."
She was right, I didn't talk about these issues. So for me this was an eye-opening conversation. I began to become more aware of the questions in women's lives. Sure, unions and politics are also women's concerns, but they're not the only thing. I became more aware of the special suffering of women, and of how my own language wasn't inclusive....
[Actually posted at 1 p.m. on January 3, but I changed the time to late January 2 to keep with the Twelve Days of Christmas schedule.]Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Eighth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
It's a miracle: I got the computer to work. Temporarily, anyway.
So here is a brief reflection, taken, like a few of the preceding ones from Mev Puleo's book The Struggle Is One. (I'll insert a hyperlink when I trust that the computer won't go out on me.)
[This information is from the early 1990s.] Maria de Silva Miguel lives in a favela on the edge of Sao Paolo, Brazil. She is a great-grandmother to six young children, two of whom live with her. She started writing poetry when she was sixty-five, and now writes songs for her church and for political demonstrations. A national Brazilian religious magazine recently published one of her songs of struggle, ''The People is Poet." Maria is active in the land movement, the health movement, the local Bible study group and is passionately involved in local women's groups. Born of slaves, Maria is deeply concerned about the continuing oppression of blacks in Brazil. Roughly fifty percent of Brazil's population is black, most of them descendents of slaves. Brazil officially abolished slavery in 1888.
"The People is Poet" by Maria da Silva Miguel
One day a woman cried, "I am a Warrior!"
and the echo of her voice was heard beyond the borders.
I am Woman-Mother and Warrior,
the stove is no longer my limit.
I am called queen of the home,
but I am greater than ocean and sea.
I am Mother, I give life,
I am a Woman, Pain.
I am a Warrior, a Bird—I sing!
I raise up my people and pull them out of slavery,
my name is Liberation!
Whoever wants to find me, I'm not only in the home,
I'm in the struggle, I'm a Warrior!
I am Black, I am Poor, I am Old and nearly Illiterate,
Everyone knows me—
I am the remnant who dreams of happiness and love
I am merely Maria Miguel!
As for the appeal, here it is.
I am going to nag you nicely until Epiphany, but you are getting Latin American reflections in the bargain. In English!
So here is a brief reflection, taken, like a few of the preceding ones from Mev Puleo's book The Struggle Is One. (I'll insert a hyperlink when I trust that the computer won't go out on me.)
[This information is from the early 1990s.] Maria de Silva Miguel lives in a favela on the edge of Sao Paolo, Brazil. She is a great-grandmother to six young children, two of whom live with her. She started writing poetry when she was sixty-five, and now writes songs for her church and for political demonstrations. A national Brazilian religious magazine recently published one of her songs of struggle, ''The People is Poet." Maria is active in the land movement, the health movement, the local Bible study group and is passionately involved in local women's groups. Born of slaves, Maria is deeply concerned about the continuing oppression of blacks in Brazil. Roughly fifty percent of Brazil's population is black, most of them descendents of slaves. Brazil officially abolished slavery in 1888.
"The People is Poet" by Maria da Silva Miguel
One day a woman cried, "I am a Warrior!"
and the echo of her voice was heard beyond the borders.
I am Woman-Mother and Warrior,
the stove is no longer my limit.
I am called queen of the home,
but I am greater than ocean and sea.
I am Mother, I give life,
I am a Woman, Pain.
I am a Warrior, a Bird—I sing!
I raise up my people and pull them out of slavery,
my name is Liberation!
Whoever wants to find me, I'm not only in the home,
I'm in the struggle, I'm a Warrior!
I am Black, I am Poor, I am Old and nearly Illiterate,
Everyone knows me—
I am the remnant who dreams of happiness and love
I am merely Maria Miguel!
As for the appeal, here it is.
I am going to nag you nicely until Epiphany, but you are getting Latin American reflections in the bargain. In English!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Seventh Day of Christmas: Latin American Reflection and Appeal
... will be delayed for a few hours... check back soon.
... Okay, more than a few hours. And look just below this post when you do look for the Seventh Day of Christmas post, because I am going to put it in proper order on the proper date, which is the 31st of December. (Yes, Blogger has a thingie to adjust the time and date of posts.)
Happy New Year, everyone!
... Okay, more than a few hours. And look just below this post when you do look for the Seventh Day of Christmas post, because I am going to put it in proper order on the proper date, which is the 31st of December. (Yes, Blogger has a thingie to adjust the time and date of posts.)
Happy New Year, everyone!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Sixth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
The appeal: tonight, a soft sell, since I went hard sell last night. Or was it the night before? Please give to our Brazilian friends in Cidade de Deus, at the Anglican congregation of Christ the King. Details of the OCICBW Community Christmas Appeal are here.
And a short reflection tonight, because I preached this morning and wrote this afternoon and I am a little tuckered out.
But, happily, it is by a Brazilian Anglican.
He speaks of the Brazilian Episcopal Anglican Church as "a valiant venture of being that church [the Anglican Communion] in a non-English world."
The liturgical life of the church is always related to a particular culture... The problem is that non-English Anglicans have inherited their liturgical forms from a very distinctive culture, which is English.... Whereas the church in Brazil has had some awareness of the situation, it has been unable to experiment at the national level [Note from Jane: this does not mean that there is no creative experimentation at the local level, e.g. at Cristo Rei and in other congregations.] with autochthonous and creative forms of cultural expressions in liturgical life. We still hold to a poor translation of portions of the Book of Common Prayer of the American church.
I once proposed a liturgical moratorium for our Province. Bishops would release clergy and lay people from our regular bondage to the Book of Common Prayer to experiment and create. I was called subversive and irresponsible. I still think that this is one of the things we need. Liturgists would organize that moratorium , and the resulst would be analyzed by committees all around the country. ...
... Music is a crucial element in any liturgical experiment. When I speak on the liberation of liturgy from old bondages, I am thinking of the liberation from English and American hymnals currently in use in Brazil. Happily there are already some experiemens with Brazilian music, like samba, modinhas, and bossa nova; but our congregations still think that in order to be sacred, music has to be English. Although Brazilian music is important, I do not think that we should limit the music of the liturgy in this part of the world to our own music. There is a marvelous richness all around the world, ancient and contemporary, that we should share for the sake of beauty and pleasure
Any liturgical reform should also be related to mission, and should be based in a new theology relating mission to joy and freedom. Liturgy and mission are sisters dancing together in the direction of the beauty of the kingdom of God.
*****Jaci Maraschin
******"Culture, Worship, and Spirit"
******in Ian T. Douglas and Kwok Pui-lan, eds., Beyond Colonial Anglicanism: The Anglican Communion in the Twenty-First Century (2001)
This essay was originally presented at the symposium "Unbound! Anglican Worship beyond the Prayer Book" hosted by the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, in January, 1999.
Jaci Maraschin is a priest in the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil, Diocese of Sao Paolo, a professor, author, songwriter and poet.
Tomorrow: Xico!
And a short reflection tonight, because I preached this morning and wrote this afternoon and I am a little tuckered out.
But, happily, it is by a Brazilian Anglican.
He speaks of the Brazilian Episcopal Anglican Church as "a valiant venture of being that church [the Anglican Communion] in a non-English world."
The liturgical life of the church is always related to a particular culture... The problem is that non-English Anglicans have inherited their liturgical forms from a very distinctive culture, which is English.... Whereas the church in Brazil has had some awareness of the situation, it has been unable to experiment at the national level [Note from Jane: this does not mean that there is no creative experimentation at the local level, e.g. at Cristo Rei and in other congregations.] with autochthonous and creative forms of cultural expressions in liturgical life. We still hold to a poor translation of portions of the Book of Common Prayer of the American church.
I once proposed a liturgical moratorium for our Province. Bishops would release clergy and lay people from our regular bondage to the Book of Common Prayer to experiment and create. I was called subversive and irresponsible. I still think that this is one of the things we need. Liturgists would organize that moratorium , and the resulst would be analyzed by committees all around the country. ...
... Music is a crucial element in any liturgical experiment. When I speak on the liberation of liturgy from old bondages, I am thinking of the liberation from English and American hymnals currently in use in Brazil. Happily there are already some experiemens with Brazilian music, like samba, modinhas, and bossa nova; but our congregations still think that in order to be sacred, music has to be English. Although Brazilian music is important, I do not think that we should limit the music of the liturgy in this part of the world to our own music. There is a marvelous richness all around the world, ancient and contemporary, that we should share for the sake of beauty and pleasure
Any liturgical reform should also be related to mission, and should be based in a new theology relating mission to joy and freedom. Liturgy and mission are sisters dancing together in the direction of the beauty of the kingdom of God.
*****Jaci Maraschin
******"Culture, Worship, and Spirit"
******in Ian T. Douglas and Kwok Pui-lan, eds., Beyond Colonial Anglicanism: The Anglican Communion in the Twenty-First Century (2001)
This essay was originally presented at the symposium "Unbound! Anglican Worship beyond the Prayer Book" hosted by the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, in January, 1999.
Jaci Maraschin is a priest in the Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil, Diocese of Sao Paolo, a professor, author, songwriter and poet.
Tomorrow: Xico!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Fifth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
It's Casaldáliga, continued this evening, back by popular demand and also because I was already planning this last night.
More from Dom Pedro Casaldáliga's interview by the late, talented, radiant, died-too-young Mev Puleo. (Yes, I knew her. For a lovely, challenging book on Mev, her faith, her politics, and her relationship with her husband, see The Book of Mev by Mark Chmiel, who was married to Mev until her death at the age of 32.) The interview took place in the early 1990s. Casaldáliga retired from his position as Catholic bishop of São Felix de Arraguaia in 2005.
The contemplative life isn't just important -- it's my whole life! I always say, the more radically we are revolutionaries, the more radically we should be contemplatives.
... First and foremost in this world, we should destroy the arms factories once and for all. If the bishops and pastors and presidents and politician of the world were sufficiently honest and courageous, we would kneel in front of every single arms factory to prevent their continued production!
Now it's easy for the empire, for capitalism, for the dictators to condemn only the struggle of the poor and to forget about the root of all violence - the institutionalized violence of the very empire.
* * * * *
(During his time as bishop, Dom Pedro lived in a simple home of brick and clay with cement floors.)
In my twenty years here, I've sought to work in teams with religious [i.e. members of religious orders] and laity, married or single. We make this option to mutually complement one another. We pray and eat together, but also have personal space to cultivate our particular identities.
We try to live close to the people, so you won't find us in palaces or curias.
If I lived alone as a bishop in a palace, with a secretary and a cook, I wouldn't have the opportunity to live the daily problems of the people! I wouldn't have the chance to hear the women neighbors who come here to talk with Sister Irene about health problems, or with Maria, the lawyer, about land problems.
... As a bishop, I recognize that we, the hierarchy, are the main ones responsible for the evil that occurs, and for the good that doesn't occur, in the church. I heard a joke that there can only be bishops in hell -- others don't stand a chance of getting in!
At a national meeting of the CEBs [Comunidades Ecclesiales de Base, Christian Base Communities], I invited the bishops to kneel in front of the people in repentance. So often we did not have the prophetic courage to denounce or announce. Many times the Christian people, especially women and the poor, haven't had the opportunity to participate. It's no doubt because the hierarchy closed itself to dialogue.
Hence, the mea culpa should begin with the cupola [the dome or top of a structure, referring to the church hierarchy].
*****
I always say, God will take care of us after we're dead -- we have to take care of now until death! Chapter 25 of Matthew puts it clearly: hunger, thirst, imprisonment will judge us. A faith that isn't expressed in works is dead.
And our works can't be just individual, they must address structures as well. Still, I always say that the biggest problem God will ever have is to condemn someone.
God is love, as St. John says, and love doesn't like to condemn. God sent us his Son not to judge, but to save us.
...
Look, I myself, by the very fact of being a bishop, am not poor. Anyone who goes through a university or seminary or novitiate isn't poor, because we have more possibilities, a culture, a backing that simple poor people lack.
But I, or any relatively bourgeois intellectual or family, can and should "betray" our class and opt for the causes of the poor --the organization, demands and movements of the poor who are trying to liberate themselves.
I'm not going to ask First World families go hungry, but they can renounce certain privileges. We should simplify. For example, we get a lot of help [here] from European groups who create a "self-tax," tithing part of their salary to help the Third World. They renounce trips, luxuries, foods. Solidarity isn't throwing a party to raise alms twice a year! The rich person shouldn't merely be giving alms, but should truly have mercy and compassion on others, as Jesus himself did.
When I begin to understand that every other person is an equal to myself, I can no longer retain my privileges, because to do so would be robbery. I cannot merely give donations, I must pay back what I owe. There's a difference.
....
The U.S. is not "more than Haiti or Guatemala or El Salvador! We are all human beings -- one people should be equal to another people in possibilities, in dignity, in liberty!
Did Dom Pedro say we shouldn't be raising money? He did not. He just said it isn't enough to do so.
Thus I am reminding you: this series is part Latin American reflection, part funding appeal for the parish --especially the children-- of Cristo Rei in the community of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The money goes to kitchens, classrooms, music, and other infrastructure needs. Two Anglican clergymembers (one in the U.K., one in the U.S., the much beloved Jonathan and Elizabeth) are receiving the funds and holding them until Epiphany when they will send them to our friends in Brazil. They are, I assure you, trustworthy in these matters. (And if they were not, their parish treasurer would bop them over the head -- nonviolently of course. We have accountability in our congregrations.)
More from Dom Pedro Casaldáliga's interview by the late, talented, radiant, died-too-young Mev Puleo. (Yes, I knew her. For a lovely, challenging book on Mev, her faith, her politics, and her relationship with her husband, see The Book of Mev by Mark Chmiel, who was married to Mev until her death at the age of 32.) The interview took place in the early 1990s. Casaldáliga retired from his position as Catholic bishop of São Felix de Arraguaia in 2005.
(A few years before his retirement, Dom Pedro was silenced by then Cardinal Ratzinger under Pope John Paul II. He is now nearly 80 years old, living with Parkinson's and a couple of other serious health conditions.)
The contemplative life isn't just important -- it's my whole life! I always say, the more radically we are revolutionaries, the more radically we should be contemplatives.... First and foremost in this world, we should destroy the arms factories once and for all. If the bishops and pastors and presidents and politician of the world were sufficiently honest and courageous, we would kneel in front of every single arms factory to prevent their continued production!
Now it's easy for the empire, for capitalism, for the dictators to condemn only the struggle of the poor and to forget about the root of all violence - the institutionalized violence of the very empire.
* * * * *
(During his time as bishop, Dom Pedro lived in a simple home of brick and clay with cement floors.)
In my twenty years here, I've sought to work in teams with religious [i.e. members of religious orders] and laity, married or single. We make this option to mutually complement one another. We pray and eat together, but also have personal space to cultivate our particular identities.
We try to live close to the people, so you won't find us in palaces or curias.
If I lived alone as a bishop in a palace, with a secretary and a cook, I wouldn't have the opportunity to live the daily problems of the people! I wouldn't have the chance to hear the women neighbors who come here to talk with Sister Irene about health problems, or with Maria, the lawyer, about land problems.
... As a bishop, I recognize that we, the hierarchy, are the main ones responsible for the evil that occurs, and for the good that doesn't occur, in the church. I heard a joke that there can only be bishops in hell -- others don't stand a chance of getting in!
At a national meeting of the CEBs [Comunidades Ecclesiales de Base, Christian Base Communities], I invited the bishops to kneel in front of the people in repentance. So often we did not have the prophetic courage to denounce or announce. Many times the Christian people, especially women and the poor, haven't had the opportunity to participate. It's no doubt because the hierarchy closed itself to dialogue.
Hence, the mea culpa should begin with the cupola [the dome or top of a structure, referring to the church hierarchy].
*****
I always say, God will take care of us after we're dead -- we have to take care of now until death! Chapter 25 of Matthew puts it clearly: hunger, thirst, imprisonment will judge us. A faith that isn't expressed in works is dead.
And our works can't be just individual, they must address structures as well. Still, I always say that the biggest problem God will ever have is to condemn someone.
God is love, as St. John says, and love doesn't like to condemn. God sent us his Son not to judge, but to save us.
...
Look, I myself, by the very fact of being a bishop, am not poor. Anyone who goes through a university or seminary or novitiate isn't poor, because we have more possibilities, a culture, a backing that simple poor people lack.
But I, or any relatively bourgeois intellectual or family, can and should "betray" our class and opt for the causes of the poor --the organization, demands and movements of the poor who are trying to liberate themselves.
I'm not going to ask First World families go hungry, but they can renounce certain privileges. We should simplify. For example, we get a lot of help [here] from European groups who create a "self-tax," tithing part of their salary to help the Third World. They renounce trips, luxuries, foods. Solidarity isn't throwing a party to raise alms twice a year! The rich person shouldn't merely be giving alms, but should truly have mercy and compassion on others, as Jesus himself did.
When I begin to understand that every other person is an equal to myself, I can no longer retain my privileges, because to do so would be robbery. I cannot merely give donations, I must pay back what I owe. There's a difference.
....
The U.S. is not "more than Haiti or Guatemala or El Salvador! We are all human beings -- one people should be equal to another people in possibilities, in dignity, in liberty!
Did Dom Pedro say we shouldn't be raising money? He did not. He just said it isn't enough to do so.
Thus I am reminding you: this series is part Latin American reflection, part funding appeal for the parish --especially the children-- of Cristo Rei in the community of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The money goes to kitchens, classrooms, music, and other infrastructure needs. Two Anglican clergymembers (one in the U.K., one in the U.S., the much beloved Jonathan and Elizabeth) are receiving the funds and holding them until Epiphany when they will send them to our friends in Brazil. They are, I assure you, trustworthy in these matters. (And if they were not, their parish treasurer would bop them over the head -- nonviolently of course. We have accountability in our congregrations.)
Things have been a little slow at the OCICBW... Christmas Appeal and we only have seven days left. So click the link (make sure you read Luiz's post in the Comments section when you get to your bloggy destination) and send some of your local currency. PayPal takes plastic. Also, there is a way to send checks, or cheques if that is your preferred spelling. Waiting till a January 1 payday? Never fear, I will post a big fat reminder on January 1. And smaller ones before and after.
But think of this fund-raiser as an entryway, not an end.
Will we know the people of Cristo Rei as people, as God's people? How can we not only give to them but receive from them too --their riches: their faith, their insight, their wisdom, their strength? How can we see them truly as our sisters and brothers? Where will this heart-warming and challenging Christmas Appeal take us?
Ponder that one in your hearts, sisters and brothers.
But think of this fund-raiser as an entryway, not an end.
Will we know the people of Cristo Rei as people, as God's people? How can we not only give to them but receive from them too --their riches: their faith, their insight, their wisdom, their strength? How can we see them truly as our sisters and brothers? Where will this heart-warming and challenging Christmas Appeal take us?
Ponder that one in your hearts, sisters and brothers.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Fourth Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
Dom Pedro Casaldáliga, born in Spain, has lived in Brazil since 1968 and been a (Roman Catholic) bishop in since 1971. He is the recently retired bishop of São Felix de Arraguaia, a diocese in the state of Mato Grosso, a long journey from any of Brazil's major cities. He is a member of the Claretian order.
A 2005 movie from Spain, or more precisely Catalonia (Catalunya in the Catalán language), Casaldáliga's homeland, calls him "a militant of hope."
He is also a poet.
A book about Casaldáliga which I haven't read but which sure sounds like him calls him Mystic of Liberation. He chronicled some of his sojourns to Central America in this book.
In an interview published in Mev Puleo's The Struggle Is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation (1994), Casaldáliga said:
When I first arrived in Latin America in 1968, there was a full military dictatorship in Brazil.
Originally, the church hierarchy supported the dictatorship because of its fear of communism. But when the abuses and domination grew, they adopted a more prophetic and critical attitude.
The Brazilian Bishops Conference (CNBB) nearly unanimously voted on documents promoting social justice, land reform, education and the rights of the indigenous. This was unique! Even today, the three countries with the most religious persons murdered are El Salvador, Haiti and Brazil.
....[T]he region where I work was and is violent. It's a region of Indigenous, peasants and large landowners. Many have been murdered in the conflict between landowners and peasants -- without names, without coffins. We buried many people.
Really, in this situation, there was no other way to take another option. And we have suffered because of our option for the poor.
My friend, Father João Bosco Burnier, was shot while standing next to me. Many friends have been killed, and yes, I've received death threats for years. The landowners form their own death squads to threaten those who challenge them.
* * * * * *
My faith sustains me in these trying times. And the fact of being a bishop gives me a specific responsibility. We're obliged to become what our friends call us to be.
I thank God that I've never had a great faith crisis! My writing helps. Communicating in an open way about your life experiences naturally brings one to a certain coherence. And I think poetry, a love of nature and a childlike sensitivity all help me to live with more naturalness and vibrancy, overcoming problems.
They say a poet is born, so I guess I was born a poet!
This means I always carry with me a type of vibrancy before everything - a humming bird, a kitten, the face of a child, the stars, a death, loneliness, despair, God.
This pulses in me.
In one of my poems I say that no one can accompany me totally. I've heard that you can measure someone's personality by their capacity for solitude.
Ultimately, we're all alone. I alone have to answer for myself before society and God, because we aren't a collectivized mass, we're individual persons in communion. This is the greatness and tragedy of being human.
Now, this solitude can be filled with silence, contemplation and personal growth. But it can also be anguished or morbid. For one who has faith, who lives serving others, who loves nature, solitude is never morbid.
* * * * *
... Clearly, I'm not glorifying oppression, persecution or death. I don't just insist on the resurrection, I'm obsessed by the resurrection!
I say over and over again to our people --in celebrations and pastoral visits-- that the single most Christian word we can pronounce is Easter. I once wrote a poem that says, "This is our alternative: live or resurrected, never dead!"
And here is a short poetic quote by Dom Pedro which I once used as a signature on my e-mail and which a couple of friends of mine have used for memorial services -- one for his mother, the other for her university congregation in honor of alums and friends who had died the previous year.
At the end of the road, they will ask me,
‘Have you lived? Have you loved?’
And not saying a word
I will open
my heart full of names.
*****-- Dom Pedro Casaldáliga
On the feast of the Holy Innocents, 2007.
P.S. Yes, this continues to be a fund-raising appeal for our friends in Brazil. Details here and here. Buy one less iPod! Give to the classrooms, kitchens, and church programs of the children and community of Cristo Rei in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro! Secure ways to give, by check or PayPal, are here.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Third Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
Gustavo Gutiérrez, author of A Theology of Liberation ("Is he still alive?" my students ask. You betcha.) and known widely as the father of liberation theology, has written a lot of other books, and one of the best is his book on Job.I first read that book in English but then, about six years ago, had a chance to crawl through it in Spanish with a class at the GTU. Even the title is better in Spanish. In English it's On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent. In the original Spanish it's Hablar de Dios desde el sufrimiento del inocente, "Speaking of God from inside of (or "from the starting-point of," from the inside toward the outside, all in that one word desde which doesn't exist in English) the suffering of the innocent." Very different from "and the suffering of the innocent." (The subtitle in Spanish is una reflection sobre el libro de Job, "a reflection on the book of Job." The title and subtitle were thus inverted in the English edition.)
Today's reflection, in English, is from that book.
The editor of a fine volume of selections from Gutiérrez's work, James B. Nickoloff, writes that in his book on Job, Gutiérrez argues that a turning point in Job's relationship with God occurs when the afflicted man comes to see that, unfortunately, he is far from alone in suffering unfairly. Indeed, the awareness of others' suffering (and its injustice) leads Job to free himself from a theology of reward and punishment and begin to embrace the mystery of gratuitous love and the tasks to which it gives rise.
Here's Gutiérrez now. These are bits of chapter 5 in the book on Job.
The dialogue of Job and his friends advances at an uneven pace, but it does advance. The friends repeat themselves and become increasingly aggressive, but Job sees more deeply int his own experience and refines his thinking. ...[H]e realizes that he is not the only one to experience the pain of unjust suffering. The poor of this world are in the same boat as he: instead of living, they die by the roadside, deprived of the land that was meant to support them. Job discovers to his grief that he has many counterparts in adversity.
The question he asks of God ceases to be a purely personal one and takes concrete form in the suffering of the poor of this world. The answers he seeks will not come except through commitment to them and by following the road --which God alone knows-- that leads to wisdom. Job begins to free himself from an ethic centered on personal rewards and to pass to another focused on the needs of one's neighbor. The change represents a considerable shift.
As his friends continue to insist on the doctrine of temporal retribution, Job ceases to look only at this individual case and asks why it is that the wicked proper [see Job 21:6-9]. This first enlargement of the field of personal experience will supply him with a further argument in the debate with his friends. From the new vantage point he will be able to see the weakness of the arguments brought against him...
"At the very thought" [that the wicked still live on] Job recalls a fact of daily life, which anyone can verify. The wicked proper --that is, the very persons who neither serve God nor pray to God [Job 21:13-15, 17-18]...
... Job... will distance himself even more quickly and fully from the ethico-religious language of his friends. Moreover, his line of argument will now change radically, as a result precisely of realization that poverty and abandonment are not his lot alone. For he sees not what this poverty and abandonment are note something fated but are caused by the wicked, who nonetheless live serene and satisfied lives. These are the same ones who tell the Lord, "Go away!" The wicked are both rejecters of God and enemies of the poor -- two sides of the same coin. All this leads the author of the book to put into the mouth of Job the most radical and cruel description of the wretchedness of the poor that is to be found in the Bible, and also to have Job utter a harsh indictment of the powerful who rob and oppress the poor [Job 24:2-14]....
The description is full of detail and shows careful attention to the concrete situation of the poor. The poverty described is not the result of destiny or inexplicable causes; those responsible for it are named without pity. Job is describing a state of affairs caused by the wickedness of those who exploit and rob the poor. In many instances, therefore, the suffering of the innocent points clearly to guilty parties. The daily life of the poor is a death, says the Bible. The oppressors of the poor are therefore called murderers.
*******Gustavo Gutiérrez
*******On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (1986; English ed. 1987)
Read Spanish? Here's a Spanish-language BBC interview with GG on a related theme, opposition to the fatalism of poverty.
Now, back to our previously scheduled Portuguese-speaking community of friends: you can still give to the Cristo Rei parish in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We have till Epiphany, the Twelfth Day of Christmas.
The money will go primarily to the community's ministry with children and will contribute to the infrastructure to make a lasting difference in the classrooms, the kitchen, and other community resources.
Read all about the appeal here and here and skip that double latte two days in a row, and voilà! a donation! Now, don't you feel good? (I have no shame, at least about fund-raising.)
In honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I will continue to post short and not too obnoxious daily reminders of the community Christmas appeal for the parish of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) in Cidade de Deus (City of God), on the West side of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, accompanied by quotations from various Latin American Christians.
Links to previous postings of reflections by Latin American Christians during these 12 days of Christmas are here. Enjoy.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Second Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
In honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I am posting short daily reminders of the community Christmas appeal for the parish of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) in Cidade de Deus (City of God), on the West side of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, accompanied by quotations from various Latin American Christians.
Today, a special treat: you can see and hear the children of Cidade de Deus sing on video and also read a letter from Fr. Eduardo Costa at OCICBW... (What can I say, it's a MadPriest kind of day. Thanks also to MP for telling people about this Twelve Days of Christmas event, which is part of our broader appeal.)
Our reflection for the day comes from Peru:
I am a single mother with a fifth-grade education and one son. When my son was a teenager, gangs started to appear and the children were gravitating toward them. We could not just sit by and watch the situation worse. Therefore, another friend with [community organizing' experience and I joined the Directiva Central del Pueblo (Town Council).
Our first responsibility was to put on a play, El Artista (The Artist), in which we tried to show how God created the world. In other words, God is the artist, but each one of us is like the custodian of the work of art. We each have our own interpretations. We can improve the work of art -- such as giving it light so it can be seen and putting it in an environment in which it is not harmed -- or we can do damage to it, like scratching it or hiding it away.
We wanted the kids to know that each of them has responsibility for the gifts that God has given them: life, family, home, faith. Even if "the painting" has been damaged, it is still possible to restore it and this is the task that each one of us has.
In the process of putting on the play, I came to realize more deeply the call of God and my need to respond to it. This meant more involvement, which took me away from my son at times, interfered with my work, and cut off my free time. Therefore, I guess you could say that I "suffered" for the good. However, this is the type of suffering that is good and it breaks down whatever causes more suffering.
*******---Modesta Centano Salazar
Ms. Salazar is Secretary of the Town Council of El Agostino, a pueblo joven [or barrio or neighborhood -- like Cidade de Deus in Rio] of Lima, Peru. She spoke these words in a 1998 interview with Tom Powers, S.J. for his book The Call of God: Women Doing Theology in Peru (SUNY Press, 2003).
Missed the first couple of days of this baker's dozen? You can go back and visit those:
Bonus Christmas Eve prayer-poem by Dom Helder Camara here.
First Day of Christmas (Christmas Day) reflections on Incarnation, the immensity of God, and North/South relationships by Silvia Regina de Lima Silva here.
Now pull out those checkbooks, or go visit PayPal here for full information on secure giving modalities. (Includes addresses if you prefer to send checks.)
Yes, we (and more importantly, the people of Cidade de Deus) need justice, not just charity. But the people must survive to make it happen, and the children need to grow and be safe and receive love and care.
The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't.
*********Wendell Berry
*********The Wild Birds
P.S. You might like this one too -- not by a Latin American, but it's another good Christmas quote.
Today, a special treat: you can see and hear the children of Cidade de Deus sing on video and also read a letter from Fr. Eduardo Costa at OCICBW... (What can I say, it's a MadPriest kind of day. Thanks also to MP for telling people about this Twelve Days of Christmas event, which is part of our broader appeal.)
Our reflection for the day comes from Peru:
I am a single mother with a fifth-grade education and one son. When my son was a teenager, gangs started to appear and the children were gravitating toward them. We could not just sit by and watch the situation worse. Therefore, another friend with [community organizing' experience and I joined the Directiva Central del Pueblo (Town Council).
Our first responsibility was to put on a play, El Artista (The Artist), in which we tried to show how God created the world. In other words, God is the artist, but each one of us is like the custodian of the work of art. We each have our own interpretations. We can improve the work of art -- such as giving it light so it can be seen and putting it in an environment in which it is not harmed -- or we can do damage to it, like scratching it or hiding it away.
We wanted the kids to know that each of them has responsibility for the gifts that God has given them: life, family, home, faith. Even if "the painting" has been damaged, it is still possible to restore it and this is the task that each one of us has.
In the process of putting on the play, I came to realize more deeply the call of God and my need to respond to it. This meant more involvement, which took me away from my son at times, interfered with my work, and cut off my free time. Therefore, I guess you could say that I "suffered" for the good. However, this is the type of suffering that is good and it breaks down whatever causes more suffering.
*******---Modesta Centano Salazar
Ms. Salazar is Secretary of the Town Council of El Agostino, a pueblo joven [or barrio or neighborhood -- like Cidade de Deus in Rio] of Lima, Peru. She spoke these words in a 1998 interview with Tom Powers, S.J. for his book The Call of God: Women Doing Theology in Peru (SUNY Press, 2003).
Missed the first couple of days of this baker's dozen? You can go back and visit those:
Bonus Christmas Eve prayer-poem by Dom Helder Camara here.
First Day of Christmas (Christmas Day) reflections on Incarnation, the immensity of God, and North/South relationships by Silvia Regina de Lima Silva here.
Now pull out those checkbooks, or go visit PayPal here for full information on secure giving modalities. (Includes addresses if you prefer to send checks.)
Yes, we (and more importantly, the people of Cidade de Deus) need justice, not just charity. But the people must survive to make it happen, and the children need to grow and be safe and receive love and care.
The way we are, we are members of each other. All of us. Everything. The difference ain't in who is a member and who is not, but in who knows it and who don't.
*********Wendell Berry
*********The Wild Birds
P.S. You might like this one too -- not by a Latin American, but it's another good Christmas quote.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
First Day of Christmas: Latin American reflection and appeal
As promised.
Read. Give. Please.
The two most important forces in my life are God who becomes incarnate and God who escapes all our definitions.
The incarnation is the most beautiful thing that can happen! God so much wants to be committed to the human person that God becomes human: enters what is most deeply human.
Yet every effort to put God into codes, norms, creeds, and dogmas falls short. God is beyond all that. This stirs me to always be looking for God.
I will never grasp the mystery of God!
We must remember that society, the church, , and even families structure themselves very much on the image of God they hold.
We were taught "God the Father." But for us women, our experience of God was much more of a Mother -- in God's closeness, tenderness, friendship. We experience God as Trinity, as Community who unites all kinds of possibilities and diversities!
So we speak of a Black God, Mother God, Worker God.
This de-mystifies what's been passed on to us! In our process of organization and liberation of our people, it's important to meet a God who is more like us.
Yet God throws down every effort to absolutize God.
God is dynamic -- diversity, unity, communion. Here is a God who doesn't have a face -- thus a God who can assume all faces.
I think God is disconcerting. God escapes us.
The fullness of God unites masculine, feminine, all peoples, all races.
....
The relationship between North and South is marked by a great distance -- geographical, racial and social distance. It is a relationship of exclusion. So the first thing we want is the be respected -- respected as a Latin American people, as a Brazilian people, as women, as black people.
Beyond respect, I believe in a relationship of solidarity. I think solidarity comes through a change of place -- leaving where you are a bit. You have to move from the place of imperialism to the place of brother and sister, friendship and equality.
It is also very important to really believe in each other. The other is not "underdeveloped" or "ignorant" ! The other is simply other -- different from myself. But the other also has part of the truth! This is true for all relationships -- U.S./Brazil, men/women, blacks/whites. When we recognize each other's truth, we are able to meet one another in solidarity.
And this liberation comes at a high price -- sometimes our very lives. But I call you to believe in this, to open yourselves to the future, to dream this dream -- a dream that nourishes our lives and our struggle.
*****Silvia Regina de Lima Silva
*****Interview in Mev Puleo, The Struggle Is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation (SUNY Press, 1994)
Afro-Brazilian feminist theologian Silvia Regina de Lima Silva teaches in San Jose, Costa Rica. When Mev Puleo interviewed her in the early 1990s, she was a student at the Pontifical University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and living in a small religious community of Afro-Brazilians, dedicated to serving the black population on the periphery of Rio. Because she chose to live in a poor and often violent neighborhood, she commuted four or five hours daily to and from Rio for classes.
* * * * * * * *
In honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I will continue to post short and not too obnoxious daily reminders of the community Christmas appeal for the parish of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) in Cidade de Deus (City of God), on the West side of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, accompanied by quotations from various Latin American Christians.
Read. Give. Please.
The two most important forces in my life are God who becomes incarnate and God who escapes all our definitions.
The incarnation is the most beautiful thing that can happen! God so much wants to be committed to the human person that God becomes human: enters what is most deeply human.
Yet every effort to put God into codes, norms, creeds, and dogmas falls short. God is beyond all that. This stirs me to always be looking for God.
I will never grasp the mystery of God!
We must remember that society, the church, , and even families structure themselves very much on the image of God they hold.
We were taught "God the Father." But for us women, our experience of God was much more of a Mother -- in God's closeness, tenderness, friendship. We experience God as Trinity, as Community who unites all kinds of possibilities and diversities!
So we speak of a Black God, Mother God, Worker God.
This de-mystifies what's been passed on to us! In our process of organization and liberation of our people, it's important to meet a God who is more like us.
Yet God throws down every effort to absolutize God.
God is dynamic -- diversity, unity, communion. Here is a God who doesn't have a face -- thus a God who can assume all faces.
I think God is disconcerting. God escapes us.
The fullness of God unites masculine, feminine, all peoples, all races.
....
The relationship between North and South is marked by a great distance -- geographical, racial and social distance. It is a relationship of exclusion. So the first thing we want is the be respected -- respected as a Latin American people, as a Brazilian people, as women, as black people.
Beyond respect, I believe in a relationship of solidarity. I think solidarity comes through a change of place -- leaving where you are a bit. You have to move from the place of imperialism to the place of brother and sister, friendship and equality.
It is also very important to really believe in each other. The other is not "underdeveloped" or "ignorant" ! The other is simply other -- different from myself. But the other also has part of the truth! This is true for all relationships -- U.S./Brazil, men/women, blacks/whites. When we recognize each other's truth, we are able to meet one another in solidarity.
And this liberation comes at a high price -- sometimes our very lives. But I call you to believe in this, to open yourselves to the future, to dream this dream -- a dream that nourishes our lives and our struggle.
*****Silvia Regina de Lima Silva
*****Interview in Mev Puleo, The Struggle Is One: Voices and Visions of Liberation (SUNY Press, 1994)
Afro-Brazilian feminist theologian Silvia Regina de Lima Silva teaches in San Jose, Costa Rica. When Mev Puleo interviewed her in the early 1990s, she was a student at the Pontifical University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and living in a small religious community of Afro-Brazilians, dedicated to serving the black population on the periphery of Rio. Because she chose to live in a poor and often violent neighborhood, she commuted four or five hours daily to and from Rio for classes.
* * * * * * * *
In honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I will continue to post short and not too obnoxious daily reminders of the community Christmas appeal for the parish of Cristo Rei (Christ the King) in Cidade de Deus (City of God), on the West side of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, accompanied by quotations from various Latin American Christians.
Monday, December 24, 2007
"His place is with those others for whom there is no room." Merton does it again
St. Mary's House Chaplain, my friend and colleague the Rev. Kevin Matthews, began his Christmas sermon with the words below from the writings of Thomas Merton. I just poked around and found them on the Web, quoted by various preachers in various places, but I don't know the source yet (i.e. from which book or essay they are taken). Neither did Kevin, who found the quote among some notes he had. [P.S. Late Dec. 25 . I found the reference. It's from Merton's Raids on the Unspeakable.] He's sending me a copy of his sermon, but meanwhile, the heart of the matter, from our favorite monk.
The line breaks are mine, for better reading and hearing.
Into this world,
this demented inn,
in which there is absolutely no room for him at all,
Christ has come uninvited.
But because he cannot be at home in it,
because he is out of place in it,
and yet he must be in it,
his place is with those others for whom there is no room.
His place is with those who do not belong,
who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak,
those who are discredited,
who are denied the status of persons,
tortured,
excommunicated.
With those for whom there is no room,
Christ is present in this world.
The line breaks are mine, for better reading and hearing.
Into this world,
this demented inn,
in which there is absolutely no room for him at all,
Christ has come uninvited.
But because he cannot be at home in it,
because he is out of place in it,
and yet he must be in it,
his place is with those others for whom there is no room.
His place is with those who do not belong,
who are rejected by power because they are regarded as weak,
those who are discredited,
who are denied the status of persons,
tortured,
excommunicated.
With those for whom there is no room,
Christ is present in this world.
You've read the Christmas collect, now for the Christmas collection!
Okay, so I posted a Christmas collect a tiny bit early. We have an early service tonight, that's my excuse.
And now for the collection. (What, you think progressive Anglicans are any different from their sistern and brethren of other persuasions?)
My cyberfriends and I are involved in a worthy appeal for the community of one of our friends in one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods of Brazil, Cidade de Deus (City of God), served by the Anglican parish of Christ the King. (Yes, there are other churches in Cidade de Deus; we're just doing our small bit.)
I posted something about this waaaaay back -- or thought I had, but the travel gremlins made me save it instead of posting it. Now it's up.
The appeal began November 30, But remember, it's never too late, and this is called a Christmas Appeal, not an Advent Appeal, so let me remind you good liturgical types out there that CHRISTMAS IS A SEASON AND HAS TWELVE DAYS, despite what the deities of consumer capitalism might tell you.
So here is a reminder (but you may want to visit that link above):
The OCICBW... Community Christmas Appeal this year is raising money to help pay for the work being done by the Anglican Church of Christ the King in the City Of God district of Rio De Janeiro. Full details about the project and how to send your gifts can be found here.
Brought to you by our friends at OCICBW... (Of Course, I Could Be Wrong...) from the UK, Brazil, and around this round world.
It's God's money, not our money! Share the wealth!
In honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I will be posting short and not too obnoxious daily reminders accompanied by quotations from various Latin American Christians, beginning tomorrow, Christmas Day, through the feast of the Epiphany.
Quotations will be ecumenical, not just by Anglicans. (As the late lamented Dom Helder Camara, Catholic Archbishop of Recife and Olinda, once said to a roomful of us at the 1976 Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia -- I was an RC in those days -- "When the Holy Spirit moves in the world, it does not ask 'where are the Catholics?'")
Here, as a preview, is a prayer-poem by this very same Archbishop Camara, may he rest in peace.
Come Lord
Do not smile and say
you are already with us.
Millions do not know you
and to us who do,
what is the difference?
What is the point of your presence
if our lives do not alter?
Change our lives, shatter
our complacency.
Make your word
flesh of our flesh,
blood of our blood
and our life's purpose.
Take away the quietness
of a clear conscience.
Press us uncomfortably.
For only thus
that other peace is made,
your peace.
*******Dom Helder Camara, The Desert Is Fertile (1974)
And now for the collection. (What, you think progressive Anglicans are any different from their sistern and brethren of other persuasions?)
My cyberfriends and I are involved in a worthy appeal for the community of one of our friends in one of the poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods of Brazil, Cidade de Deus (City of God), served by the Anglican parish of Christ the King. (Yes, there are other churches in Cidade de Deus; we're just doing our small bit.)
I posted something about this waaaaay back -- or thought I had, but the travel gremlins made me save it instead of posting it. Now it's up.The appeal began November 30, But remember, it's never too late, and this is called a Christmas Appeal, not an Advent Appeal, so let me remind you good liturgical types out there that CHRISTMAS IS A SEASON AND HAS TWELVE DAYS, despite what the deities of consumer capitalism might tell you.
So here is a reminder (but you may want to visit that link above):
The OCICBW... Community Christmas Appeal this year is raising money to help pay for the work being done by the Anglican Church of Christ the King in the City Of God district of Rio De Janeiro. Full details about the project and how to send your gifts can be found here.
Brought to you by our friends at OCICBW... (Of Course, I Could Be Wrong...) from the UK, Brazil, and around this round world.
It's God's money, not our money! Share the wealth!
In honor of the Twelve Days of Christmas, I will be posting short and not too obnoxious daily reminders accompanied by quotations from various Latin American Christians, beginning tomorrow, Christmas Day, through the feast of the Epiphany.
Quotations will be ecumenical, not just by Anglicans. (As the late lamented Dom Helder Camara, Catholic Archbishop of Recife and Olinda, once said to a roomful of us at the 1976 Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia -- I was an RC in those days -- "When the Holy Spirit moves in the world, it does not ask 'where are the Catholics?'")
Here, as a preview, is a prayer-poem by this very same Archbishop Camara, may he rest in peace.
Come Lord
Do not smile and say
you are already with us.
Millions do not know you
and to us who do,
what is the difference?
What is the point of your presence
if our lives do not alter?
Change our lives, shatter
our complacency.
Make your word
flesh of our flesh,
blood of our blood
and our life's purpose.
Take away the quietness
of a clear conscience.
Press us uncomfortably.
For only thus
that other peace is made,
your peace.
*******Dom Helder Camara, The Desert Is Fertile (1974)
Christmas collect
God our beloved,
born of a woman's body,
you came that we might look upon you,
and handle you with our own hands.
May we so cherish one another in our bodies
that we may also be touched by you;
through the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ,
Amen.
*****Janet Morley
*****All Desires Known
born of a woman's body,
you came that we might look upon you,
and handle you with our own hands.
May we so cherish one another in our bodies
that we may also be touched by you;
through the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ,
Amen.
*****Janet Morley
*****All Desires Known
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