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Frederico Garcia Lorca: ‘The Ivory Letters Saying Ever’
by artist Khadzhi-Murad Alikhanov In honor of Frederico Garcia Lorca‘s birthday, listen to flamenco and read poetry ….
Ghazal of Love Unforseen
No one understood the perfume, ever:
the dark magnolia of your belly.
No one ever knew you martyred
love’s hummingbird between your teeth.A thousand Persian ponies fell asleep
in the moonlit plaza of your brow
while for four nights through I bound
your waist, the enemy of snow.Between plaster and jasmine
your glance, pale branch of seed.
I searched my breast to give you
the ivory letters saying: ever.Ever, ever, my agony’s garden,
your elusive form forever:
blood of your veins in my mouth,
your mouth now lightless for my death.
–Frederico Garcia LorcaFrom The Collected Poems: A Bilingual Edition by Federico García Lorca, Christopher Maurer, Editor
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Joan Chittister: ‘In the Studio of Life’
“Happiness does not come quickly. It is not conferred by any single event, however exciting or comforting or satisfying the event may be. It cannot be purchased, whatever the allure of the next, the newest, the brightest, the best. Happiness, like Carl Sandburg’s fog, “comes on little cat feet,” often silently, often without our knowing it, too often without our noticing.
The problem is that we don’t like “slowly” anymore. In anything. We want instant wealth and instant success. As a result, we have not a clue about the layers of enrichment that come with learning to live slowly.
The beauty of learning to cast a lure and wait for hours for a tug on the line that may never come escapes us now. We buy our fish; we don’t catch it. We get it filleted and packaged in cling wrap instead of wet and shiny from the sea. We get our fruit peeled and chopped at the delicatessen. We don’t pick it from the trees anymore. We miss the moment of stopping to watch the sun go down before we pull the fish in over the stern or climb down the ladder with the basket of cherries.
So how can we possibly have the patience to extract the meaning of the moments of our lives as we race through them from one to another?
George Vaillant’s historic longitudinal study of Harvard men and Lewis Terman’s similar study of men and women trace the slow unfolding of a person, of their live and most of all, of the understanding of their lives. Asked again and again over the years what they would most have wished could have been changed for them, the men and women in the study were more likely as they got older to say “nothing.” They would, they declared, change nothing of it. Not the deaths, not the embarrassments, not the struggles, not the losses. To change anything in their personal histories, they had come to realize, would have diminished the gem that was their lives, that had been cut and shined slowly in the studios of life, that had made them what, at the end, they had finally become.
Clearly, happiness is an acquired taste. It comes from being steeped in the truths of life long enough to have learned not only how to survive them but how to get beyond the cosmetics of them to drink from the root of them. It is a many splendored thing, this movement from being alive to being full of life. It comes in many stages, made up of many experiences. It takes a lifetime of learning both how to be with others and how to be alone.”–Joan Chittister, OSB
From Happiness by Joan Chittister
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Catholic Sisters Say Vatican Report Has ‘Caused Scandal and Pain’ in Catholic Church
Sr. Dolorosa Bundy The national board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met in Washington, D.C., this week to review and plan a response to the Vatican report issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last April.
When I was up at LCWR offices a few weeks ago to deliver letters of support from Sojourners and Faithful America ago they were preparing for this meeting and said the wide-ranging support from around the world would be a centerpiece of their conversations. I appreciate the thoughtful and faithful way these dedicated and wise women disciples are modeling a mature Catholicism.
They released their first public response to CDF’s report this morning:
The [LCWR] board members raised concerns about both the content of the doctrinal assessment and the process by which it was prepared. Board members concluded that the assessment was based on unsubstantiated accusations and the result of a flawed process that lacked transparency. Moreover, the sanctions imposed were disproportionate to the concerns raised and could compromise their ability to fulfill their mission. The report has furthermore caused scandal and pain throughout the church community, and created greater polarization.
The board determined that the conference will take the following steps:
• On June 12 the LCWR president and executive director will return to Rome to meet with CDF prefect Cardinal William Levada and the apostolic delegate Archbishop Peter Sartain to raise and discuss the board’s concerns.
• Following the discussions in Rome, the conference will gather its members both in regional meetings and in its August assembly to determine its response to the CDF report.The board recognizes this matter has deeply touched Catholics and non-Catholics throughout the world as evidenced by the thousands of messages of support as well as the dozens of prayer vigils held in numerous parts of the country. It believes that the matters of faith and justice that capture the hearts of Catholic sisters are clearly shared by many people around the world. As the church and society face tumultuous times, the board believes it is imperative that these matters be addressed by the entire church community in an atmosphere of openness, honesty, and integrity.
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Country Singer and Christian Chely Wright’s ‘Coming Out’ Movie
I met country music artist Chely Wright in May 2011 at the Lives of Commitment Breakfast hosted by Auburn Theological Seminary in Manhattan. It was a wonderful event and Chely’s faith testimony was as powerful as it was empowering. As the first “out” lesbian country music recording artist, she’s taken a lot of abuse within her industry and within her Christian community.Here she talks to Charlie Rose and Gayle King about her new documentary, “Wish Me Away,” which follows her coming out process, and that she grew up “a little gay girl on a farm in Kansas” where homosexuality was called “the devil” by everyone she knew.
http://cnettv.cnet.com/av/video/cbsnews/atlantis2/cbsnews_player_embed.swf
Chely’s opened the LIKE ME® Lighthouse on Main Street in Kansas City, Missouri, a LGBT center that provides a broad array of services for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.
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Abbot Philip: How to Get to That Inner Space of Peace and Tranquility
In April, our brothers at Christ in the Desert Monastery released a new disc of music titled “Blessings, Peace and Harmony: Monks of the Desert.” They were also interviewed on NPR last weekend about it. I urge you to practice mutual aid by purchasing this music. You will receive much more than you give!Abbot Philip writes this week about The Cloud of Unknowing and practices of resting in God:
Someone wrote and asked me to write more about how to get to that inner space of peace and tranquility. What concrete steps are useful for reaching/learning to reach this space of inner tranquility? As I thought about that, for me, the most important step is to recognize that I have lost my inner peace and tranquility and need to return to that space where I am aware of God’s presence and where my whole being is quiet in His presence.
Years ago, my brother-in-law, who is a psychiatrist, taught me self-hypnosis. Then later I sat in Zen for some years. Both of these practices taught me a lot about myself, my body and my spirit. One does not have to be into psychiatry or Buddhism in order to practice such techniques. They are simply techniques for calming the body and spirit so that one’s inner being can then rest in the Lord and be aware of His love.
I am a Catholic Christian through and through in spite of early forays into various other expressions. Personally, I have one chair in which I sit when I am not living from that inner center of peace and tranquility in the Lord. I sit there and let myself relax. Sometimes I simply focus on breathing and at other times I focus on the name of Jesus or I use the Jesus Prayer. It is not a matter of pulling myself away from anything else. It is a matter of focusing on one thing. Always I find that if I relax first, then I am able to be aware of God present in that space/time reality. I go to that relaxation with the intention of becoming more aware of His love for me, not just with an intention to relax.
Much of this I also found in The Cloud of Unknowing, a book of the late 1300s. It is based on earlier Christian writings, but has always been popular among those seeking to know God more profoundly and those seeking union with Him. Here is an example from this book: When we intend to pray for goodness, let all our thought and desire be contained in the one small word “God.” Nothing else and no other words are needed, for God is the epitome of all goodness. Immerse yourself in the spiritual reality it speaks of yet without precise ideas of God’s works whether small or great, spiritual or material. Do not consider any particular virtue which God may teach you through grace, whether it is humility, charity, patience, abstinence, hope, faith, moderation, chastity, or evangelical poverty. For to a contemplative they are, in a sense, all the same. Let this little word represent to you God in all his fullness and nothing less than the fullness of God.
For me, always I find that I must begin with composing my physical body: letting go of everything and relaxing my body. Once that is done, then I let my heart be with the Lord, think of the Lord, be for the Lord.After all of these years of seeking God in the monastery, I cannot imagine any other way of living except prayer. I may not be as faithful to prayer as I would like to be. I am not always a very faithful person. Yet in the deepest recesses of my being, I know that this is what God calls me to every day.–Abbot Philip
Read more from Abbot Philip at The Abbot’s Notebook.
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Vatican Embassy Opens Doors to Vigilers Praying for LCWR
Here’s a quick roundup by Sr. Maureen Fiedler about the prayer vigil I attended on May 30 at the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., in support of Catholic women religious and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Apparently, I left too early, because Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano not only invited a few representatives inside to talk, but then came outside and spoke with the whole group!Here’s an excerpt from Maureen’s blog at the National Catholic Reporter:
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the papal nuncio to the United States, meets with people holding a rally in solidarity with U.S. women religious outside the apostolic nunciature in Washington, DC, May 30.
Who would believe it? When a group of protestors supporting the Leadership Conference of Women Religious showed up at the Vatican Embassy on Tuesday, the papal nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, welcomed some of the group into the embassy. Two people were actually invited to sit down and chat with him. He received their petition asking that the mandate against LCWR be withdrawn … without any expectation that would actually happen, of course.
In the course of the conversation, he made it known he had been at the beginning of the LCWR board meeting. Later, he invited about 20 people into the embassy to see the chapel and offer prayers.
I don’t have much hope that his welcome represents any new approach from the Vatican to LCWR (or anyone), but it is refreshing in Washington to see any protestors welcomed by any authority for a chat, at least.
Vigano was removed from a Vatican post after cleaning up the Vatican Bank, a process in which he surely made enemies. The recently leaked documents include a letter of his to the pope, asking not to be moved outside the Vatican because of the message it would send. He may have some sympathy for LCWR, given his own experience.
Click here to see great photos and an account of Tuesday’s Vatican Embassy action.
As a fun little feature, see the photo below:
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Flamenco Flatlines Big Bank of Spain
Guerilla theater prophets at Rev. Billy’s Church of Stop Shopping have turned their sites to the thievery of Big Banks saying, “We return to the shiny, silent interior of big banks, the lobbies where we hope to establish a visual wedge, an opening of possibility in the rogue empires of Chase, Citi and B of A. Why do Americans continue to reverence these criminal organizations called big banks. Trillions in assets – with the money spent around the world as if from a detached dirigibles, untethered to any democratic controls.” Below are the flamenco artists who brought their message to the Bank of Spain.
They are, as Rev. Billy puts it, “artists who brave the high church environment of the big banks’ insides.” You can watch more at Fearofbanking.com. And read Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann on Rev. Billy in What Would Jesus Buy?
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Voice of Conscience for Catholic Sisters Gathers Outside Vatican Embassy in D.C.
Today I’ll be joining the support vigil for U.S. Catholic sisters held in Washington, D.C. We’ll be delivering a letter to Pope Benedict via the Vatican nuncio.These tensions between Catholic church hierarchy and prophetic witness and ministry are nothing new in the history of the church, but when they bubble up it’s important to show up and be visible on behalf of those who exemplify the gospel; in this case the Catholic sisters.
“You shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). When I look at the fruits of the bishops and the fruits of the sisters, my answer as to where to stand is clear. I’m posting below the letter we will deliver:
Most Holy Father:
On this Tuesday after Pentecost, we write to you in prayer and in fervent hope that you will create gracious space for the Spirit’s action by withdrawing the mandate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that was issued on April 18 to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).
On May 18, you highlighted “the urgent need in our own time for credible and attractive witnesses to the redemptive and transformative power of the Gospel.” In the United States, no Gospel witnesses are more effective, credible, and attractive than Catholic Sisters. U.S. Sisters shine as beacons of God’s love in schools, hospitals, among immigrants, among the poor and powerless. With the leadership and support of LCWR, they forge paths of faith, hope, and charity, sacrificing their own comfort and even their lives. The witness of the Sisters’ daily work and prayer signifies far more than the CDF’s concerns with particular words or the absence of words in LCWR materials.
We gather today in solidarity with the LCWR as Catholics and others whose lives have been profoundly touched by Catholic Sisters. We ask the Holy Spirit to guide LCWR and CDF, and to give them courage, strength, and wisdom to discern their journey in Christ. To clear the path, we ask Your Holiness to cast aside the stumbling block of the CDF mandate. And we pray that all will find the humility required for radical openness to the Holy Spirit.
In content and process, the CDF mandate is not consistent with the respect, collegiality, and mutuality that characterize relationships among people of mature faith. St. Paul reminds us that to live in Christ’s Easter peace means to “live in a manner worthy of the call… with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-4).
The CDF has questions and concerns about the LCWR. If Jesus tells his disciples that they are his friends, not his servants (John 15:9-17), then surely that is the appropriate relationship between the CDF and the LCWR. A conversation among people of good will from both CDF and LCWR could bear rich fruit for the Church as a whole, if it occurs in love, respect, mutuality, even solidarity. In this dialogue, the CDF mandate is both unwarranted and out of place.
In celebrating Pentecost, we find hope and courage in the presence among us of the Holy Spirit, “the Advocate, whom I will send you from the Father” (John 15:26). Mindful of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council this fall, we take to heart the sacred responsibility recognized in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church to fulfill our obligation “to express [our] opinion on those things which concern the good of the Church” (Chapter 4, Sec. 37). The Church needs breathing room where all of us can pause in prayer and where the mighty breath of the Spirit can enable us to be receptive to the gifts of the Spirit so we may bear fruit in Christ’s name. For the good of the Church, we ask you to withdraw the CDF mandate.
Follow more of this story at Sisters Under Scrutiny.
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Francis De Sales: Searching for the Eyes of God
“As often as you can throughout the day, recall your mind into the presence of God. Consider what God is doing and what you are doing. You will always find God’s eyes fixed upon you with unchangeable love.”–St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622)
Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, was known for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly Introduction to the Devout Life, along with his Treatise on the Love of God.
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St. Bede: ‘Pouring Forth Charity’
“Let us speak the truth in our hearts and not practice treachery with our tongues, so that by pouring forth charity more and more in our hearts, the Spirit of truth may teach us recognition of all truth.”–St. Bede the Venerable (CE 672-735 )
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Rose Marie Berger 