Comeback Cardinals

It’s been a few days since the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series, and despite the intervening excitement and challenges of experiencing the beauty and dealing with the damage bestowed upon the landscape by and October snowstorm, I’m still musing on the significance and meaning of their thrilling ride through the playoffs.

Facing elimination in Game 6, the Cardinals were down to their last strike on two separate occasions. As had been the case since late August, when their improbable run to the playoffs began, when they found themselves with their backs to the wall, the wall became more than 45,000 cheering fans, and the collective enthusiasm of an entire city, pushing them forward, holding them up. Even beyond the remarkable athleticism and skill of individual players that produced not one, not two, but three decisive hits (a tying two-run triple, a decisive RBI single, and a walk-off home run) in the 9th through 11th innings, the cohesion of the team and the devotion of its fervent followers created a memorable spectacle that is the essence of outstanding baseball.

Having lived for three years in St. Louis, and now in my third year living in Worcester, I’m familiar with cities and regions where a baseball team is more than just a group of players for whom to cheer– it’s a family that inspires an even broader community of devotion, support, and strong emotional involvement. During the offseason, one sees plenty of Cardinals or Red Sox apparel in everyday situations around those respective cities, worn by the full spectrum of the local population. There are jokes– not entirely without the ring of truth– that baseball is something of a religion for its most fervent followers, myself increasingly included. The greatest players, whether they’ve established long, successful careers or emerged at a crucial juncture to contribute some timely heroics, are honored, revered, and admired. These teams’ victory parades in celebration of World Series titles drew nearly a million people to the streets over the past several years.

I’m a firm believer in the value of community, on scales ranging from the local to the global. True community living does bring challenges alongside clear benefits of support, happiness, and good company, as I’ve learned in seven years of life as a Jesuit. The hundreds of thousands who united to cheer on the Cardinals likely have their share of differences about the neuralgic issues provoking heated rhetoric and creating affliction and tension throughout our nation. While those concerns hardly disappear during a game of baseball, I can’t help but hope in the possibility of transferring that energy to the realm of our nation’s key social issues, rallying around something greater than our differences, deeper than our worries, and more lasting than the thrill of a decisive win or a festive victory parade. Game 6 of the World Series taught me a powerful lesson– community makes it really hard to simply give up in the face of adversity, despair, or a situation that many could justifiably consider hopeless. The Cardinals, in standing tall with true determination each time they were pushed to the brink of defeat, not only achieved a remarkable and unprecedented triumph, but also affirmed the confidence of an entire city, and offered the entire nation a sterling example of teamwork. I hope that they can inspire some similar comebacks in our neighborhoods, our cities, and our nation. Otherwise, it’s going to be a very long offseason.

October Snow

The Class of 2015 at Holy Cross is probably wondering about the weather. They moved in during Hurricane Irene, and their first experience of Family Weekend occurred in the midst of a nor-easter that brought 6 to 8 inches of snow to campus. Although the heavy, wet snow caused some widespread tree damage and power outages around the greater Worcester region, spirits at the College generally remained high, bolstered by the influx of family and friends, as well as the beauty that emerged in the wake of the storm. It's fair to say that we've been both tricked and treated by this pre-Halloween snow.

Gained in Translation

Every year, the latter days of October bring me startling reminders of time’s rapid movement. Fall break is two weeks in the past, Thanksgiving is four weeks from today, and Advent begins in a month. Days are growing shorter, nights are lengthening, and the World Series will be concluded by the weekend. This rapid pace brings plenty of activity on a daily basis, even as it carries towards some significant events and changes in the near future.

One such change getting a fair amount of attention in the Catholic Church here in the United States is the new translation of the Roman Missal, which comprises the ritual language used by priests, deacons, and the laity for worship. The product of many years of effort, it will be introduced on the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Catholic Church’s liturgical year, which falls this year on the Sunday following Thanksgiving. These changes will likely seem sudden; I know that I’ll need some time to adjust to them, even though I’ve been looking over the new texts for several weeks. Yet in worshipping with a Spanish-speaking congregation in St. Louis for three years, I found that adopting their liturgical translations drew me into the spirit of their community, and forged a connection that went deeper than simply speaking Spanish. The words I and my fellow parishioners used to describe our belief in God, the Eucharist, our sinful yet redeemed nature, and our relationships with one another carried meanings crafted to shape the reality that they expressed.

I believe that the new English translation being introduced in one month’s time strives to do the same, and holds the potential to bring us into closer connection with other linguistic translations based on the same original document. Already I’m noticing echoes of my years with Spanish-speaking Latino Catholics when I study and pray with the new prayers and responses. To be sure, this time of transition for the language of Catholic worship may have its fair share of clumsiness, and these changes will have various effects, from reassurance to discomfort, on members of each parish community.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish Shrine

St. Louis MO

I, for one, see this as an opportunity to (re)create community amid a time of change that goes beyond a weekly gathering in church. A quick glance around our cities, our nation, and the world easily reveals no small amount of struggle, upheaval, and uncertainty– protests over social inequality, natural disasters and climate change (after several warm weeks, it's snowing in Worcester tonight), precarious financial situations at home and abroad. There’s measurable anxiety about how and where all this will end, especially for those who feel that they face such issues and challenges alone.

A key theme of Thanksgiving celebrations is the bond of gratitude and mutual support that families and communities strive to honor at harvest time. The Church’s season of Advent is a period to reflect upon God’s promise to not only sustain our world and our lives, but also to be deeply present within them. The language of our worship and the actions of our faith community hopefully reflects our belief in this truth, and grounds our ability to enact it in our lives. Ideally, all this and more will be found and appreciated in this new translation, and in the communities who gather to use it.

Casting It Out

For the second time in the past month, I've been briefly sidelined by a cold. The first time, a mild variant of the flu swept through my community days after we all received our flu shots. This past week, I suspect somebody stashed a few pathogens in their hand luggage on the flight back from St. Louis. In any event, it's been an affliction that I've been wary of passing on– a few octogenarians in my community might not appreciate this form of generosity– and all too eager to cast out.

These interludes of illness, whose debilitating effects caused me no small amount of frustration and discomfort, reminded me of a key teaching that St. Ignatius puts at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises. In a statement called "The Principle and Foundation," he writes that "Human beings are created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by means of doing this to save their souls." He goes on to assert that everything in creation is provided to us by God to help us toward this goal, though what's helpful for one person might be a hindrance for another. So Ignatius preaches a deliberate and intentional indifference: "We ought not to seek health rather than sickness, wealth rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a long life rather than a short one, and so on... we ought to desire and choose only that which is more conducive to the end for which we are created."

Elm Park, Worcester MA

In praying with these passages today, the first and last sentences caught and held my attention. How do I praise, reverence, and serve God? What is the end for which I am created? Obsessing over sickness, worrying about whether my job performance is adequate, and doubting the value and impact of my work and ministry is clearly not what Ignatius had in mind. Yet that's where I've been stuck for the past few days. It struck me as not only wildly radical, but also compellingly attractive, to possibly believe that my very existence is an expression of praise to God. No small part of my calling in life– even beyond my vocation to the Society of Jesus and the priesthood– seems rooted in fostering someone's recognition and appreciation of the divine beauty inextricably manifest in her or his being, and offering encouragement to pursue lives that share this treasure with their neighbors and the world. So I'm grateful for those fellow Jesuits, those friends, those people whom I meet, who allow me into their lives in order to experience and reflect their own light. And I'm challenged once again to accept and savor grace's presence, and potential for expression, in my own life.

It's no fun being sick, but it's hardly the end of the world. Being blind to the end for which I'm created, or deaf to the praise that can well up from within me, is something more serious. I know that this is a recurring weakness of mine, tied to my preoccupation with being productive, making a difference, and other action-oriented self-judgments. To a certain extent, such drivenness can be helpful, but taken to an unhealthy extreme, it becomes a spiritual affliction, a malady I wish I could cast out as readily as my immune system dispenses with a cold. To be "indifferent" with respect to my own drivenness is both a daunting challenge and an intriguing invitation... and I sense that working towards that goal will help me to better express my created purpose, and achieve the end for which I've been created.

Old Home, New Memories

Lafayette Park

St. Louis MO

It was an odd feeling, but one that I welcomed and appreciated. Landing at Lambert St. Louis Airport last Thursday on an overcast morning, coming back to the place where I lived as a Jesuit scholastic, I knew that I was not at home. Yet I felt deeply that the city, the Jesuit community, and the university that I called home for three years of wonderful friendships, fruitful ministry, challenging academic studies, personal challenges, and overall growth had been exactly what I needed for that period of my life.

Overlook Farm

Clarksville MO

My four-day visit was packed– numerous lunches and conversations with friends, refreshing prayer and lively evenings with the Jesuit scholastics in my former community, a friend's wedding, and a visit to the Latino parish where I worshipped and ministered. Throughout all this activity and travel, I continually recognized and savored the gifts and blessings manifest in my Jesuit brothers, my friends, the autumnal landscape of the Mississippi River valley, and a beautiful marriage ceremony. Although these experiences, and the people with whom I shared them, are intrinsically tied to the time we shared in St. Louis, the underlying graces transcend geographical and temporal constraints even as they occur in the context of a specific place and time.

St. Louis (King of France)

St. Joseph's Church

Louisiana MO

The quieter moments of the long weekend– a moonlit morning run in Forest Park, a quarter-hour of prayer before Mass in the house chapel, waiting to meet a friend on campus, silently admiring the scenery of the wedding reception venue– offered me a growing awareness of various manifestations of love. God's love and majesty unmistakably visible in creation. The mutual love of my friend and her husband expressed in their marriage vows. The love and trust extended to me by my brethren and my friends, and gently compelled from me through my admiration for and trust in them. As someone who tends to be very task-oriented, more comfortable with his intellect than his emotions, and somewhat reticent to lean on the support of others, this was a significant insight for me to receive. It's a grace I'm still learning how to internalize; I'd much rather analyze and scrutinize it. Yet it's still clear to me, as it was when I boarded my Monday morning flight, that this visit, like the three years when I called St. Louis home, was an occasion to be taught once more that I am loved, that I am loving, and that this is at the foundation of my relationship with God and my Jesuit vocation.

Along Missouri Route 79

Clarksville MO

So often I'm preoccupied with the tasks I've undertaken, the loads I've been entrusted to carry... I should also remember to marvel at the driving force that keeps me on track. (Couldn't help reaching for a metaphor to justify one last picture!)

Drifting Graces

Campion Renewal Center

Weston MA 

One afternoon during last week's silent retreat, this image caught my attention, the nudging of a gentle wind suddenly made visible. This simple moment, recently recalled, has been an apt metaphor for the action of grace in my life in the time since the retreat. I've been busy– a trip to St. Louis that I'll detail in a subsequent post; resuming work on a complicated grant project that's due in early November– and while I've been aware of various spiritual movements within me, I've had trouble finding (or making) the time to slow down and pray more intentionally. Yet I've felt God's blessings drifting gently through my hours and days, their understated subtlety no less forceful than a strong wind. Perhaps it's also a sign that the softer and more delicate aspects of my life are the ones most receptive to God's grace right now. In any event, as I continue to hurry myself along, whether setting my own pace or striving to keep up with that of work and life, I value those opportunities– intentionally claimed or spontaneously accepted– to instead drift on the slow, deep currents of grace. 

Spiritual Bends

When I was a Jesuit novice, my novice master cautioned us against a phenomenon that he called "the spiritual bends." Akin to the condition suffered when one surfaces too quickly from a deep dive, or perhaps similar to the experience of breathlessness upon suddenly traveling to high altitude, this phrase was intended to encourage us to move in slow, measured progress from times and spaces of spiritual depth (such as a retreat) to a more ordinary rhythm of life– working in local placements, grocery shopping for the house, weekend chores, communal prayer, and so on.

Grounds of St. Joseph's Abbey

Spencer MA

His phrase has always stuck with me, and I most often remember it when coming off a retreat. That's where I find myself now, having spent the past five days with about 30 students from Holy Cross on a silent retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. For the majority of these students, this was their first experience of such prolonged silence. For all of them, their presence on the retreat represented an intentional devotion of time and effort, giving up half of their fall break. Throughout the retreat– whether in my individual conversations with the three students to whom I offered spiritual direction, communal experiences of Mass or Taizé prayer, or gently noticing the community they built in the silence– I was constantly edified, inspired, and encouraged by the devotion that they showed to their prayer, their meditation, and their quiet care and support of one another.

I don't think of myself as being too cynical, but I do wonder sometimes about the erosion of spirituality and faith among various segments of the population. I've been part of discussions– sometimes contentious– about the effectiveness of programs and offerings on Jesuit campuses that strive to integrate faith, intellect, and action in a way that transforms all students, not just those who would more naturally or intentionally engage this aspect of Jesuit education. Granted, the Holy Cross students on this particular retreat represent less than 2% of the student body, and a number of them have long been involved in liturgical activities, leadership roles, and service programs. Yet each and every one of them made visible to me the desire for a relationship with God that, I hope and pray, exists in many of their peers. And at the same time, I find I'm intensely grateful for the witness provided by this particular group of men and women, and I look forward to encountering them on campus in the weeks and months to come.

Back to those spiritual bends. The retreat ended at noon, I arrived back in Worcester by 1:15pm after a delightful chatty ride with four of the students, and was on a commuter train at 2:05pm, arriving in Boston by 3:45pm. I soon found my way to a small Jesuit community where I'll spend the night before rising early and catching one of the first flights to St. Louis for a long weekend that includes visiting with fellow Jesuits, conversations over tea or lunch with friends, and a wedding. From five days of silence and deliberately slow movement to three hours of travel that spanned nearly half the width of Massachusetts. In settling into my simple guest room (but not unpacking), sharing a simple meal with two of the men who live here, and letting another guest into the house, I'm finding (with no small measure of gratitude and appreciation) gentle contentment and a sense of rest amid the comings and goings of this community. My brothers are enabling me to find my depth again, to (re)collect a few things that I discovered over the past few days before proceeding to the next stop on my journey.

Tower Grove Park

St. Louis MO

A few students mentioned at lunch that it felt "weird to talk again" after five days of silence. I hope they too have the opportunity to savor the rich insights and restorative tranquility that they encountered amid the deep spiritual waters of the retreat, and that the experience soaks in and remains with them as they return to the more heated pace of the semester on Monday.

Fall joy

October 2010 in Petersham MA

I've been blessed with an unexpected degree and duration of joy over the past several days... arriving virtually in tandem with the turning of the calendar and the shifting of the seasons. A visit from my goddaughter provided the occasion to visit a local park and monastery; the completion of a big grant-writing project I've been involved with since June brought a feeling of lightness and satisfaction to my colleagues; some thrilling games in the baseball playoffs have sharpened my excitement and delight in a dramatic time of year for one of my favorite sports.

Yesterday, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, saw me spend a fair amount of time on the road, which afforded plenty of time to pray and meditate upon not only this saint's story, but also on this current experience of joy in my life. I've been drawn lately to the image of shepherding... sometimes I feel like a companion and colleague of the shepherd, other times I feel like one of the sheep. Either way, I find that I'm happy to feel integrated into a community, following a call, walking a path that is reasonably clear but certainly not concrete (literally nor figuratively).

Holy Cross adjourns for fall break beginning on Friday; no classes will be held throughout the following week. A number of students will participate in a five-day silent retreat based on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, with a number of chaplains guiding them in prayer and accompanying them in periods of spiritual conversation. Though I've made many retreats, whether as a retreatant or as a member of the team, it's my first experience doing so since I've arrived at Holy Cross, and my first invitation to engage in some spiritual direction. Prayers for all of us would be appreciated in the days ahead.

May these October days continue to bring many blessings to each of us, a renewed sense of joy in our lives, and an appreciation for the guides and companions along our journeys.

October 2011

Grounds of St. Joseph's Abbey

Spencer MA

October

One of my favorite Robert Frost poems, and one of the few that I've memorized, always comes to mind at this time of year. His vivid writing and gentle rhythm seems not to capture the array of changes and shifts in the landscape in early autumn, but rather to liberate the physical and spiritual senses to attend to the sublime transformation in both the external and the internal environments.

"October"

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes' sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost–

For the grapes' sake along the wall.

– Robert Frost

The Berkshires

Near North Adams MA