Finding Goodness in the Chaos

November 2018, , ,

Senior Anchor Intern, Katherine Smith – Sacramental Prep & Catechesis 

As the days grow shorter and I begin to pull out my boots and scarves on these late fall days, I feel my whole approach to the semester shifting. Anticipation for home—for Thanksgiving with family and Christmas in Minnesota—has set in. At the same time, almost as if these holidays are the winter hibernation that ensue fall semester, I find myself frantically trying to prepare for and accomplish all that must happen between now and Christmas break. I mean, suddenly I feel a surprising association with our squirrel friends trying to fatten up for winter as I wonder if I’ll have enough flex points to see me through another month of research papers and tests! Needless to say, I find my thoughts and life patterns becoming more and more narrowly focused and closing in upon themselves—really, patterns of survival in the chaos. The endless to-do lists that threaten to overwhelm my thoughts during Mass or prayer, the reminders from friends that I’ve forgotten to spend time with them, or the lack of wonder at the glories of burning fall foliage as I hurriedly traverse campus speak to the all-consuming nature of this mentality. What I myself need to do for me becomes the mantra. But, with this mindset, I know I am closing off what is most important. Where is the space to hear God speak? To recognize His presence in another? To receive and share His Goodness?

In the midst of this hibernation preparation, if not for the questions from friends and acquaintances across campus about my fall break, I might have easily forgotten that only two weeks ago I was on pilgrimage in Rome during the Synod on Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment. With a dozen other Notre Dame students I had the privilege of experiencing the Church through the beauty of Rome’s churches, art, and legacy of the saints and opening myself up to the broader reality of the universal Church.

Church of San Gregorio in Rome
Church of San Gregorio in Rome

As we engaged the Synod as youth, I was reminded that despite the great brokenness of the Church it still offers me the greatest of gifts in and through Christ. I left Rome knowing that Christ pours out His Goodness so totally in the sacramental life of the Church and my responsibility as a member of the Body of Christ is to receive and then share the Goodness of Christ with everyone I encounter. Much of this realization came from my one duty during the Synod pilgrimage: to reflect on the transcendental virtue of Goodness in my own life. As I began to reflect on Goodness and write about my experience, God called me to look back at something so different than—so utterly opposed to—the safe and self-preserving attitudes I find myself slipping into now. I needed to concretely put into words what C.S. Lewis’s quote about God, “I am not safe, but I am good,” means. I needed to remember my experiences in Kolkata, India during an ISSLP two summers ago …

“Immediately upon arriving in Kolkata to serve with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Teresa’s order of sisters, immense suffering and destitution confronted me. I cried out to God, “Where is the goodness here? Where is Your joy?” The suffering around me seemed devoid of life and hope. Yet, when I wanted to run, I found Jesus waiting, asking me to enter into this poverty—and not only another’s poverty, but my own.            

The call to rest in Christ’s poverty became a continual ache inside of me—one of both longing and utter loathing. I wanted to see the goodness in his poverty, but it hurt. I knew it meant letting my own heart be broken up, just like the women and children whom I served. Would I let my heart be broken to see His Goodness?

That’s what Mother Teresa proposed, but I didn’t necessarily want to listen. Before Kolkata, I thought Mother Teresa and I were friends. In Kolkata, I just felt like she was picking on me the whole time. Her words about sacrifice and her example of poverty are beautiful but living them out proved far more difficult than I expected. If I wanted to respond to them, I had to change. Yet, she invited me to sit at the foot of the Cross—in prayer and through being with the women and children in their suffering—and hear Jesus’s call of “I thirst.” In doing so I began to learn to turn into the depths of poverty of both the women and children I served, and of myself—and really of Christ. This felt like throwing all caution and safety to the winds, but Jesus showed me that His goodness isn’t my own control of safety or my own desire for comfort. Goodness is not safe as I know it, but it is the surety of Christ’s protective arms stretched out on the Cross for me and for all of us: it is His sacrificial love.

Slowly, through my work and prayer in Kolkata, the pure goodness of His sacrificial love began to overwhelm me. Despite the immense poverty around me, Goodness appeared. It became manifest in the smiles of the women, in the giggles of the children, in the commitment of the sisters and volunteers, and in the presence of the Eucharist. Because of this Goodness, out of the suffering I found a deeper joy. This joy is hidden deep in the wound of Christ’s side, but being taken up into the poverty of that wound means being close—so incredibly close—to Jesus in all that we do.”

Jesus, giver of all good gifts
Jesus, giver of all good gifts

In these final weeks of the semester, I often forget that Christ calls me to be close to Him first. I forget that this closeness to Christ paradoxically entails not a closed off, self-preserving attitude, but an openness to the greater reality of a life beyond myself and my seemingly pressing needs. Kolkata and Rome remind me of what is important and also call me to examine how I am overlooking this importance in my daily life. I really don’t need to look far to realize how I can enter into relationship with Christ and others now. All it takes is simply looking up and looking out to receive friends and classmates in their own struggles and joys, to be grateful for leafy reflections on the lakes, and to remember that God wants to meet me in prayer and the sacraments now, not in December when hibernation preparations have ended. Ultimately, I know, trying to make it to the end of the semester unscathed, complete, and well-preserved through keeping my tunnel vision in place will not lead to a place of light, life and wholeness. As Kolkata revealed to me, our hearts don’t work like that. Rather, precisely in the small sacrifices of being present to the people around us and in recognizing the goodness of our time right here and now, even when chaotic, will our daily struggles be transformed into a beautiful journey with Christ. 

 

André House: an experience of making God known, loved, and served.

October 2018, , ,

Jenna Morgan, Senior Anchor Intern – Retreats and Pilgrimages

André House will always hold a special place in my heart.

For the past two fall breaks I’ve had the privilege to travel with a group of Notre Dame students to the André House of Hospitality in Phoenix, Arizona on a Seminage (a collaboration between the Center for Social Concerns and Campus Ministry). Last year was the first time I had ever been to André House, let alone Arizona. It was a whirlwind of a time to say the least. The experience and the people I met launched me on a yearlong path of heightened awareness, growth, and continued self-discovery.

After my first visit to André House, I knew immediately that if I was ever in Phoenix again, I wanted to return and volunteer for a few days. However, I never expected to have the opportunity to return so soon. That was until I accepted a position as a Senior Anchor Intern in Campus Ministry for Retreats and Pilgrimages and was asked if I would help co-lead the Hands of St. André Seminage over fall break 2018. After much prayer and reflection, I accepted the role not fully understanding all that my “yes” would entail, but feeling nudged in that direction none the less.

The series of meetings leading up to the immersion were a blur of Friday planning meetings with my co-leader and long Monday nights of class and leadership formation. On paper I was prepared to help lead this Seminage, but I can honestly say that between the businesses of academics, events for Campus Ministry, planning for my post-grad future, and simply living the life of a senior at Notre Dame, I didn’t fully comprehend that I was going back to André House until it was 4 am at the O’Hare airport waiting for our flight to Phoenix. As I sat at the airport I reflected back to a year ago, another early morning start, and to that experience, the people, the encounters, the moments, and the feelings. I was caught in this sort of tension between wanting the experience to feel familiar, to recognize faces around me, and at the same time realizing that if it was too similar and I saw too many of the same faces from last year, then sadly in the intervening year nothing would have changed in the lives of the homeless and impoverished guests that rely on the services of André House.

To give a bit of background for those unfamiliar with André House, the André House of Hospitality in Phoenix, Arizona began in late 1984 when two Holy Cross priests from Notre Dame rented a house in a working-class neighborhood in Phoenix with the mission to respond to the basic needs of the poor and homeless, while encouraging others to do the same. On November 29, 1984, the first guest was welcomed. This began a long tenure of hospitality inspired by the life of St. André Bessette and the traditions of the Congregation of Holy Cross. This mission of André House has continued to be supported by many Holy Cross religious and countless volunteers over the years. Today, André House serves an average of 600 plates of food per night, six nights a week, as well as providing other needed services such as a free clothing closet, laundry, showers, an office with a phone, basic medication and first-aid, lockers, legal services, blanket distribution, restrooms, access to clean water, and a welcoming porter by the gate.

Notre Dame's fall break group pictured with an image of St. André Bessette.
Notre Dame’s fall break group pictured with an image of St. André Bessette.

Upon arriving in Phoenix with all my fatigue, stress, and worries, I wondered what the week ahead would look like for us. As soon as we pulled up to the gate to begin our week at André House, all those thoughts dropped away and I was fully immersed back into the André House community, that crazy, caring, blessed, sometimes dysfunctional family. In a way it was like going home; a place that was familiar but still different then the last time I had left it. A place where so many elements of life are beautifully and messily juxtaposed against one another.

A few significant moments from this year’s trip particularly stand out to me:

My first shift this year was in the office with a member from our group and a member of the core staff. I remembered being in the office last year and the fast-paced, request filling agenda. This time was no different. Some requests for hygiene kits or aspirin were easily fulfilled, others were more of a challenge. The office is a balancing act between upholding the established rules and procedure, and determining when they can be stretched or broken to meet the varied needs of the guests. A special moment was when a guest asked for a rosary and I was able to go downstairs into the basement and find one for her. Her gratitude was sincere.   

There was the encounter while portering by the gate (a legacy of St. André Bessette’s hospitality) when I was walking amongst the guests on the rows of benches. I sat down across from one guy with a Syracuse hat on and started talking to him, asking if he was also from upstate New York. Our conversation was slow, fragmented and waning when another guy further down the bench woke up and started talking. He shared that it was his first day at André House, he had just been released from the hospital, and his mother had recently died. This was a lot to comprehend in the span of a few short sentences. Immediately he was seeking a blanket for the evening when the temperature would drop substantially outside, but his need was much greater than that and less tangible. He came back a few minutes later and straddled the bench right next to me. He repeated his story, this time with a few additional details. At what seemed like the end of our conversation, I told him that I would be praying for him. At that, he could not resist embracing me in a hug, and then another hug, and then finally another hug while lightly kissing my cheek and gently patting my back which was then followed by the question of if I had a boyfriend. In that moment I realized multiple things; the importance of extending genuine prayers to others, the need to be truly listened to, the need for human connection and embrace, but also my own vulnerability, particularly as a young woman. Without wanting to cause him any additional suffering, but also recognizing my vulnerability in the situation, I gently extracted myself with a quick self-protecting “yes” and a need to go help inside. Looking back on this encounter, I wonder if this was not the face of Christ present to me in that moment, an opportunity to encounter and embrace another broken individual in their time of need, despite my own hesitations and misgivings.

André House is a huge family sharing in life together. During lunch one day we celebrated the 50th birthday of the hardworking maintenance worker with a special lunch and lots of cake. As a community, we mourned the loss of a guest’s beloved dog and comforted her with empathy and a framed picture of them together. Signs of hope were present with the “weddings” of two couples; one that began the day before with the most unique version of Say Yes to the Dress you could probably ever see in the basement clothing racks. We had the opportunity to experience André House as a guest by grabbing a meal ticket to go through the service line for dinner, sit in the dining room, and talking with the guests. André House truly blurs the line between those serving and those being served in the most beautiful ways that lead to solidarity, empathy, and community.

Holy Cross signage at André House
Holy Cross signage at André House

The way Mass is celebrated each day at André House is unique. It is not in a fancy basilica or chapel, but directly in our place of service and community; the St. Francis dining room with all the staff gathered together sitting around a series of circular tables pushed together. Last year and this year again, this celebration of the Mass struck me as the closest I will ever come to being at the Last Supper with all the faithful disciples gathered around the table for the consecration of the bread and wine. For me, one of the most beautiful moments in this celebration of the Mass is the passing of the Body and Blood around the table, each person receiving from and giving to the other. On Wednesday my idea of what Mass looks like expanded even further when we brought the Mass outside to the guests on the rows of benches. This isn’t the peaceful, quiet, reverent Masses we might be used to at the Basilica on campus, no this is truly sharing the Gospel with the masses, hearing real, messy petitions offered up for prayer, smelling the stench of who knows what, and placing the Body of Christ into dirty, weathered hands while looking into the eyes of strangers, who aren’t really strangers, but brothers and sisters in Christ. This might not be what we initially think of when we think of the Mass, but it is beautiful in its own way none the less, and might actually be more related to our everyday lives then we may initially believe or want to admit.  

In the end, André House is a lot about listening to the stories of others, calling each other by name, and cleaning away the dirt, both literal and metaphorical, to discover the glimpses of grace sparkling throughout our lives. My André House experience was a beautiful reminder of the joys and sorrows that accompany the sometimes crazy life I lead, but above all, it was an important reminder of how truly blessed I am, as I keep all those who call André House home in my prayers.

St. André Bessette, Pray for Us!

If you are interested in learning more about André House, or how you can get involved, please visit andrehouse.org for more information.

 

 

Oscar Romero: The Saint Who is Done with “It’s fine, I’m fine”

October 2018, ,

Marissa Griffith, Senior Anchor Intern – Sacramental Preparation and Catechesis

During the summer following my freshman year of college, I went on a mission trip to Uganda. As we encountered the poor, I saw how so many of them were completely reliant on charity simply to survive. I wondered if this was a parallel for my relationship with God. When he says “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” is he asking me to rely completely on His charity, on His Love? (Matthew 5:3)  To accept the reality of my brokenness – my poverty – and rely completely on the Lord meant that I had to learn to trust Him.

The following spring I was preparing for an ISSLP in Tanzania, and in learning about international development, I saw how seeing the poor as passive recipients of charity instead of active protagonists in their story is an unhealthy social dynamic that fosters continued dependence on developed nations that stunts the growth of developing nations. I was so convicted that this was true, but what did this say about my call to be poor in spirit? I didn’t want to ignore the reality of suffering in order to explain the Gospel.

Seeking a space to grapple with these questions, I signed up for a theology class called Mercy and Liberation. There I was introduced to Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador during the oppression leading up to the Salvadoran civil war. Reading Romero, I was struck by how he preached the Gospel. He didn’t try to explain away the suffering of the poor as God’s will or tell them that if they suffered patiently God would reward them. He made no attempt to say that everything was fine if they just trusted in God. In fact, he was very comfortable saying that everything was not fine and that suffering was not God’s will for His people. He was convicted that his people were worth more than a pat on the shoulder, a trite saying, or any false preaching of the Gospel that ignored the reality of their pain. So, every Sunday homily, as he announced the Gospel of the Lord, he denounced structural sin right along with it. He called his people to a deeper trust that when God saw the suffering of his people, he did not stand by and watch, but came and dwelt among them. Just so, Romero came to his suffering people and stood with them. He acknowledged the depth of their suffering and, by standing with the lowest in society, had the eyes to see the reality of injustice that the poor experienced, an injustice that was maintained by oppression. Any “peace” that covers up injustice is false peace, he saw; true peace is rooted in justice.

I had the opportunity to go on pilgrimage to El Salvador with Campus Ministry last spring break; this photo was taken from the altar on which St. Oscar Romero was martyred. He was shot through these open doors while saying mass.

The next semester, everything was going great. I had a good group of friends, I was enjoying my classes, and nothing was going particularly wrong. However, just when I thought I was fine, life threw me some gut punches and it became clear that everything was not fine. First, a bad job interview. Next, waitlisted for the Campus Ministry Internship. Then, a friend unexpectedly called me out for a habitual sin I was unaware of that was hurting many of my relationships. Each one of these was a blow to my ego, but the last one really knocked the wind out of me. I place so much value in my relationships that it physically hurt to think that my behavior had harmed those that I treasure so deeply. Confronted with the reality of my sin, I couldn’t ignore the state of my heart anymore. It was only by facing my brokenness, sin, and inability to get out of the mess I had made that I saw my absolute need of God’s grace to lift me out of it. God can’t heal something that I won’t give to him; I had to expose my heart so the Divine Physician could do His work. I had to trust Him enough to uncover the hidden sin in my life so that it could be rooted out, and I learned not to be scared to pray for “everything hidden to come into the light.” (Luke 8:17)

St. Oscar Romero was canonized October 14, 2018, along with Pope St. Paul VI. Here he is with a group of young people in El Salvador.

This semester, I’m continuing to walk with Romero as I write my thesis on his ministry and preaching. As the hidden sins of some of our Church leaders come into the light, Romero has given me a way to grapple with these horrific realities. Confronted with the reality of shockingly widespread sin, I have been given strength to pray that everything hidden will come into the light so that the work of healing can begin. Although it is overwhelming to think of the scale of our brokenness as a Church, people deserve more than just picking up the pieces of the wreckage sin has left behind. It’s going to be a painful process, but Romero reminds me that it’s not enough to say that our Church is “fine.” The Church isn’t fine, but she is holy; not because her members are holy, but because Christ is holy. Romero says that “the Church persists because she is composed of people who place their fragile trust in Christ, and Christ is in God, and God is in Christ and in us.” Romero preaches that the Church, the Body of Christ, is made up of individual members and if we are to address root causes of widespread sin we must begin with the heart of each person. We the Church are part of the culture that forms its members. A culture of sin begins with the personal sin of individuals, so a culture of truth and healing begins with each individual who has the courage to expose their heart to the Lord. That we may have the courage to let the painful healing process begin, St. Oscar Romero, pray for us!

 

 

 

Resurrection: A Daily Event

October 2018, , ,

Andie Tong, Senior Anchor Intern – Evangelization 

We laugh about it now, but at the ripe age of seven, I accidentally cut my dad’s finger with pruning shears. This learning moment, seared into my memory, comes to mind every time I read John 15:1-3:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does not bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Though I didn’t have the best track record with pruning, I asked God to show me what needed to be pruned in my life. Spoiler alert: He answered.

The end of junior year brought to a close one of my most challenging years of college; a year full of learning how I love, or fail to love others, and a tough goodbye to a cherished relationship. What resulted was a brokenness I had never experienced. Slowly and painstakingly, this season of change seemed to prune away my pride and attachment to my plans  – things of comfort that I wanted to keep.

In tandem with the inner pruning at work, I embarked on a journey of professional growth. Through towering concrete, mountains, and forests, I traveled 7,000 miles around the country working for a non-profit that prioritizes community through justice education on college campuses. No words can fully articulate my gratitude for the vineyard workers whom I had the privilege of working alongside; their openness, generous questioning, and dedication to community building have shaped some of the best parts of me. Despite this felt growth, I sensed a restlessness in my bones. I presumed that God, the vinedresser, was rustling in the leaves – drawing close for reasons I did not yet know.

The Break Away office in Atlanta where I worked as a Programs Intern
The Break Away office in Atlanta where I worked as a Programs Intern

At Break Away, I was surrounded by beautiful people, people passionate about social justice and fueled by a healthy dose of righteous anger. Anger wasn’t an emotion I had dealt with often, so it was disorienting to feel the chords of anger others struck resounding within myself. My heart clutched onto withering branches: holding onto my pride, shame, and anger on behalf of others.

Brokenness in my relationships, brokenness in systemic injustice, and brokenness in our church. My withering branches steeped in frustration that the Lord wanted to take so much away. Exhausted, I set out to find balm that would heal these painful wounds.

I saw two paths crystallizing before me: one of reckoning with shaking fists and one of mercy with open hands. Out of fear of the unknown, I was resistant to taking a step in either direction, until I read the following excerpt from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson:

“We are all broken by something…Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would have never chosen…But simply punishing the broken – walking away from them or hiding them from sight – only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too.”

The mountains of Salt Lake City where the words of Bryan Stevenson left me shook

Though not all at once, I began to realize that forgiveness and mercy were the hands I needed to extend, rather than walking away or hiding. I knew I couldn’t will myself into it; day by day the Lord faithfully walked with me, revealing that brokenness is not something to resist but something to bring to the light.

This is not just any light; it’s not the stark, fluorescent glare of a classroom nor the warm glow of Edison bulbs in a coffee shop. It’s the brilliance of the Resurrection in everyday life. For me, the Constitutions of the Congregation of Holy Cross has served as a beacon of what this looks like:

“Resurrection for us is a daily event… We have known the forgiveness of those who misuse their neighbor; we have seen heartbreak and defeat lead to a transformed life; we have heard the conscience of an entire church stir; we have marveled at the insurrection of justice… We walk by Easter’s first light, and it makes us long for its fullness” (Constitution 119).

Finally yielding to the vinedresser allowed this light to peek through the overgrowth of my dying branches. Delicately and assiduously (unlike seven-year-old me), the Father helped me lay dead branches to rest – making room for trust in the truth of the Resurrection.

The contrast of stepping back into the familiarity of campus as a new person has been the surest sign of growth, as confusing as it may sometimes feel. From heavy talks about injustice redeemed by the hope of grassroots change to simply making new memories in old places: the Resurrection, an event I used to think of as a one-time miracle that occurred 2,000 years ago, is now something I experience daily.

Meaningful conversations offer glimpses of the endless depth of another person that meld my anger into mercy. Placing relics of a past self along with evidence of brokenness in our institutions at the foot of the Cross transforms my shame into trust that all has been and will be made new. Every day, I see goodness and brokenness come into tension; every day, I recommit to the eternal perspective that this is what makes life whole. Dreaming of eternity: this is the fruit that lasts.

The Gift of Music

October 2018, ,

Joe Crowley, Senior Anchor Intern – Liturgy

When I was young, I never really understood why the bread and wine were put on a little table in the back of my home parish church before Mass started. Couldn’t the priest just keep the cruets and the bowl on the side of the altar until the liturgy of the Eucharist? Why did they need to be marched back from the sacristy by an usher, and then marched up the aisle to the priest, and then doled out to altar servers before finally being used? My efficient sensibilities didn’t approve of all of this changing of hands. Get the gifts up there so that I can receive Jesus.

I began accompanying Masses at my home parish when I was finishing eighth grade. At first, I looked at this opportunity primarily as an opportunity to spend a lot of my time during the Mass doing something that I love to do, which meant less time wondering what I should be thinking about or praying about or how I should be holding my hands or anything like that. I loved playing piano, and when I got the invitation to join the music group I thought playing for Mass would make me enjoy Mass more.

After accompanying a few Masses the whole way through, I came to an important realization: providing music for Mass was a time-intensive job. I was still working on becoming a better pianist, and so every week I would spend hours practicing the handful of songs that were up for that Sunday, then take a quick breath and start in on next Sunday’s songs. Mass used to be either engaging or boring to me, but now Mass could be a lot of things all at once: thrilling, stressful, embarrassing, frightening, moving, exciting. In the larger cost-benefit analysis, why did anyone choose to give so much when they didn’t feel like they were getting entirely positive benefits? Why serve?

There’s a lovely woman who sits in the front row at my home parish during Saturday evening Mass. She walks elegantly with a cane and dresses in clothes that are perfectly matched to whatever the colors of the church season are. She has been at Saturday evening Masses for as long as I am able to remember. She was one of those people who somewhat regularly brought up the gifts at Mass. One day, a couple of months into my accompaniment career, she pulled me aside after Mass and said, “Thank you for your music. It makes me feel alive, alive in the life of Christ. Thank you for sharing your great gift with us.”

The piano in Dillon Hall chapel where Joe regularly provides music for Mass.

I was stunned. People had told me that I had been doing a good job, and of course, my parents were incredibly supportive of me in my accompaniment endeavors, but this was different. This was the first time someone who I didn’t really know in any way other than by her faithful devotion of attending the Saturday 5 pm Mass came to me and told me that I had helped her to connect to Christ.

That was what service to the Church was all about. I don’t give of my gifts for my own sake, I give of them for other people to enjoy too, in the hopes that they’ll bring others closer to Christ. Over time, I found that this realization powered my faith life: I started to grow closer to God through my ministry because I knew that I could take joy in this opportunity to bring others closer to God too.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out why the presentation of the gifts is so important at Mass: it’s an outward embodiment of our community giving what we have to give so that our entire community may be nourished. My piano playing at Mass, then, is an extension of this presentation of gifts. The lectors, the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, and the singers are all an extension of this wider presentation of gifts, each one of them giving what they have so that our community may be spiritually nourished. Participating in the Mass is about so much more than me getting spiritual enrichment for myself. It’s about giving my gifts to God and to my community, trusting that God will use them to bring others closer to Him. I love liturgy because of the beautiful ways in which God takes the gifts we offer him and multiplies them out further than we can ever imagine.

My faith life looks fundamentally different now than it would have had I never been invited to give of my gift of music to my parish community. I am privileged to be at a university where I can frequently share my gifts with so much of the campus community through accompaniment that I can pour my heart and soul into, raising myself and everyone else in song. I would encourage every person who reads this blog post to ask how they can give of their gifts to their parish community. Once you find a way that you can get involved, go and ask exactly how you can share this gift, whether it be in the context of parish life at large or in the liturgy of the Mass. For me, that primarily looks like providing music for a Mass. For others, that could mean greeting people as they come through the doors, offering to do one of the readings, or sitting next to a community member whom you can tell is having a tough day. Ministry comes in many forms, and we are each called to be ministers to one another. Our God is generous, no one is empty-handed when it comes to the gifts He gives, and we are all invited to bring our gifts to the Lord and trust that He will use them for the enrichment of our community.

We Influence

September 2018, Uncategorized, , ,

James Weitzel, Senior Anchor Intern – Retreats & Pilgrimages

We influence. This statement is realized once we start to take notice of how our actions impact those around us. Hopefully what I share will illustrate this point.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, I never really experienced snow growing up. One of the drawing factors for leaving sunny southern California for college was this strange new concept of seasons (and of course the new weather that came with it, and not to mention academics, etc.). In short, Notre Dame did not let me down. August brought all the green and humidity, there was an explosion of color in autumn, and after a long cold wait finally came that mythical frozen water from the sky in the winter. That first snow, of course, was amazing, but so was the second and third and so on. Not everyone shared in my enthusiasm… nevertheless, snow fascinated me, and the pain of the cold could not take away from the beauty of it. I more than happily volunteered to shovel the sidewalks outside the dorm on the weekend and to brush off the cars in the parking lot (I would only do half the car though…).

I know it is nowhere close to snowing as some days it is still near 85 degrees out, but sometimes it is helpful to frame the future unpleasantries before they happen.

All of this was merely setting up a snowy day in January: it was absolutely freezing, and the wind chill just made things colder. I was walking in (late) to my job at Campus Ministry as a student worker, and quite excitedly mentioned how beautiful it was outside to one of my bosses, Abby. I didn’t think anything of the brief encounter that happened as I scurried past her to the desk. The next day, I received a wholehearted thanks and explanation of how my simple statement of beauty along with my presence changed the whole outcome of her day. It turns out, as I was walking in, she was getting ready to head out and was very much dreading the walk to her car in heels (she forgot her snow boots) and the inevitable traffic that was to follow. My little comment of beauty made her slow down enough to see the beauty I saw, and brighten her day a bit. I didn’t realize my impact on people: my simple sharing of what was happening in my head actually had an impact on someone. This was never my intention. I was just excited that it was snowing.

James captures a snowy moment outside his hall.

We influence.

We are all called to be leaders, to ultimately be intentional with our words and actions: we have the power of influence. To borrow some language from the Constitutions of Holy Cross, being a leader can be as simple as having the competence to see, and the courage to act. This seeing and action takes some self-reflection though: we cannot say what’s on our hearts if we are too preoccupied with the difficulties ahead. The snow is absolutely beautiful, but that doesn’t mean we will always see its beauty. If we don’t take time for self-reflection and prayer, we won’t see the ways God is acting in our lives at the present: we won’t see God’s extraordinary works in what we have considered ordinary. We can’t do what we’re called to do if we don’t know what to do.

We influence. No one has figured out what God’s full plan is no matter how put together most people on this campus seem, I ask us to challenge ourselves. Not challenge ourselves as in “go out and make 10 new friends.” I’m challenging you to look inward: challenge what you think you know about yourself, to ask the deeper questions and seek the deeper answers. To not just recognize the beauty around us, but to share it. To not just think of ourselves, but to be aware of the influence we have on others. For not only do we influence, but we should be more open to receiving influence as well. Sometimes we need to let go of our pride a little bit (or a lot), so we can be open to listening to others, so we can grow from genuine encounter. We are called to be God’s hands and feet in this world, so, of course, God works through others, we just have to be present to hear it.

And don’t forget, snow is coming! 

The Word Became Flesh

September 2018, , , ,

Meghan Kozal, Senior Anchor Intern- Communications & Design

The second to last 3D foundations critique of the spring 2018 semester was wrapping up and while I should have been engaged in discussing my fellow classmates’ work I was instead sitting there really trying to puzzle out why in all my time of making art, both in high school and now as a visual communication design major, I had never made art that tied back to my faith.  Several classmates had made pieces discussing their faith and the challenges that come with it, which kick-started my reflection. In the end I realized that I had always felt as if there were ‘more important’ issues than faith that should be discussed in art such as promoting women’s rights, equal access to education, or greater cultural sensitivity and thus that’s what I latched onto.  I saw my faith and ministry as separate from the work I completed in my major and the path I wanted to take in the future in the art field. With all this in mind, I challenged myself to make my final piece related to my faith, while also retaining some of the influence of those other interests.

In ideating how exactly my faith could intersect my artistic creation, I somehow circled back to a documentary I had watched on Islamic Art.  I was inspired by a particular line that said in Islam the most important gift from God is His Word and thus text is one of the most prominent art forms in Islamic Art. I made the jump then to considering that for Christians God’s most precious gift is His Son, and thus figures are at the center of Christian imagery. Blending these ideas together, I thought of the beginning of John’s Gospel which synthesizes these two seemingly contradictory ideas into “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word was God… and the Word became flesh”.

Meghan’s artwork on display at ArtPrize.

Using these lines, parts of John 1:1 and John 1:14, as a starting point, I created three layers of Bible verses written in Arabic calligraphy inspired by the Dome of the Rock and the Hagia Sofia.  The verses mentioned from John’s Gospel are the first and second layers of Arabic text in the piece respectively. I explored to find more Biblical texts that discussed the Word and arrived on text from Luke (11:28) and James (1:22) from the New Testament and Deuteronomy (30:14) and Psalms (119:130) from the Old Testament in the final layer, which allowed the piece to also connect with the Jewish faith.  In creating this work I wanted to start a dialogue between the different major faith traditions in a way that looked at the similarities or the areas where our theology crossed over versus beginning at how they were different. In striving for this dialogue, I was able to retain my usual desire to tackle tough issues in my artistic creations in a way that prompts conversation among viewers, the artwork, and myself.

While the artwork was made to fulfill the needs of a class project, I wanted to do more with it than simply show it to my fellow classmates.  I, therefore, tried entering it into Grand Rapids ArtPrize, one of the most attended art events in the world. ArtPrize is an exhibition that takes over the entire city of Grand Rapids, MI with over 150 venues and over 1,000 artists and is one that I have gone to since I was young with my parents and grandparents.  To be exhibited in ArtPrize, a venue has to select your work, and I had the great fortune of being selected by the Monroe Community Church this year. On September 15, 2018, I officially became an ArtPrize artist as I hung my piece on the wall of the church, and I could not be happier. The show will run from September 19-October 7 and on September 30, my piece will also be the inspiration for the sermon at the church’s Sunday service.  

Meghan stands proud as she’s officially an ArtPrize artist.

What started as a class project with the vague idea of incorporating my faith has now become a piece that will fuel conversation among the hundreds of thousands of visitors to ArtPrize.  This has allowed me to begin seeing art and ministry in a whole new light and sparked the desire to continue creating art that is a catalyst for inter-faith dialogue.

For more on my piece and ArtPrize, visit https://www.artprize.org/67346

My time in Honduras: Encountering Holy and Humble Hearts

September 2018, ,

Megan Wilson, Senior Anchor Intern – Compass

The metal gate creaks in the same distinct way it always does as I step outside the towering fence and begin a walk that has become comfortingly familiar–the vast expanse of mountains and trees adorned by dozens of clouds in a clear blue sky to my left, and the barbed wire fence protecting my second grade classroom shaded by a gorgeous flowering tree to my right. I can still hear the sound of gravel crunching beneath my sandals along the path and feel the repetitive tap of my water bottle against my thigh as I walk up a small hill in front of the entrance to the nearby village church. I am welcomed by the rancid stench of a large pile of horse manure on the cement floor nestled alongside the wooden planks resting atop stacks of cinder blocks that serve as pews for the congregation. Large sheets of tin and a tarp serve as temporary roofing, and papel picado affixed to a white bed sheet hanging behind the wooden altar. The church itself looks and smells nothing like any church I had ever been in before coming to Honduras, but it is exactly in the humility, poverty, and simplicity that is so explicitly represented by the structure itself where I was able to encounter Christ in incredible ways this summer.

I spent my summer serving as a missionary at a children’s home and school in rural Honduras through the Center for Social Concerns’ (CSC) International Summer Service Learning Program (ISSLP). When explaining my experience of serving as a summer missionary in Honduras, I often find myself describing my experience as both the most difficult thing I’ve done in my entire life while also simultaneously the most wonderful and rewarding thing I have ever done. The hardest, most heartbreaking moments were always so full and abundantly anointed by the presence of Christ in that suffering, and I found myself time and time again surprised by joy and beauty when in my own weakness I was tempted to lose hope. I was constantly gifted with glimpses of God–in the children, in intentional conversations, in moments of learning, and in the natural beauty of sunsets and the sound of rolling ocean waves. My heart was brought closer to Christ’s suffering heart when hearing stories of great hardship and trial, or in the more taxing moments of living in community or in the detachment required to live out a radically simplistic lifestyle. Above all else, my daily experiences and encounters drew me closer to the humble heart of Christ, leading to a transformation within my own human heart.

A glimpse of God in the calming ocean waves at dawn after a challenging week.

Jesus humbled me to trust through the child-like hope of the smallest student attending the school where I taught classes, who couldn’t sleep at night because her bed was infested with biting ants. Jesus humbled me to trust through the judgment-free love extended by a 12-year-old to her absent mother, or from a pair of siblings to their negligent family. Jesus humbled me to trust in His divine plan and deliverance through the vocation story of a religious sister and through the examples of the seven long-term missionaries who had put their lives on hold to serve at the children’s home and give up all worldly comforts. Jesus humbled me to trust through the radical hospitality of members of the neighboring village who repeatedly opened their homes and what little they had to us with no hesitation.

Teaching second grade math, which became a daily practice of humility in the classroom during my time in Honduras.

The poverty and experiences of true suffering of each of these people, (and many more who I encountered and shared life with over the course of my 10 weeks abroad) allowed them to connect with Christ in a way I couldn’t, with true humility and through sharing in His humble state. These people know intimately the suffering and pain of the Cross, but they instead choose to live in trust and in the hope of the Resurrection and new life beyond the Crucifixion. My comfortable reality was effectively flipped–suddenly I was face to face with my own spiritual poverty of heart in the light of the material poverty right in front of me. In what ways was I the poorest one among us all?

When comparing my own life and spirituality to that of the people I met this summer, in many moments I came away feeling poor in new ways. These Honduran disciples have experienced so much loss, pain, and suffering on TOP of significant material poverty and still cling to God and to their faith above all else in their lives. I found the Church and the hope of Christ’s Resurrection incarnate in the stories and lives of the poor when I oftentimes could at first only find hopelessness. I was called deeper and deeper into trust through the example of humility and faith exhibited by so many people around me and in places where I always least expected to be drawn closer to Christ.

In Honduras, Jesus taught me to grow in humility and in appreciation of the virtue of humility through the power of encounter with others and in the example of the poor who I served and lived within Honduras. Jesus drew me even closer in love and understanding of His own holy and humble heart through the example of the humble hearts of the people I grew to love during my time as a missionary. In my experience, encountering humility, learning to trust amidst great uncertainty, and facing feelings of hopelessness can all be incredibly scary and uncomfortable things.

But, it’s important to recognize that at the same time, God is always gifting us with so much to learn and new ways to grow when faced with these feelings and difficulties. It is only through running towards these feelings and ultimately to Christ in the feelings and moments when we encounter difficulties which humble us (and not running away in fear) where we can allow Him to transform our hearts to become more like His. I’m grateful to have learned this summer that whether I’m serving as a missionary in Honduras, spending time at home in the Philadelphia suburbs, or attending classes and working in Campus Ministry in South Bend, the same God of the universe calls me to true humility and desires for all of us to know the poor and to know how we are poor and humble ourselves.

Why We Minister: John Zack

July 2018, , ,

John Zack, University Sacristan

“What do you do at Notre Dame?”  This is the question I am asked the most when people find out I work at Notre Dame. I would try to explain to them what I do, but every explanation that I would come up with was lacking. I would list my duties, and try to explain what they entailed but this was met with puzzled looks and many, many follow up questions.  I’ve tried over the years to simplify my answer as best I could, sometimes just giving the definition of a sacristan right out of the Merriam – Webster dictionary, “a person in charge of the sacristy and ceremonial equipment.”  This approach didn’t work and nothing I could come up with seemed to adequately describe what I do at Notre Dame.

Even now, after thirty-one years of being a sacristan at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, I still think about how to explain my job to someone. I’ve begun to think about a different point of view to explain what I do, a personal point of view.  Not just the description on a job posting. What do I think I do at Notre Dame?  How do I answer this question when asked of myself?

University Sacristan John Zack lights the Paschal Candle in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart.

I unknowingly began to answer this question for myself three years ago while on a pilgrimage to France.  Throughout the pilgrimage, we visited churches large and small from LeMans to Paris. A few of the churches we visited were in small, out of the way villages, farming communities.  At these small village churches, we were warmly greeted and welcomed by the parishioners.  We would visit the church, have Mass with the parishioners and then there would be a reception for us in a parish building, or sometimes in the church itself. Food and drink were offered to us, even though they had never met us.  There was very little in the way of verbal communication, they spoke no English and the majority of us spoke little no French, but we did communicate.  A smile, a handshake, a polite nod towards the food and drinks, the raising of a glass in thanks and the return acknowledgment.   We didn’t have much in common except our mutual faith.

After I returned home from the pilgrimage to France, I saw my work at the Basilica in a new and different way. Besides focusing on the day to day tasks and whatever special service we were having in the Basilica, I started to think about the people coming into the Basilica. I remember how good it made me feel to be welcomed into a strange place.   How at home I felt in a foreign place from just a handshake and a smile.  Most of the people I see coming into the Basilica are visitors, pilgrims, just like I was in France.  My work at the Basilica is a welcoming to these people.  The worshipers, the visitors, the pilgrims, everyone should be welcomed and feel welcomed in God’s house. 

As I go about my work at the Basilica, I really do enjoy the thought that most of the people I see every day are new to the Basilica and the University.  I have the opportunity to impact their visit to the Basilica and the University, for the good.

Why We Minister: Jonathan Hehn

July 2018, ,

Jonathan Hehn, Choral Program Director and Organist

So often, making music we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moves us to a more profound
Alleluia! (1)

Why do I minister? Because I love leading the song of the Church. More than any other time, it is while leading congregational song that I find a profound sense of joy and purpose, and, thanks be to God, it is there that I am also able to encounter the world’s deep need.

People often ask me about my job, and at Notre Dame especially whether I love playing the Basilica organs. Those questions give me an opportunity to consider what exactly it is about my vocation that keeps me going. Do I love playing the organ? Yes. The organs here on campus are magnificent. Do I love directing choirs? Absolutely yes, and Notre Dame has some of the best collegiate choirs in the country. But what I love most is leading the song of the congregation. Congregational singing is at the core of my identity as a pastoral musician because I believe congregational singing does some things that other types of music making cannot.

The Power of Congregational Song to Promote Empathy

First, congregational singing brings the whole assembly into sense of empathy with one another. Of course, one could think about that empathy theologically. To paraphrase the General Instruction to the Roman Missal, singing together in worship fosters our unity as the gathered People of God and tunes our thoughts into the joyful mysteries of the liturgy. But one can also think about that empathy scientifically; indeed researchers are discovering that singing together not only builds stronger social/psychological bonds, but that singing together for an extended period of time actually causes people’s breathing and heartbeats to synchronize. Singing together creates literal, physiological empathy.

When I’m at my best leading song from the organ, I also get to experience that empathy. It’s a mystery to me how it is, in a Basilica filled with a thousand people, that I can feel them all breathing together between phrases of a hymn, but I often do so from my perch in the organ loft. Similarly, whenever one of the stanzas of a hymn has a particularly rousing text, I can feel the congregation instinctively making a praise-filled crescendo, which I can then seek to match with a crescendo from the organ. The experience can be intense, and often I can sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in those times, moving us all to a more profound expression of praise.

Jonathan leads the opening hymn from the 2018 Lenten Choir Concert at the University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart, March 3, 2018.

The Power of Congregational Song to Express Diversity and Hospitality

People sometimes remark to me that the Roman Rite has too little room for creativity, or that it’s too narrowly Western/Italian/Roman in its structure and aesthetic. Depending on the day, I might agree with them. But in reality, there is a tremendous potential for flexibility in the Roman Rite, and, fortunately for us musicians, most of that potential lies in the realm of music. What I love about the flexibility of music in the liturgy is how it can help us celebrate the diversity of creation and offer hospitality to the “others” in our midst. That’s the second thing I think congregational singing can do in a way that other musics cannot.

When I was a kid, the congregation I was part of, though it was almost completely homogenous, made an intentional effort to sing music from a wide variety of Christian cultures around the world. At the time, I just thought that it was fun to sing songs from Brazil, or Tanzania, or Singapore. But what I realize now is that those songs were teaching me about the diversity of God’s people. I was learning that there were people different from me who shared my faith, and who were no less created in the image of God than I. As a leader of song, I want to pass on to others that same idea: the more we reflect the diversity of creation in our music, the more we reflect the image and glory of God.

In a place like Notre Dame, we have an obligation to both uphold our musical tradition and to reflect the diversity of the university’s increasingly global community. That’s part of why I minister, because I love using congregational song to help my community sing its solidarity with other Christian cultures, cultures which can teach us much about how to live the Christian life, and which help us broaden our image of God.

A wise colleague of mine once reminded me that, for our increasingly diverse congregations, including different genres and cultural musics in worship is also a matter of hospitality. Choosing to sing music only from the majority culture in our churches is missing the opportunity to show the “other” among us that they are valued. It’s also a way in which we can enable visitors to the liturgy who are not familiar with our language or songs to participate with us in prayer. As a leader of congregational song, if I can help enable the congregation’s celebration of diversity and its sense of hospitality, then I will.

The Power of Congregational Song to Capture the Human Experience

Lastly, congregational song can enable us to sing through the full range of our experience as people, and can help us have difficult theological conversations. Singing the praise of God is a good and noble venture, of course, but praise is not the only function of congregational song. Hymns and psalms are also there to give us voice when we mourn, or when we are angry at God, or when we feel confused and frustrated by what is going on in the world around us. They are a means of having a theological conversation.

When I choose music for the liturgy, I constantly look for opportunities to bring people into those theological conversations. When our hearts are overflowing with emotion, with grief, with anger, with frustration, we often find ourselves at a loss for words. Songs can be a means of helping us process those emotions, and open us to the presence of the Holy Spirit, who is with us in the act of singing and who intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words alone.

One congregation I served some years ago held an annual “Blue Christmas” liturgy. It was a modified service of evening prayer meant for people who have a hard time with the holidays because of difficult relationships, deaths of family members, or a host of other reasons. One family in particular that I knew planned to attend that service one year was struggling with the death of young child. I also knew based on my conversations with others at the church that many were struggling to make sense of the ongoing school shootings that plague our nation even today. There was an opportunity there to use congregational song both as a tool for healing and as way to give voice to the pain felt by those around me. That year we decided to sing a song gifted to the Church by the Scottish minister John Bell. We sang it quietly in the middle of the service, with resolve, with simultaneous grief and hope:

There is a place prepared for little children,
those we once lived for, those we deeply mourn
those who from play, from learning and from laughter
cruelly were torn.

There is a place where hands which held ours tightly
now are released beyond all hurt and fear,
healed by that love which also feels our sorrow
tear after tear.

There is a place where God will hear our questions,
suffer our anger, share our speechless grief,
gently repair the innocence of loving
and of belief. (2)

Jonathan Hehn conducting in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart

At other times, our anger might call us to sing loudly, crying out in discontent, whether in the church or on the front steps of the state capitol building. Recently, more and more people of faith have discovered the power of singing together in and about the public square using texts like this one from Carolyn Winfrey Gillette:

The children come, not sure where they are going;
Some little ones have seen their siblings die.
They’ve traveled north — a tide that keeps on growing,
A stream of life beneath the desert sky.
Their welcome here? Detention, overflowing.
O Lord of love, now hear your children’s cry!

The children come in search of something better;
They’ve traveled here with nothing in their hands.
On one boy’s belt, a number carved in leather
Leads to a phone, a brother here, a plan.

They come alone — or sometimes band together;
They bring a plea that we will understand.
O Christ our Lord, you welcomed in the stranger;
You blessed the children, telling them to stay.
Be in the desert, with the tired and injured;
Be at the border where they are afraid.
Be on each bus where children sense the danger,
As angry crowds are shouting, “Go away!”

God, let each one know justice, peace and welcome —
And may your gift of mercy start with me.
For unto such as these belongs your kingdom,
And in each child, it is your face we see.
May we, your church, respond in truth and action,
And with you, Lord, say, “Let them come to me.” (3)

These types of powerful texts and these opportunities — to promote empathy, to celebrate diversity, to create a sense of hospitality, and to enable us all to sing through the full range of our human experience — these are why I minister. These are why I spend countless hours in rehearsals and staring down the pages of a hymnal index. Leading the song of church gives me purpose, gives me joy, and most of all, gives me an opportunity to witness to the grace of God in Christ Jesus. I know that, by that grace, the Holy Spirit will continue to guide me in my work here at Notre Dame, so that worshipping together as one, we may sing to the triune God an ever more profound “Alleluia.”

 

(1) From the hymn “When In Our Music God is Glorified” by Fred Pratt Green, 1972.

(2) From the collection When Grief is Raw: Songs for Times of Sorrow and Bereavement by John L. Bell and Graham Maule.

(3) http://www.carolynshymns.com/the_children_come.html. Used by permission. This hymn is also available in the collection Singing Welcome published by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada.