This essay by Sister Ilio Delio, OSF resonates for me. We have entered a new age that has been thrust upon us. The cry of various religious leaders to forego social distancing to meet as we once did invites a further spread of the pandemic. Last night my cousin asked if I had received communion while attending a celebration of the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper which was broadcast on YouTube Live. Ilia invites us to envision an Internet Easter.
“I think internet religion may be a sign of a new religious consciousness on the horizon. It is not the same as the old religion; it can lack the warmth of the smells and bells and friendly neighbors squeezing their way into the pew. And yet, online I can attend different liturgies around the world, I can explore different religious traditions, I can hear prayers and participate in rituals I would never otherwise venture to discover. ” — Ilia Delio
This year is very different from any in my memory. For most of the last twenty years I have celebrated the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper at Mount Irenaeus along with several dozen or more people who came for dinner and stayed for the liturgy. However different tonight’s liturgy was, it is still one of my favorites of the church year. Fr. Peter Schneible, OFM and Dr. Paula Scraba, OFS provided us with the best remote liturgy we could expect during this unusual time of quarantine. I appreciated how the liturgy ended with Tantum Ergo Sacramentum which announces the period of veneration of the Eucharist that follows the Eucharistic celebration on this special night of the church year. Thank you to University Ministries at St. Bonaventure for providing a live stream of the liturgy tonight. You can watch the entire liturgy on their YouTube channel.
Almost everyday for much of my life I’ve had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my lunch. It’s a taste I acquired in elementary school at St. Pius X in Delevan, New York. Back then the bread was white and the jelly was almost always grape. Later in life while working at Franklinville Central School my coworkers marvelled at the lack of diversity in my lunch choices. While they enjoyed ham and cheese, egg salad and other choices I had PB&J. The choice of bread varied and the brand varied from time to time but my favorite brand since childhood has remained Monks Bread. Abbey of the Genesee in Piffard, New York is about an hour’s drive from where i live and when we are no longer social distancing it will be one of my first visits. The Abbey was established in 1951 and one of the early Trappist brothers was a former US Navy baker. He began making bread for the community and in time they decided to marked the bread to stores in the area. As a boy I remember they had three flavors. White, wheat and cinnamon raisin.
My first visit to the monastery was in January 1979 and I’ve been returning ever since. My last visit was March 9 of this year. Today I ordered three loaves of Monks bread for my lunch meals. My favorite is sunflower but I also like multigrain and wheat. The monks make a number of other flavors and in recent years have begun to make biscotti in a number of different flavors. My favorite biscotti is dark chocolate. Though I cannot go there whenever I open the package of bread for lunch the aroma reminds me of the monastery and its prayerful presence. If you’ve never been there I encourage you to visit when its okay to visit people again. You won’t be disappointed.
Today my alma mater, St. Bonaventure University live streamed Palm Sunday Services. In the midst of this pandemic Fr. Ross Chamberland, OFM and Alice Miller Nation of University Ministries provide us with the liturgy.
This is an article I wrote last month about my friend Br. Joseph Kotula OFM and his work on the southern border of the United States with immigrants and displaced people. It’s a story that isn’t told often enough in the the press.
Tomorrow Pope Francis is calling on people everywhere to join him in prayer at 6:00 PM which is 12:00 noon in the Eastern United States. Like his prayer on Wednesday morning of this week the focus is on the Coronavirus pandemic. Wednesday morning I happened to wake up just three minutes before 6:00 AM and was able to join in. One of my friends pointed out that being on time wasn’t as important as bathing the world in prayer.
Today I read that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in her meeting with the Senate Majority Leader and the Treasury Secretary had offered a prayer based on one shared by Pope Francis. The Treasury Secretary is reported to have stated, “you have quoted Pope Francis, I will quote the Markets.” The tone struck me as cold and out of touch with the reality. There are 8 billion people on the earth and approximately three-hundred-thirty million here in the United States. Even if the stock market performs exceptionally well hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions will die of this pandemic.
Giving every American $1200 doesn’t amount to fart in a whirlwind. That’s one or two month’s mortgage or rent. Last week 3 million Americans filed for unemployment. Our hospitals need equipment. Our healthcare system is melting down and the secretary is praying for the markets. There is money in the agreement for hospital funding but with many Americans who have no health care coverage that’s moot. Worshiping the golden calf of the stock market is short sighted.
Tomorrow Pope Francis invites us to pray for the world. I’m joining this effort and maybe you will too. There is no hope that without divine intervention millions will perish in this pandemic. Can a mass prayer avert catastrophe? Is it worth trying? I think so. The pope will be praying at noon at the Vatican. That’s 6:00 AM EDT. You can follow the Pope on Twitter.
It’s Sunday night and we’ve just finished dinner. The sun is beginning to set in the west. It was a beautiful day despite the pandemic and fear that grips the world around us. I’m listening to Taize. If you’re not familiar Taize is a Christian ecumenical community founded in France in 1940 during the second world war. I never experienced it until I began to attend liturgies at Mount Irenaeus twenty years ago. I came to the Mountain as we call it searching for a deeper experience of God. I found it there and along with it the understanding that I’m a contemplative. From the time I was quite young I was attracted to this quiet experience of the almighty. Traditional church services always left me cold. But at the Mountain I found a community of believers who were drawn to a deeper mystical experience of creation.
One of my favorite Taize prayers is Laudate Dominum which is drawn from the Psalm 117. “Laudate omnes gentes, laudate Dominum.” Translated that is, “Sing praises, all you peoples, sing praises to the Lord.” The Franciscans of Mount Irenaeus found it unnecessary to define what the Lord is for me or for anyone else. They are Roman Catholic friars but realize that each of us senses the spark of the divine differently. That’s very Franciscan.
By God’s power, presence, and essence, God is the One whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. God exists uncircumscribed in everything. God is, therefore, all inclusive. God is the essence of everything. God is most perfect and immense: within all things, but not enclosed; outside all things, but not excluded; above all things, but not aloof; below all things, but not debased. Finally, therefore, this God is all in all…. Consequently, from him, through him and in him, all things exist.”
— St. Bonaventure
As the evening descends on this day may you enjoy the peace that surpasses all understanding while listening to this selection from Taize.
Reading on the internet tonight led me to Ireland and Sister Maud Murphy, SSL who has written a timely poem about the Coronavirus. She’s hit the nail on the head. It’s a theme I have thought of often this week as I’ve listened to politicians posture about how this virus is the fault of a particular geographic area of our world. The virus comes not from a particular place but from a lifestyle of over consumption. Our failure to live simply so that others could simply live has caught up with us. Now we face a reckoning of our own creation. It’s payback time and as an old friend once said, “payback’s a bitch.”
We were warned by Rachel Carson nearly sixty years ago when she published “Silent Spring.” Al Gore published Inconvenient Truth in 2006 and it was dismissed as too political. Politicians and pundits laughed and said there was no way we could afford to change our ways. It was not economically feasible they said. In 2015 Pope Francis released Laudate Si and again the politicians and pundits dismissed it. It was economically not feasible and some said the pope should tend to matters of the church because the climate and the economy were not his business. Last year Greta Thunberg warned us just as the prophets of old that our time was running out. She was dismissed as all the prophets have always been. They said she was crazy. Some folks said that Greta had anger management issues. The Green New Deal was dismissed out of hand by those who worshipped the golden calf of the stock market and economy.
Now the planet has spoken and she has our attention. Sister Maud Murphy has written a poignant poem that captures the irony of our dilemma. The stock market is plummeting and the economy is tanking. We are forced to keep our distance from neighbors. Businesses are shuttered. Maybe there is a silver lining in Coronavirus. Maybe we’ll emerge transformed. Maybe.
We were flying to the Moon We were finding life on Mars We were dropping bombs with drones We were getting bigger cars. We were building finer homes Flying out to warmer lands We were busy buying clothes We were brushing up our tans. We were throwing out good food While we watched the starving poor We kept burning fossil fuels And our air became less pure. We were warned by our Pope Need to mind our Common Home Need to watch our Carbon Footprint Try to save our world from doom. – Sister Maud Murphy, SSL
Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus I’ve been wondering about its connection to climate change. I hadn’t seen anything in the news at all about any connection. It was just one of my private thoughts until yesterday when I happened to be looking at TED talks. I just happened to select a talk given recently at Southern Methodist University by Alanna Shaikh . Until yesterday I’d never heard of her but what she shared in her twenty minute talk was absolutely breathtaking and confirmed for me that Covid-19 is indeed connected to how we have been taking care of our common home.
When Pope Francis and others have spoken about the need to address climate change and income inequality they’ve been shouted down by those who said we cannot afford the economic strain that such efforts would entail. It seems that Mother Earth is refuting that madness in a way that only she could. Reflecting on the words of Pope Francis its becoming clearer that we have sinned and that we are paying dearly for those sins.
“The earth now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters. – Pope Francis
