PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
One sunny afternoon, a friend asked me if I had taken photos of the pear trees in her neighbor’s backyard.

“Just yesterday they were all bloom. Today the tops are greening with leaves. The beauty of a tree covered with flowers is fleeting.”

From the second floor room where I write, I see dogwoods beginning to bloom. They look almost golden, as do the flowers and tassels that dangle from the sugar maple tree. I am reminded of Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay:”

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

My friend was correct: Springs blossoms drop soon after they flock trees in white and pink. Frost’s poem begins with ephemeral golden moments of April and moves to ponder the transience of much earthly beauty. Yet, as Frost’s poem suggests, when one beauty or good is gone, another takes its place: Flowers are lovely, but leaves provide food for the plant; dawn is rosy, but we live in the light of day; Eden was lost, but as we just celebrated at Easter, the gift of Divine Love and life is given to all. Nothing gold can stay, but would we want it to? One thing must give way to another as we grow. We must die to live again.

PHOTO: NASA – “THE INCUBATOR”

Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
Acts 10, 34-35

Peter prefaced his story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection with a declaration of God’s inclusivity. As Easter is celebrated around the world we do well to remember that message. Jesus grew to understand it as he prayed and faithfully proclaimed God’s Kingdom. He announced that sinners and tax collectors would enter the kingdom before some of the religious leaders and those considered righteous. He had conversations in public with a Samaritan woman, and one of his most remembered parables featured a nameless Samaritan as the hero, not the priest or Levite who walked past a victim of violence lying beaten and dying beside the road.

Jesus ate with sinners and healed the child of a Roman centurion, actions which announced as clearly as his words that God’s healing love was for all, not only for the Jews. In our world torn apart by fear, ignorance, and violence, Christians must preach Divine inclusivity with their lives as Jesus did. When we are tempted to choose comfortable ignorance rather than disturbing truth or smug self-righteousness rather than open acceptance we should stop and reflect on Jesus’ life and remember how he died. He forgave those who crucified him and embraced the criminal hanging beside him. His resurrection is a promise of eternal life for all and an invitation for us to join in proclaiming this good news as it echos through the universe.

Happy Easter!
© 2010 Mary van Balen

Out of my distress I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me
and set me in a broad place.
Ps 118, 5

The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told yo, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale.
Lk 24, 5-11

I love the phrase from the Psalm: “…the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.” When I read it, my breaths are deeper, the air is electric with promise, and my eyes are ready to see what they have not seen before.

I once had friends, Dave and Jeanette, who lived on land perched high on a ridge. When visiting them, I stood a long while outside beside the single outbuilding and gazed over the hills that braided themselves below as far as I could see. My eyes felt good, like they were meant to look far and not have their vision stopped short by rows of buildings as is was in the city where I lived.

My eyes felt healthy and alive. Like a runner’s muscles stretched and ready to leave miles of road behind, my eyes took in the vista and opened my soul to what lay beyond.

I have the same feeling when I read that the Lord has set me in a broad place. God has placed me in a Divine milieu where I can see far, see what I could not see from my own place. God’s vision bestows an openness that allows the unimaginable to be true. From the “broad place” anything is possible. Standing in it is exhilarating.

The women in the gospel found themselves in a “broad place” on that early morning. They were standing in the same physical place, but suddenly they were seeing it with God’s eyes. What had seemed impossible was true. Everything in their lives changed in that moment. The eyes of their souls looked far.

As anyone who experiences such a moment and tries to share it with another person knows, such reality is met with disbelief. I am sure the fact that those who had the experience were women didn’t help. Today many still dismiss women’s intuition or experiences as “emotional,” as if that alone were enough to make their words inconsequential. Peter had to see for himself, not believing the “idle tale.”

The women knew. They had been put in a broad place and were transformed.

© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN ” Crucifixion” Scholars’ Lounge, Alcuin Library, Saint Johns University

When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.”
Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Jn 19, 30

“It always rains on Good Friday,” my mother used to say. Often she was right. It was appropriate for the day we remember the suffering and death of Jesus as well as our sin that contributes to the ongoing pain and evil in the world. The Stations of the Cross were a regular Lenten prayer every Friday while I attended Catholic elementary school. Then, after Holy Thursday liturgy, the altar was stripped down to bare wood, the crucifix was covered with purple cloth, and in solemn procession, the priest carried the Blessed Sacrament to a side altar. The bare church sent a chill through my body. During Good Friday services in place of bells, a wooden mallet struck a small board, its hollow sound echoing off the walls.

On Good Fridays I am aware of emptiness – Jesus closed up in the tomb, not yet risen, a hole in the world where he used to be. I imagine the men and women who followed Jesus, who believed in him, waiting through that darkest night. What were they feeling? Did they speak to one another, or did each keep silent watch, folded into themselves with their private thoughts and fears?

Once, walking through the woods on Good Friday night, I stepped on a board that had been left near a narrow creek, perhaps for use in crossing the water. One end of the board leapt up when my foot came down on the other. It seemed tense, eager. I stopped and looked around; the woods were unusually quiet. It’s creatures still. All creation seemed to be waiting. Waiting for something to challenge the emptiness that threatened to swallow it up. That is Good Friday’s gift: awareness of the hole in the universe and in our souls while Jesus lay in earth’s bowels. Awareness of our need and the desire for God to meet it.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
The Lord protects the simple
when I was brought low, he saved me.
Return, O my soul, to your rest
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
Ps 116, 5-7

Holy Thursday liturgy is filled with beautiful readings. Exodus recounts the first Passover; 1Corinthians depicts the Last Supper and focuses on the breaking of the bread and sharing of the cup, the institution of the Eucharist. John’s gospel also tells of the Last Supper but presents Jesus as servant, washing the feet of his disciples and instructing them to do as he did: humble themselves and serve others in his name.

The Eucharist is central to my spirituality. When my life is filled with stress and hurt, when I cannot feel God with me and wonder if I am forgotten, I long for the Eucharist. I cannot explain why or how I believe, but I do.I know that in sharing the sacrament with the rest of the people of God, I am filled with the life of the Holy One in a way that brings me strength and hope. It has nothing to do with scholastic laboring to explain away the Mystery with words like “transsubstantiation” or “accidents” and everything to do with Divine Longing and Love.

That is why I chose these verses from today’s Psalm instead of the readings that paint the more familiar pictures of the Last Supper. God IS merciful and protects us all. When I am distressed, without hope, and physically exhausted, God renews my heart. When I swallow the bread and feel the wine warming my body, I know I am loved.

The gift of self, which Jesus gives to us in so many ways, especially in the Eucharist, is Love spilling over. It is God’s life becoming our own. When I am out of love, patience, hope, or energy I know I can rely on the Holy One providing me with God’s own.

The Eucharist, the example of love and service, the protection of the People of God all point to the reality of God’s unending love. I proclaim with the psalmist: Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
The Lord God has given me
the tongue of a teacher,
that I may know how to sustain
the weary by a word.
Morning by morning he wakens–
wakens my ear
to listen as those who are taught.
Is 50, 4

Any one who has been been a teacher knows the power of her word. The problem is the teacher never knows which word is the one that speaks a powerful message or which student will be moved. Well planned lessons may not touch the students as deeply as an honest comment rising from the heart in response to a moment. Sometimes, when a teacher feels least successful, she has spoken a word that has changed a student’s life. She may never know. Only years later, perhaps, when a student returns to thank her for something she said or did does the teacher realize the difference her work has made.

Isaiah speaks of the power of a teacher’s word to sustain the weary, and he continues, giving the source of that power: Truth. Each morning God wakens the teacher in Isaiah, opens his ears, and speaks. The good teacher listens to the Lord as his students listen to him. The teacher hears God’s truth and so has wisdom to share; wisdom that strengthens in times of trial.

Like the teacher, we are called to listen to God’s truth, to ingest it, let it transform our hearts so the words we speak, the lives we live sustain those who are weary and hungry for God’s Love.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

THE LAST SUPPER BY BOHDAN PIASECKI

After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking.
Jn 13, 21-22

It is good to know that Jesus’ spirit was troubled; not that I am glad it was, but that I am encouraged that it could be. Sometimes Jesus is presented as the all-knowing God who knew that when these torturous few days were over that all would be well…so no need to be troubled. It was all in the script.

I prefer Jesus to be more like the rest of us. He had to trust the One Who Sent Him, just like we do.In the hours after the last supper with his disciples (I chose the painting I did because it includes women. I can’t imagine this meal with out women disciples present.) he would sweat blood as he prayed in the garden and ask God to remove the end that he could see coming. Later still, he called out from the cross, quoting Psalms and asking why God had abandoned him.

Jesus’ spirit was troubled at dinner because, among other things, he knew that those closest to him were going to betray him. One, literally, would turn him over to the Pharisees and priests. Peter, also like me, who was quick to passionately declare his love and commitment to Jesus would deny him, and most of the others would run in fear when push came to shove.

Yet, in the end, Jesus trusted. He trusted God enough to face beatings and death on a cross. He trusted Love enough to sit and have dinner with his friends who would prove so weak in the next twenty-four hours. He trusted God’s Kingdom enough to wash their feet as an example of what they were to do…when they regained their courage.

Jesus, when my spirit is troubled, when what I see coming is frightening, or when those I thought I could count on bolt in my darkest times, help me trust you, the One Who Sent You, and the Love that came to reside in my heart. Help me embrace those around me in your love and move forward into the unknown sure that you are with me.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

PHOTO: PAUL JASMER, OSB, Scillia bifolia
Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me!
“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
Your face, Lord, do I seek.
Do not hide your face from me.
I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong, and let your heart, take courage;
wait for the Lord!
Ps 27, 7-9,; 13-14

This Psalm expresses what was in my heart as I drove down the highway towards my former home yesterday. I was heading down to pick out wall paint for my brother to use as we prepare the house for sale. I was overwhelmed with all the loose ends in my life: no job, no sure plans for the fall, a dissolution that takes time to work through, and my father had taken a turn for the worse, needing more hands to help day and night.

“Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!” Those words could have been my own as I had what I sometimes call a “Tevia moment” with God, calling out through my tears: “I am worn out. I have had it. Answer me! I have chosen to work for the poor, for your church, for my family. Now I need something to open up for me!”

(As I write, I remember a story told at the Abbey about an old monk who could sit quietly no longer as younger monks debated the appropriateness of the cursing psalms in modern liturgy. They wanted to do away with them. The old monk stood, slammed his hand on the table and said, “The cursing psalms are my whole spirituality!” Yesterday I would have voted with him, hands down.)

After a good cry and a heart to heart with the Holy One, I felt a little better. I arrived back home a few hours later, only to retreat upstairs to my office where I could cry again. My brother came up, lent me his shoulder and I had a good sob. We talked and laughed and he shared his faith with me. Mine was a little shaky.

Finally, though, I was able to move to the ending of Psalm 27 and pray it with fervor equal to the emotion I gave to the beginning verses: Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

I do seek God’s face. I want to be strong and take courage as I wait. I just need to feel some of God’s love while I do it. To experience God’s compassion for ME, I need to be still and be attentive to that Presence within me and in the world. I need to be “Wide Awake,” as I tell my writing students. I can’t move through my days waiting for God to hit me over the head with something. I need to be open, aware, and present to the moment, for as my head knows so well, that is where God is.

On Saturday, I was attentive. I even wrote in the notebook that is always with me. I was taking a break from the house and had decided to see a movie (“The Last Station.” I highly recommend it.) before heading for the local coffee shop to work on my computer. The street was busy and with cars parked on both sides, I pulled over to let an oncoming car slip through the narrow lane before I did. The driver smiled and waved his hand in thanks as he drove by. I waved back and smiled.

“It;s the little things that, if one is attentive, make a difference. In a brief moment I had connected with someone on a sunny Saturday morning and it felt good. The cashier at the old movie theater was pleasant as were the other six people who came to see the movie.

My favorite big table with padded seat that curved around it was open at the coffee shop, so I could spread out and have a little privacy as I worked. The pomegranate green tea was delicious and the pumpernickel/onion bagel with light cream cheese hit the spot.

Yesterday’s tears washed my eyes clean and for the moment, at least, I am praying my way through long days and night’s at Dad’s wide awake and expectant.
© 2010 Mary van Balen

Painting by Ford Maddox Brown

Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cupfrom me; yet, not my will by yours be done.
Lk 2241-42

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death –
even death on a cross.
Phil 2, 6-8

“Humble God” is an oxymoron, or so it would seem; but Jesus’ coming to be with us was humble from his birth to his death. He was always and completely who he had chosen to be: God embracing human form in order to reveal inclusive Divine Love and Mercy. His willingness to walk among us is beyond human comprehension. His willingness to accept death on a cross is humility beyond imagining. Yet, he Most Holy Mystery moved among us and showed us how to live, remaining faithful to his mission of Love.

Palm Sunday readings are full of images of Jesus’ humility. He accepted the weaknesses of his friends and endured their betrayal; he prayed to be spared agonizing death on a cross, but accepted the inevitable climax to his prophetic life. He did not ask to be more than the human flesh he had willingly assumed. Jesus did not defend himself or call on angels to do it for him as some who taunted him suggested.

Instead, he was pure Love until his last breath, forgiving those who killed him and praying for mercy since they did not know what they were doing. This is a God who calls us to follow in his footsteps, to love with every ounce of our being.

PAINTING: “HUMILITY” BY CHIDI OKOYE
Jesus, my heart weeps when I remember your final days on earth. Your death shows me what I could not imagine: An all-powerful God suffering by choice, to provide an example of what I must do to become one with you; I, too, must be humble, willing to embrace what comes as a reuslt of my efforts to remain faithful to who you made me to be, a tiny reflection of your Love on earth.

Help me see opportunities to be humble as gifts, not as something to avoid, but something to embrace as you did.

PHOTO OF SR. DOROTHY STANG
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation…They [the Jews] were looking for Jesus and were asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?”
Jn 11, 45-48;56

Today’s gospel is filled with tension and confusion. As I read, I can feel the pace speeding up. Many who heard him believed in him; others ran to the religious authorities to report his activities. No on knew what to do and they wondered what Jesus would do next. Surely, some said, he would not show up at the festival; he must know that he was a hunted man. The Pharisees and priests were panicky, and as is often the case when people do not understand something in their midst, they were afraid. They were afraid of Jesus, afraid of his followers, and afraid of what might happen to their power if the Romans came to put down unrest.

Jesus was a holy man who preached a radical message of mercy and forgiveness for all. His very presence caused confusion and polarized the Jews. Some heard his message, found hope, and believed. Others were scandalized. How could God’s favor be for all? Some worried about their position of leadership and power. No one who heard Jesus could remain neutral.

The uproar caused by Truth and God’s Word was not limited to ancient history. The same happens in today’s world. Think of Dorothy Stang, the Notre Dame sister who was murdered as she worked with indigenous people to save the rain forest and protect the common people from those exploiting them and the great natural resource. Think of Nelson Mandela, Caesar Chavez, Shirin Ebadi, and others who have stood for truth and suffered because of it.

The powerful authorities in his world were unable to embrace Jesus and his revelation of God, and motivated by anger, greed, and fear, they killed him. Those who witness to truth and God’s kingdom today are often met with similar reactions, especially when they threaten the status quo. While our world is filled with violence, fear, ignorance, and greed, it is also blessed with modern prophets who challenge those in power to acknowledge the work of God we are called to do.

Holy One, we pray for strength to stand for justice, peace, and compassionate love in our world, and we give thanks for those whose lives and words speak your truth to power, regardless of personal cost.
© 2010 Mary van Balen