Holy Week / Semana Santa. We follow a Crucified God

 

Holy Week. 

“Jesus: Crucified for All”

Fr. Malloy’s Midweek Message.  April 5, 2023

Friends,

A few years ago, my sister was surprised to hear me say that I don’t think Jesus knew before his death that he would be resurrected.  He hoped he would be.  In some sense, he trusted totally in God the Father, that God would love him and care for him no matter what.  But it wasn’t like Jesus had some supernatural awareness, some inside information, of what would come from the cross.  He went to the cross as a human being, as a Dead Man Walking, like anyone given a death penalty by the state. 

He went to the cross filled with fear and trembling.  He didn’t have some kind of divine guarantee that he’d put in a few horrific hours on the shameful instrument of Roman terror and torture, and then be known forever as the savior of the world.  He went to the cross as any of us would, afraid, trembling, worried that this was all a terrible mistake. 

The agony in the garden of Gethsemani reveals a Jesus deeply troubled.

“He was I such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground” (Luke 22).  “Then he said to them, ‘My soul is sorrowful even to death’ ….  He advanced a little and fell prostrate in prayer, saying ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me…’ ” (Matt 26).

These are not the words of a guy who is at peace with what is to come.  He goes to the cross out of the conviction that his prophetically confronting the powers in Jerusalem will in some way further the reality of God’s kingdom, God’s rule, becoming operative and real in this world as it is in heaven.  He goes to the cross dimly aware of the power of the sacrifice he is about to become, the sacrifice he spoke of at the Last Supper.  But he also has to wrestle with the idea that he may be wrong, or worse, totally deluded (cf., N.T. Wright, Jesus: The Victory of God, 1996, p. 606).

In the third week of the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius has us contemplate the final days of Jesus, hour by hour, moment by moment.  With our graced imaginations we are there as Jesus raises bread and wine.  We see the lashes tear into his flesh.  We hear the hammer smash the nails into his hands and feet.  We hear his final words as he cries out the first words of Psalm 22, “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me.”  We realize he forgives those who did this to him, for “they do not know what they do.”  He gives up his spirit and dies.

Let’s not rush too fast to the resurrection.  There is no resurrection without the cross.  We follow a crucified God.  We should pause and realize the tremendous, awesome, strangeness of this.  Our God was murdered.  He was tortured.  His cross becomes the source of our hope, our salvation, our way to life and life eternal.  We adore you O Christ and we bless you; Because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world. 

 

  Listen to “Were you There?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8h1d8M7y-4

Fr. Rick Malloy, S.J.

Keep Safe.    Keep Sane.    Keep Smiling

      

    

Semana Santa. 

“Jesús: Crucificado por todos”

El Miercoles Mensaje del Padre Malloy, S.J.  5 de Abril, 2023

Amigos y Amigas,

Hace unos años, mi hermana se sorprendió al oírme decir que no creo que Jesús supiera antes de su muerte que resucitaría.  Él esperaba que así fuera.  En cierto sentido, confiaba plenamente en Dios Padre, en que Dios le amaría y cuidaría de él pasara lo que pasara.  Pero no era como si Jesús tuviera una conciencia sobrenatural, alguna información interna, de lo que vendría de la cruz.  Fue a la cruz como un ser humano, como un muerto viviente, como cualquier persona a la que el Estado impone la pena de muerte. 

Fue a la cruz lleno de miedo y temblor.  No tenía ningún tipo de garantía divina de que pasaría unas horas horribles en el vergonzoso instrumento del terror y la tortura romanos, y luego sería conocido para siempre como el salvador del mundo.  Fue a la cruz como cualquiera de nosotros, temeroso, tembloroso, preocupado de que todo aquello fuera un terrible error. 

La agonía en el huerto de Getsemaní revela a un Jesús profundamente turbado.

"Estaba en tal agonía y oraba con tanto fervor que su sudor era como gotas de sangre que caían al suelo" (Lucas 22).  "Entonces les dijo: 'Mi alma está triste hasta la muerte' ....  Avanzó un poco y se postró en oración, diciendo: 'Padre mío, si es posible, pase de mí este cáliz...' " (Mt 26).

Estas no son las palabras de un hombre que está en paz con lo que está por venir.  Va a la cruz convencido de que su enfrentamiento profético con los poderes de Jerusalén contribuirá de algún modo a que el reino de Dios, su gobierno, sea operativo y real en este mundo, como lo es en el cielo.  Va a la cruz vagamente consciente del poder del sacrificio en el que está a punto de convertirse, el sacrificio del que habló en la Última Cena.  Pero también tiene que luchar con la idea de que puede estar equivocado o, peor aún, totalmente engañado (cf., N.T. Wright, Jesus: The Victory of God, 1996, p. 606).

En la tercera semana de los Ejercicios Espirituales, San Ignacio nos hace contemplar los últimos días de Jesús, hora a hora, momento a momento.  Con nuestra imaginación agraciada estamos allí mientras Jesús levanta el pan y el vino.  Vemos cómo los latigazos desgarran su carne.  Oímos cómo el martillo le clava los clavos en las manos y los pies.  Oímos sus últimas palabras mientras grita las primeras palabras del Salmo 22: "Dios mío, Dios mío, ¿por qué me has abandonado?".  Nos damos cuenta de que perdona a los que le hicieron esto, porque "no saben lo que hacen".  Entrega su espíritu y muere.

No nos precipitemos hacia la resurrección.  No hay resurrección sin cruz.  Seguimos a un Dios crucificado.  Debemos hacer una pausa y darnos cuenta de lo tremendo, impresionante y extraño de esto.  Nuestro Dios fue asesinado.  Fue torturado.  Su cruz se convierte en la fuente de nuestra esperanza, nuestra salvación, nuestro camino hacia la vida y la vida eterna.  Te adoramos, oh Cristo, y te bendecimos; Porque por tu Santa Cruz has redimido al mundo. 

Escucha "¿Estabas allí?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8h1d8M7y-4

La Paz,

P. Ricardo Malloy, S.J.

Sigamos Seguro.    Sigamos Sano.    Sigamos Sonriendo

Wernersville praised by New York Writer

A beautiful tribute to a place I've been lucky enough to spend a great deal of time, two years as a novice and, over the years, hundreds of days on retreat. Peace, Fr. Rick

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http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/travel/in-pennsylvania-a-quick-shot-of-peace-on-a-budget.html?emc=eta1

In Pennsylvania, a Quick Shot of Peace, on a Budget

By SUSAN GREGORY THOMAS December 29, 2011

LATE in November I arrived at the Jesuit Center in the reclusive hills of Wernersville, Pa., on a blindingly dark and stormy night to begin a silent five-day retreat. Such a scenario might have compelled someone more compos mentis to turn around. But that was the point. As a 43-year-old mother of three wrung out from three years of panic attacks triggered by the specter of financial ruin, I needed a solid period of quiet to recombobulate. Cheaply.

I am neither Catholic nor anything in particular, but I yearned for a snippet of the no-frills spiritual solitude. The Jesuits, I’d read, were the guys to go to concerning such matters. Indeed, to engage in periods of quiet contemplation with a full-stop break from everyday life was central to the philosophy of the Jesuit founder Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556). It still is. Today, some 200 Jesuits are engaged full time in directing spiritual retreats at more than 20 centers in the United States.

But there were other reasons I’d opted for the Jesuit Center in Wernserville over, say, a spa vacation, yoga retreat or vision quest. For one thing, the center advertised an Arcadian setting and drivable proximity from my home in Brooklyn. For another, the cost was $560 for five days, including room, board and a daily hourlong conversation with a spiritual director, who would escort me through Scripture-based prayer and meditation.

Moreover, the more luxe-sounding excursions I’d considered often seemed to involve a time commitment of a week or more, along with New Age locution that somehow did not sit right. A solo quest during which animal “spirit guides” could conceivably rip out my pancreas after the sweat lodge? No.

But while I’d had the notion that it would be tough to keep quiet for five days, I realized, on arrival, that I had not developed a textured sense of what I was getting into. The facility itself, an English Renaissance-style building constructed in the late 1920s, was gigantic and dark — attributes intensified by the resident Jesuits’ ubiquitously posted wish to keep the light bills low. Fantasies of sequestered holy men tending to herb gardens and homemade beer stills were combusted by industrial platters of green beans and pigs-in-blankets provided by Sodexo, the integrated food and facilities management services behemoth.

But there was also an ineffable sphinxiness about the place. For example, I got there an hour and a half late the first night, and there was no one to tell me where to go or what I should be doing. The only signpost was a list of names and room numbers tacked to a corkboard, so I found mine and rollerbagged down the building’s spooky, caliginous hallways until I tracked down my assigned spot. I creaked open the lockless door and found a jumbo crucifix resting on the bed pillow. If Stanley Kubrick had found this place, he’d never have shot a movie anywhere else.

And there were crucifixes everywhere. It’s a Jesuit center. But as someone not only dimwitted enough not to have anticipated a lot of crucifixes at a Jesuit center, but one also whose main visual encounter with crucifixes was watching “The Exorcist,” I found it surprisingly tricky at first to suppress the feeling that blood was going to start gushing down the walls. This was not an apprehension my fellow retreatants appeared to share. Mostly women my mother’s age or older, and to my eye, clearly devout and knowledgeable, they were not talk spoilers. In fact virtually no one made eye contact.

But by the end of my five days, I’d come to see my room as my sanctum sanctorum. I would regard crucifixes as heralds of human suffering and spiritual light. And I’d come to feel a strange closeness with my silent companions. All this was chaperoned by my spiritual director, Sister Barbara Singer.

I met Sister Barbara at 1:15 p.m. my first full day in a tiny, sunlit office on the building’s third floor. An upbeat grandmotherly woman with a plumose crown of lovely white hair, Sister Barbara calmly invited me to sit down across from her and asked me to tell her what had brought me there.

I told her about my stress-related illnesses, which had hospitalized me twice earlier that year; about my sparkly-minded children; about watching my Lear-like father die in front of me; about my divorce, subsequent remarriage and unexpected conception of my son; about my dip into poverty; my husband’s unemployment; my darkest fears; of aloneness.

Sister Barbara listened closely and then said, “What I hear you saying, Susan, is that you feel forsaken.”

Not dealing with abandonment issues: forsaken. Sister Barbara did not then press me to process my relationship with, say, my mother or to consider that I should “own” my feelings.

Rather, she opened her Bible and turned to Matthew 3:17. This is the verse in which Jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, and God opens the heavens and says, “This is my son, the beloved; my favor rests on him.” Sister Barbara read the passage and closed the book. How would it be, she asked, to personalize this passage — to pray with the words, “You are my beloved daughter, Susie; my favor rests on you”? How would it feel to know that God loves you as you love your own children? And then I wept and, finally, cleared my throat. It would feel pretty good. Sister Barbara advised me to go outside, walk, and pray with this. “See you tomorrow at 1:15, and we’ll see what God says,” she said and then chortled.

I followed her suggestion. I brought a pack of cigarettes, Thomas Merton’s “Book of Hours,” and a paper cup of coffee with hazelnut nondairy creamer, and I walked. The grounds of the Jesuit Center in Wernersville number some 250 acres of Wyeth-esque country, replete with undulating hills; groves of shy trees; a pond that’s home to monster koi; a cemetery. Benches positioned perfectly for quiet contemplation appeared providentially every so often.

I sat on one of these at the top of a hill, closed my eyes and sat. I don’t know how long I was there, not meditating “on the breath” or deliberately clearing my mind, but simply internally rolling over the words of my custom-tailored Matthew 3:17. Slowly, though, I grew to feel still and happy.

Later that night, I peeked into the center’s adytum, a dark and lovely stone chapel whose altar glowed with candlelight. I approached a pew and knelt. I thought about my closest family and friends and how Matthew 3:17 might be custom-fit for them, too. Again, time evaporated. That night, I slept 12 hours straight. I hadn’t slept half that much in more than a decade.

But by the third day, I was antsy. How were my children doing? What e-mails was I missing about that cable show and screenplay I was supposed to be working on? I was in the midst of selling my house in Brooklyn and closing on a place in Philadelphia. Were real estate agents going ballistic trying to track me down? How was any of this going to get done?

It had been a bitter morning, so instead of walking outside, I ducked into the center’s craftsy Art Room and busied myself with assembling a collage from magazine cutouts like a psych ward patient, I scoffed. I arrived at my appointed meeting time with my handiwork. “Oh, you made a collage!” Sister Barbara chirped, before turning to Exodus 36:4-7. It was a description of Moses and crew building the sanctuary, as instructed by God. All the volunteers were stuffing the place silly with offerings, causing the construction workers to complain to Moses: “The people are bringing way too much material for doing the work that the LORD has commanded us to do.” Moses agreed. “So the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more.”

HAD I considered, Sister Barbara wondered aloud, that perhaps I already had enough to do all my work? I doubted it. “Ah, that’s the whole ball of wax, isn’t it?” Sister Barbara said. “To believe, with all your heart: to know.” Then, she asked the startling: Did I believe in Jesus? Sure, I did; in fact, as a punky, truant teenager, I had believed that Jesus was the greatest anti-establishment radical of all time. Sister Barbara laughed and clapped her hands: “Great — so you can relate!” she said. She exhorted me to talk, pray to Jesus directly, with the Scripture from Exodus in mind. “Just see what comes to you.”

That afternoon, I ventured into the chapel again and stayed a long time. It would be awkward to report on what I experienced there; possibly, implausible. Suffice it to say, I left with the strong feeling that I did, indeed, have everything I needed — if only I would stay quiet long enough to remember.

I left the Jesuit Center on a clear, icy night, turning on my cellphone just in time to receive a call from my husband hollering that he and a fellow he’d hired needed to be picked up at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, followed by a call from my daughters’ father saying that financial aid applications needed to be completed by the next day, latest. Seven voice mails and 108 e-mails left. O.K. For now, at least, I had more than enough to do all the work, and more.

Prayer is a Risk

Published this a few years ago and came across it in my files. Thought some would enjoy it. Peace, Rick

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Prayer is a Risk

Rick Malloy, S.J.

(Printed in Review for Religious, Vol. 66 #2. 2007)

Are We Praying? When I was a Jesuit novice, I remember a community meeting during which someone asked our Provincial about the biggest problem he faced. His blunt and honest answer startled me: “Jesuits not praying.” As novices, our lives were structured in such a way that not praying was impossible. Still, once out of the structured life of the novitiate, I have learned, painfully at times, that the demands of the apostolic works can too easily crowd out the time set aside for prayer (although I always seem to find the ten minutes to catch Jay Leno’s monologue…). Why is it so difficult to engage in the demanding practice of deep and transformative contemplative prayer?

What is prayer? We know that many people pray, that prayer is something we as Catholic Christians ought to do, and we hear that prayer can change things. But many of us feel conflicted and confused when we go to pray. Does God really respond to our prayers? Does God really listen to, or care about, what we say? If we prayed some other way, or prayed more regularly and faithfully, would we be better people? Can our praying make the world a better place? In our age, which tends to elevate activism to ethereal heights, wouldn’t our time be better spent serving the poor, or doing something for somebody in need? Wouldn’t God be interested more in our doing something “worthwhile” than in our sitting in silence, trying not to pay attention to the random thoughts rumbling endlessly around in our heads? And when we get right down to it, don’t we all sometimes ask ourselves, “Does prayer really work? Does prayer really do anything?”

The way to move forward and avoid getting stuck in the spiritual whirlpool such questions generate is to realize that prayer is a risk. There is no science of prayer. Just as you cannot prove scientifically the worth or effects of real love, the day in and day out loving and caring and living with other persons, you cannot prove the worth of prayer, the day in and day out practice of paying attention to God. If we could scientifically prove prayer’s value, it wouldn’t be prayer. Prayer is a risk because prayer is a lifelong, life changing, act of faith. The word “believe” comes from the Geman belieben, meaning “to belove.” Prayer is all about the risks involved in loving.

Much of our reluctance and resistance to risk prayer is rooted in our fear of God’s really responding to us. On one hand, we fear God won’t take us seriously. On the other hand, we are quite afraid that God will take us very seriously, as seriously as we take ourselves and our loved ones. Prayer is a risk because the God who calls us to conversion and transformation takes us up on the invitation to get involved in our lives. And when that happens, the adventure begins.

To be Catholic is to be aware of one's involvement in a series of great transformations: the transformation of one's self over a lifetime into a person incorporated into the reality of God, the promise made to us all that we may “come to share in the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4. NAB). Our personal transformations are part of larger cosmic processes: the promised transformation of all human history and all creation (Rom 8:21) into the coming Kingdom of God, wherein God will be “all in all” (I Cor 15:28). Right at the beginning of Lumen Gentium, the great document of Vatican II that describes what the Church is and ought to be, we are told what Catholicism is all about. God's plan is “to dignify men and women with a participation in His own divine life” (Lumen Gentium, 2). This isn't some radical, unorthodox, crazy, Jesuit spin on spirituality. Back in the early days of the church St. Athanasius said the same thing I'm saying here: “For the Son of God became Man so that we might become God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #460). Prayer makes us aware of, and committed, to this transformation in Christ. The risk comes in refusing to cooperate in the offered transformations. There’s also risk in the yielding to the transformation, the freely accepting who and what God is making of us and our lives.

Prayer is Relational: All prayer is relational. By praying, we relate to God, our God who loves us passionately, consistently, challengingly. When we truly relate to one we love, especially when that one is Jesus, we may be called to change. The parent who loves a child suffering from cystic fibrosis changes in many ways. The son or daughter loving an aging mother or father makes many unexpected life changes. Such changes always call us to deeper, more active love. Knowing that extreme poverty in Africa can be alleviated, changes one who prays about it. Witness Bono and the ONE campaign to eradicate extreme poverty (www.one.org). When we pray we risk changing and being changed. Prayer may make us know that we need to change. Prayer may make us able to change things, from addictions to relationships to social problems. Prayer may make us willing and able to do something for God and others we never imagined doing.

Prayer is relational because we relate to God on both personal and communal levels of reality. We never pray alone. Always, and in all ways, you/we and someone else are praying. As soon as we try to pray, God takes us up on the offer. Prayer is not a competition, or a "goal" oriented activity. To pray is to already have "won." Prayer is much more like making love, or hitting a baseball, or learning to play a musical instrument (sometimes loudly and badly!), then it is like getting a promotion, or achieving a goal, or mastering a skill. Prayer is more like floating on water, than paddling stridently to get somewhere. Prayer is more “Letting Go” than “Holding On.” Prayer is a journey wherein we're simply “being there” while somewhat paradoxically always being “on the road.” Prayer is allowing our lives to be harmonized. Prayer is getting our lives and loves in order, and prayer is inviting God's ordering of our loves and lives.

We are all being divinized. Pray-ers know this truth. To be aware of and cooperate with divinization takes work. Real prayer is work, i.e., disciplined spirituality, as is Catholicism. We need to recognize that consolation is not always comfortable, and desolation is not always disagreeable. Being disciplined about prayer is essential if we want to see the benefits of prayer, just as regular physical exercise is necessary to get and keep our bodies in shape. The more in shape we are spiritually, the more we are likely to realize and recognize God in our lives. Prayer is the effort to consciously experience God. Praying is consciously paying attention to the central relationships of our lives, our relationship with ourselves, others and God. Our relationship with God is the one that makes all these other relationships possible. Prayer is focusing conscious attention on out relationship with God, and finding the whispers of God’s presence in the relationships of our lives. We speak to God in prayer and the word God speaks back is our life.

Prayer is paying attention to what is really real. Prayer isn’t just finding God in all things. It’s more than that. Prayer is seeking God in all realities, realities that were, are, and are to come. The awareness of God and the processes of divinization in our hearts and minds is evident in how we make choices.

On a moral level, prayer leads us to wisdom and correct choosing. When I was a little kid, in wintertime, my mother used to dress us up in those bulky, blue snowsuits that made us look like midget Michelin men. She’d let me and my siblings out along with the dog. As soon as I’d run out to play in the snow, I’d reach down and grab a mitten full of the cold, delicious snow and begin to eat. My mom would yell, “Ricky, don’t eat the yellow snow!” Prayer is learning what is, and is not, “yellow snow.” What is not good for us is whatever frustrates and foils our transformation in Christ. For serious pray-ers, life becomes a series of exercises wherein we discern what we truly and deeply desire. Such holy desires reveal God’s will for us, and prayer mediates the grace that helps us choose what we deeply desire and thus make the right choices.

Prayer, practiced regularly and faithfully, can become a centering fulcrum of our daily lives, keeping us on plan and focused. Prayer, even engaged in sporadically and frenetically, is valuable. Annie Lamott, one of the most refreshing if iconoclastic contemporary writers on prayer, says the two best prayers are “Thank You” and “Help.”

How to Pray: Prayer doesn’t have to be elaborate to function as a current carrying us through life to life eternal. There are many methods of praying: prayers of petition (probably the most common form of prayer), daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours; daily spiritual reading; systematically and slowly working one’s way through various books of the Bible; taking some time during the week to read through the readings for the upcoming Sunday; the Rosary; Eucharistic adoration; the utterly simple practice of Centering prayer. These are all valid methods of praying. Prayer groups are helpful for many people. The main thing is to choose freely a method you find agreeable. No one stays with a prayer practice they find tedious and frustrating. Experiment with unconventional methods that utilize and stimulate the imagination: See a movie with Jesus; write someone a letter while in prayer mode; create a dialogue with the Holy Spirit, draw pictures for God. The imagination is the arena wherein we can often most powerfully experience God. Ignatian contemplation of Gospel scenes is a tried and true example of using our graced imagination in prayer.

Prayer Guides: Many have traversed the paths through the forest of prayer. Don’t feel you have to reinvent the wheel. For the beginner, Jesuit Mark Thibodeaux’s Armchair Mystic is a great starter book. Pushing Jesuit works on prayer may seem too much like I’m pushing the family business, but anyone who knows about free and freeing spirituality will agree that anything by Tony DeMello, S.J., is worth reading and pondering. Franciscan Richard Rohr’s amazingly brief and deceptively simple Everything Belongs is the best book I’ve ever read on prayer. Rohr orients the 21^st century person to what prayer is and can be. The Cloud of Unknowing is a classic on prayer, and is the inspiration for the contemporary Trappist method of Centering Prayer. Annie Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, is a wild zany take on everything from prayer to writing to parenting to eating disorders. Kurtz and Ketchem’s The Spirituality of Imperfection is a real jewel. There are many more good books one can read. Magazines like America and Commonweal are an excellent sources and guide for spiritual reading. The internet, where so many young adults spend their reading time, offers great sites like the Irish Jesuits' "Sacred Space" (http://www.sacredspace.ie ) to orient one to prayer.

What Does Prayer Do? Ultimately the practice of real and consistent prayer changes our desires. When we find ourselves wanting what God wants we are in right relationship with God, and that is the experience of justice on the personal level. Prayer practiced over time will lead us through the processes the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius aim to elicit: prayer will free us from, free us for and free us to be with. Free from all that frustrates our transformation in Christ, from addictions to personality faults. Free for service and the righting of relationships on many levels, which ultimately is the work of constructing social justice for all. Free to be with God as the Holy Spirit works our transformation in Christ, thus actualizing our freely being our deepest, truest selves in relation with others. Real prayer is much more about deep transformation and everyday mysticism than it is magic and cheap grace.

Prayer doesn’t do anything if we don’t pray. I go to the gym three times a week, once a year. The results, or lack thereof, are rather predictable. Regular, consistent, committed prayer is worth the effort, but we’ll never know it until you do it. Go ahead. Take the risk. Then we can authentically urge others to follow our example.