|
Spring 2012
Some say that public speaking is an art of keeping a distance from one’s listeners. A good orator, like a trained fencer, is able to close the distance or widen it, according to the need.
Sometimes we enjoy keeping others at distance. It gives us some sense of security. It provides us with personal space: a cotton wool shell that may help protecting our identity but which may also serve as a weapon.
In the Acts of the Apostles the suspicion of the early Christians in Jerusalem towards Saul is treated as perfectly understandable. After all, here we have someone who persecuted the early Church, who, only shortly earlier, was persecuting them and who approved of the killing of Stephen, one of their number. But now, after his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus where he encountered the Risen Christ, he declares himself to be a member of the Church.
Before El Salvador, I had already traveled to Latin America and knew about the poverty, the terrible presidents, and the machismo that ruled the region. I went prepared to learn about the issues that plague Latin America and Central America as a whole, but I wanted to experience it with my peers, who I now call my friends, and take the time to reflect in order to transform my faith. It’s true that the main goal of the trip was to learn more about the Catholic Church’s role in El Salvador during the civil war, but I, personally, learned much more.
I come from a sheltered background. Growing up, I had never known gang violence, heard of friends being threatened and murdered, or experienced poverty. My upper-middle class suburban neighborhood has neither metal gates nor razor sharp barbed wire surrounding homes for security. I had many reasons not to go to El Salvador. I am an engineering major with career plans in the U.S. and with limited Spanish speaking abilities. This trip would mean leaving the familiarity of America and confronting a poor, non-English speaking region of the world for the first time.
My state of mind when I left the dorm in the dark hours of the morning to board an SFO-bound Super Shuttle was mostly that of an exhausted post-final haze. Even in my more awake hours on the long flight to El Salvador, I couldn’t have really said what my expectations of this country would be. It was my first time to El Salvador, my first time to Latin America, and the first time I had chosen not to go home on a Stanford break.
Why did Mary Magdalene visit the tomb of Christ? Was it simply an act of sight-seeing? St John doesn’t tell us, and St Matthew does tell us that ‘Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb’, but the other two Gospels add the detail that the women went to anoint the body of Jesus, taking the first opportunity to do so once the Sabbath was ended.
A busy shopping street in London, Berlin, New York or any other big city can show us how much freedom in fact we have. Chains of similar looking departments stores offer us a similar assortment of similar artefacts. ‘Globalisation’, some say, and tut. ‘We are spoiled for choice’ say others and they are content.
Winter 2012
John’s Gospel is building to a show-down. You can feel the rising tension. The Pharisees are watching for an opportunity to attack Jesus. And as they complain in the verse immediately preceding our passage, Jesus is increasingly the focus of wider attention: ‘the world has come after him’. At Cana, at the outset of his public ministry, Jesus told his Mother that his ‘hour’ had not yet come. Now, he tells us, it is here.
Matthew 25:40 is one of my favorite verses because it reminds me how everyone deserves equal love. While Catholicism has certainly shaped me, I think the desire to serve is inherently human; Social Justice is an important concept that goes across all ethnicities, religions, ages, and sociioeconomic status. I enjoy volunteering with SPOON because volunteering is like excercising--actively doing something is the best way to keep yourself strongly connected to the community, and the more you do it, the more natural and intergrated it becomes in your life.
Last spring, I traveled with the other students to learn about the events of the civil war that tore apart the country of El Salvador from 1980-1992. I came in expecting a rote lesson in the history of the war and the role of the church during this time. What I unexpectedly departed with was a memory of a tragedy that changed the direction of my life.
You’ve heard us talk about our Alternative Spring Break trip to El Salvador for weeks now. A couple of times, people have asked me why I wanted to go back. The answer is obvious: For the privilege.
When the topic of stewardship comes up, most people think of giving of themselves: their time, their talent and their treasure. It touches every aspect of our lives. But how much does it really touch our lives? An oft-cited adage is that we spend our personal resources on what we consider a priority in our life.
The local football team from my part of Fife, Dunfermline Athletic, are nick-named ‘The Pars’, supposedly short for paralytic, from a period in the past when their fortunes were at a very low ebb. The paralytic in today’s gospel story was unable to do anything for himself. He is carried on a stretcher by four men who strip the roof above Jesus and lower the paralytic before him.
Most of us live somewhere in-between. The in-between can be a place of hope, where we are held in the promises of Jesus Christ, or a place of despair, where we neither belong nor are strangers. There is the despair of night where we are plunged into darkness, but there is also the despair that hovers somewhere just out of sight, forming the frame which encloses our lives.
Dear Friends,
I write to you concerning an alarming and serious matter that negatively impacts the Church in the United States directly, and that strikes at the fundamental right to religious liberty for all citizens of any faith. The federal government, which we profess to be “of, by, and for the people,” has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those people—the Catholic population of the United States—and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic Church.
In the Gospel, Mark gives us an account of Jesus teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. Mark does not tell us what Jesus teaches, but does tell us that he does so with authority. Not entirely surprising, because Mark is often more concerned with what Jesus does rather than with what he says. What was important for Mark here was not so much what Jesus actually taught, but that he did it with authority. Apparently, Jesus made a deep impression on those in the synagogue, because, unlike the scribes, he taught them with authority.
‘Let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it’.
Walking around a university campus during ‘Freshers’ Week’ I was approached by a group of students who asked me if I was a priest. Replying in the affirmative, they provided me with one of their leaflets and invited me to open my mind.
One of the good things about travelling is that it both dislocates and disconcerts us. The unique combination of stress, boredom and expectation can reduce us to nervous wrecks but also open us to experiencing the world afresh. Not only do we travel to see ‘new things’, but by travelling we sometimes end up seeing things anew. Even things that we thought were familiar, we can see them as if for the first time when we return home, or when we think about them from far away.
Fall 2011
Everyone seems to have an opinion on ‘What Would Jesus Do’, the catchphrase of our times. In contrast, Catholicism is not about what we can do for God; it is about what Jesus does for us. It is not about wondering ‘What Would Jesus Do’ in this or that situation. Catholicism is the affirmation of what Jesus did do: he founded the Catholic Church, he sent her the Holy Spirit, he established her on Peter and the apostles, he promised that the Gates of Hell would never prevail against her.
St John’s Gospel is very clear about the divine identity of Christ. The prologue to the Gospel, a small part of which we read today, speaks of him as the Word which was in the beginning with God and which is God. Jesus himself repeatedly uses the phrase ‘I am’, echoing the divine name revealed to Moses in the burning bush.
I am given to understand that sleep deprivation is one of the records which is no longer supported by the Guinness Book of Records, for reasons of health: the previously listed world record holder lasted for eleven days without sleep, but suffered from problems with concentration, memory, paranoia and hallucinations.
At its heart, the Eucharist is a sacrament of communion, bringing us closer to God and to our brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ. If we live the fruits of the Eucharist in our daily lives, we will fill our families and our communities with the life-giving qualities that the Liturgy brings: hospitality, concern for the poor and vulnerable, self-offering, and thanksgiving.
The celebration of Mass is an act of the whole assembly gathered for worship. In the Mass, the Church is joined to the action of Christ. We are joined to this divine action through Baptism, which incorporates us into the risen Christ. This action, which lies at “the center of the whole of Christian life” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal [GIRM], no. 16), is initiated not by us but by God acting in and through the Church as the Body of the risen Christ.
Some of the words used in the new translation of the Mass may be unfamiliar to some Catholics. The following list of definitions may help to increase your understanding of the rich theology that underlies these texts.
Abasement:
The lowering of one of higher rank. Jesus abased himself in that, though he was God, he lowered himself and became a human being so that he might save us from our sins (see Phil 2:6-11).
Adoption:
Parts of the Mass
The Mass follows a “fundamental structure which has been preserved throughout the centuries down to our own day” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1346). Though the Mass is one unified act of worship, it consists of many parts, each with its own purpose and meaning. The entries in this article follow the order in which the parts occur in the Mass.
Introductory Rites:
It is clear that Sacred Scripture has a revered and important place in the Eucharistic Liturgy. Every Mass includes a Liturgy of the Word. The main elements of the Liturgy of the Word are biblical readings and the singing of a psalm. The Liturgy of the Word reaches its high point in the proclamation of the Gospel.
1. Why is there a need for a new translation?
For many people, change does not come easy. Change requires us to stop doing things a certain way in order to do something else. Many people find comfort in familiar routines and known ways of acting. Change interrupts those familiar routines. But change is also an opportunity to stop and reflect on what we are doing and to come to a better understanding of God, who does not change.
Why does the Church change the Liturgy?
On Sunday, we gather as the Body of Christ to celebrate the Lord’s Day, the day of Christ’s Resurrection:
Dear New Stanford Students:
Welcome to Stanford! We, the Catholic Community at Stanford, are glad you’re here. We’ve been preparing for your arrival and will do our best to help you feel at home. You’ve been through orientations to help you navigate your way around campus. Catholic life at Stanford may resemble what you’ve been accustomed to in other places; in some ways it will be different. Here are a few things it may help you to know.
Summer 2011
Each year Americans celebrate Labor Day as a national holiday to honor working people. This year, however, is less a time for celebration and more a time for reflection and action on current economic turmoil and hardships experienced by workers and their families. For Catholics, it is also an opportunity to recall the traditional teaching of the Church on dignity of work and the rights of workers.
Each year Americans celebrate Labor Day as a national holiday to honor working people. This year, however, is less a time for celebration and more a time for reflection and action on current economic turmoil and hardships experienced by workers and their families. For Catholics, it is also an opportunity to recall the traditional teaching of the Church on dignity of work and the rights of workers.
Each year Americans celebrate Labor Day as a national holiday to honor working people. This year, however, is less a time for celebration and more a time for reflection and action on current economic turmoil and hardships experienced by workers and their families. For Catholics, it is also an opportunity to recall the traditional teaching of the Church on dignity of work and the rights of workers.
Let me make this absolutely clear ... ‘absolutely clear’?
I realise that as soon as you read this opening line, there is a risk that you will stop reading any further! Whenever I myself hear this phrase used (and we seem to hear it more and more often these days from those who wish us to believe what they tell us) I become immediately suspicious that the resulting obfuscation with which we are about to be presented will have exactly the opposite effect, making everything we hear absolutely unclear!
Last Friday evening I watched as a group of young pilgrims gathered at St Dominic’s Priory in London. The pilgrims had come together from across the country to travel with a group of Dominicans to Madrid for World Youth Day. Similar scenes will be repeated across Europe and further afield as well: more than a million pilgrims are expected to converge on Madrid.
What we see in this Gospel is an occasion when Jesus seems to be very harsh – uninterested, even hostile to what seems like a perfectly reasonable request from this Canaanite woman. Right away it seems like Jesus is rejecting her because of who she is – a woman belonging to the people who were driven out of the land of Canaan by the people of Israel.
Elijah and Peter were servants of God and men of faith. In the Scriptures people of faith were often tested, in order to strengthen their faith. Elijah was a prophet of God, had been long in the service of God and was nearing the end of his ministry. His was the difficult task of prophesying in Israel in the time of King Ahab and his pagan queen, Jezebel.
God cares for everyone, indeed for everything, but not in the same way. Sometimes it can seem, however, that God does not care at all, though our needs can be desperate and pressing. The main thing to believe when God’s care for us becomes puzzling is that it is our understanding is limited, not his love.
Some of Jesus’ parables tell us exactly how much his wisdom is worth and what it costs, what it costs us. He tells of a merchant looking for fine pearls. The meaning of the pearl might have been obvious even to Jesus’ disciples, who often got things wrong. Job had said that the price of wisdom was beyond pearls. This parable is about the discovery of the most precious wisdom of all, the wisdom of Jesus that leads us to God.
What should we do about the weeds? That’s a problem facing every farmer and gardener -- a problem that Jesus uses in one of today’s Gospel parables. We’re told about the darnel growing in the midst of the crop sown by the farmer. Through this parable Jesus confronts a problem which besets the Kingdom of God in every age, including today’s.
We can get very pessimistic about the world, about the Church and about ourselves. One solution is not to be optimistic in the first place. One way of not being optimistic is to be cynical and bitter, to insist that every silver lining has a cloud, that human beings will always take the selfish option, that whatever comfort religion might bring, it doesn’t make a real difference in the world – except when it’s fanatical, and then it makes the world a horribly dangerous place.
What were these things the Father was hiding from the learned and the clever, the influential stalwarts of society? What were these same things the Father thought fit to reveal to little children – the insignificant ones? Why did Jesus bless the Father for this seemingly quirky discrimination?
We find in St Thomas Aquinas’s reflection on the Incarnation of Christ an interesting point: God did not have to redeem us by assuming human body. There are bound to be other ways in which God could have saved us. The humanity of Christ, then, becomes an especially significant instrument of our redemption.
Some Christians think that the doctrine of the Trinity is so baffling that it’s better to forget about it. Other recognise that it must be important in some way, but do not see how it could possibly be of any help to us in our daily lives as followers of Jesus Christ.
In my ministry over the last ten years as a bishop I have come to experience the gift of the Holy Spirit in a new way and immediate way.
Spring 2011
In some ways the feast of the Ascension seems a bit of a ‘Cinderella feast’. It is overshadowed by the two great feasts of Easter and Pentecost. As a result there is often a tendency to play down the Ascension even further, stressing that the Risen Christ and the Ascended Christ are the same and that the feasts are simply liturgical ways of saying the same thing. The trouble with this view is that it makes the Risen Christ too present, ubiquitous, embodied in the world of the here and now.
Christians are people of hope. That is one of our distinguishing marks. Perhaps we don’t normally think of ourselves like that. Others think of Catholics as people who do, or don’t do, certain things – like eating fish on Fridays, not having an abortion – or who believe, or don’t believe, certain things – like purgatory or venerating Our Lady. And that of course is true. But do we think of ourselves as people of hope? Are we noticeably hopeful people?
None of us would wish to be called a religious fundamentalist. Fundamentalists are inevitably violent – whether engaged in full-scale terrorism and extremist politics, or, on a more personal level, oppressing family, friends or co-religionists. Their refusal to integrate into society is a dangerous and expensive problem for everyone.
The Gospel from Saint John speaks of Our Lord not only as the Guide and Saviour in salvation, but more particularly of the unique condition of personal restoration to the true condition of man, that is ‘everyman’, which is a restoration of a condition once lost in a revolt against God of an historical pair of man and woman. This would seem to entail an equally historical condition of return.
Gospels come to life as we imagine ourselves taking part in them. In this Gospel, with the disciples walking on the road, we might picture ourselves represented, on our life’s journey.
It might even help, to think that they were a married couple. One, ‘Cleopas’, is named, and the other might be the ‘Mary of Cleopas’ mentioned as standing by the cross with Mary his mother. These followers of Jesus had seen him dead and buried, so vividly that they just couldn’t see him with them alive. He was a stranger they met.
Just as the bands that had shrouded him in death could not hold him, nor the stone seal the tomb, so now the locked doors, behind which the disciples cower, cannot bar the risen Christ. On the first day of a new week, he begins the new creation. The Spirit given out at the death of Jesus from the Cross is here breathed upon his disciples to free them from the old order of sin and its mortal cruelties. All lies open to him. He makes all things new.
This beautiful and moving poem by Denise Levertov, written in Lent 1988, carries us through the events of the Easter mystery. (Denise was on the Stanford faculty and a member of our community.) In the Orthodox tradition the Harrowing of Hell is depicted more frequently than the Resurrection itself.
The Paschal Triduum, begins during Holy Week, and consists of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. This includes the Great Easter Vigil, the high point of the Triduum. The word Triduum comes from the Latin word meaning “three days.” It begins the evening of Maundy Thursday and ends at Evening Prayer on Easter Sunday. The Triduum celebrates the heart of our faith, salvation, and redemption: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It’s an understatement to say that the trip to El Salvador was powerful. Two of our students return, offering their memories and reflections on their journey. Again, our host was John Guiliano, the Director of the Tamarindo Foundation, The Foundation is a public charity, committed to serving people in need in rural El Salvador, especially disadvantaged youth, with projects in education, health, recreation, micro-business and leadership formation. We hope you are inspired by Angelique’s and Amy’s reflections.
Lourdes and Father Isaiah took 2 grads and 6 undergrads to the heart of El Salvador over Spring Break. We travelled with John Guiliano, the Director of the Tamarindo Foundation, to track how the church aided and was affected by the civil war which devastated the country between 1980-1992. The Foundation is a public charity, committed to serving people in need in rural El Salvador, especially disadvantaged youth, with projects in education, health, recreation, micro-business and leadership formation. During our journey, we asked the students to offe
Winter 2011
...continued from last Sunday
3. Period of Purification and Enlightenment
This part of the process usually takes place during the season of Lent, about forty days before Easter. During this time, the elect, godparent, and Church community begin an intense discipline to prepare for the Easter celebration at which the elect will be baptized. This discipline includes intensified prayer, fasting, and works of charity and justice.
An overview of the Christian initiation process:
Becoming Catholic is a process. The Catholic Church has recently recovered and developed a process that some of the earliest Christians churches had used when people came to them asking to be baptized. The basic structure of this process looks like this:
1. Evangelization and Inquiry
Stanford has service on the brain. The very ethos of our institution is centered on giving back, on creating (in the words of Leland Stanford) “useful citizens,” equipped with the skills and knowledge to go forth and improve the world. The Farm can boast dozens of student organizations devoted to community service or political action, enthusiastic administrative support for service endeavors, and ever-growing numbers of alumni working for the public good.
The word Lent comes from the Old English lencten, the name for the season we now call spring. It referred to the lengthening of the days after the long winter. As new life is being re-created in nature the same is happening in our spiritual lives; we seek to renew our lives in Christ through self-examination, and prayer, through penitential practices such as fasting, and through almsgiving.
Writing against the background of czarist Russia, Leo Tolstoy’s last play makes for a difficult read. The unfinished work, The Light Shines In Darkness, owes not only its title but its principal themes to the Sermon on the Mount, the focus of our reflection at the Mass each Sunday for the last number of weeks.
Last weekend we hosted a grad student retreat at Hidden Villa in Los Altos. Our Theme was “Friends in High Places: deepening friendship with God.” There were twenty-eight people in attendance including our priests and campus minister. The 24 hour schedule was just the right amount of time to help our students have an experience of friendship with God and the community. The following is a reflection from initially reluctant retreatants:
A Reflection from Chris Kark
When the Second Vatican Council said that the “laity exercise their apostolate both in the Church and in the world in both the spiritual and temporal orders,” it was not thinking about secular educational institutions such as Stanford University, but it did envision an ideal program, one just like the ESTEEM program here at The Farm. For ESTEEM is a model of young Roman Catholic lay people taking responsibility for the church’s mission of bringing about the Kingdom “initially here on earth, fully on the last day.” Students in ESTEEEM use their competence
Early on Sunday mornings, the top floor of the Old Union Building becomes a magnet for many of our young families. Coming on to campus, you can see the “hurry up--let’s get there on time” activity drawing from all sides of the building. Most often we’re the only ones up and moving on campus at 9:00 a.m. on Sundays! The hustle and bustle is all because we’re trying to get to our very special religious education program. It’s worth the efforts of getting the kids up and out early!
I learned who I was in June of 2000. At the time I was a middle manager at an insurance company in the suburbs of Chicago and was searching for my purpose in life. With a bachelor’s degree in business administration, climbing the corporate ladder was where I thought I would find this purpose. I took a few steps up and realized I did not belong, but I spent the next few years pretending as if I did. It was a time of much frustration and soul searching. It became so intense that I looked for an opportunity to get away fr
“I still remember my first night of RCIA; I mistakenly wandered into an alcoholics anonymous meeting while searching for the annex and nearly abandoned my efforts when I met a group of three other students who asked if I knew where 1565 Stanford Avenue was. So, after much confusion we took the plunge and headed down a dark driveway to find Nancy awaiting our arrival. Everything went by so fast after that, Monday night meetings, various Rites, a couple quick trips to the cathedral in San Jose and Easter was upon us. But what did I learn? Do I have a closer relat
In the academic quarter just ended we have made a great deal of progress on the first initiative of our Strategic Plan for the Catholic Community at Stanford. I began to write this summary of that progress with the members of our Leadership and Finance Councils in mind, but as I wrote I began to think it may have a broader audience. I’ll use the following terse chronology of events to describe our progress. (The complete Strategic Plan can be found on our website, at: “About/ Who We Are”
Today we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. We recall the moment when Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry came to John the Baptist and asked to be baptised. The observance of this feast is both novel and very ancient, novel because it entered our calendar quite recently in 1955, and ancient because the baptism of Jesus (rather than the visit of the three kings) was the original theme of the Epiphany, and the Epiphany itself was a more ancient celebration than even Christmas.
One must admit that we succeed in giving this feast a rather silly sounding name, in English, with the stress on the second syllable. It’s not obvious to most of us what ‘Epiphany’ even means. Perhaps we would do better to imitate the Spanish and call it La Fiesta de Los tres Reyes Magos, the ‘Feast of the Three Magic Kings’.
Fall 2010
Angels we have heard on high,
Sweetly singing o’er the plains;
And the mountains in reply,
Echoing their joyous strains:
Glo–ria in excelsis Deo,
Glo–ria in excelsis Deo!
Come to Bethlehem and see,
Him whose birth the angels sing;
Come adore on bended knee,
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Glo–ria in excelsis Deo,
Glo–ria in excelsis Deo!
See Him in a manger laid,
Whom the choirs of angels praise;
St Joseph was a just man, upright. In the Jerusalem Bible translation he is said to be ‘a man of honour.’ And so when he discovered that Mary was pregnant, he decided to do the right thing. To protect his good name, he would divorce her, and to protect her name, he would do so quietly, without making a fuss. Reputations mattered to him.
‘Don’t think, but look!’
The Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, with this advice, was trying to get us to consider things as they are in each case and not as we think they should be or as we are used to them. When we inquire into reality, we should not presume we have understood simply through a previous suggestion or by what we expect to be the case. We must encounter things and see what is in front of us and not remain within our mind, thinking ‘this must be’ or ‘this can’t be’.
9. Finance & Governance
Objective: To support the mission and strategic goals of the CC@S, we will maintain oversight, fiduciary responsibility and governance that will ensure long-term growth and stability while using resources wisely and efficiently as possible.
Resources: CC@S Finance Committee and the Leadership Council
Tasks:
9.1 Develop annual financial plans that consider the critical balance of providing competitive compensation and structure for our employees.
Strategic Goal #4: Create a sustainable resource foundation to support core development and leadership programs.
6. University Relations and Other Partnerships
Objective: To establish and develop our strategic partners at Stanford and in the local community who will support our mutually shared vision and goals.
Resources: Little cost: current staff and students
Tasks:
Catholic Community at Stanford University
Five-Year Strategic Plan (2010-2014)
(continued from last Sunday)
Catholic Community at Stanford University
Five-Year Strategic Plan (2010-2014)
(continued from last Sunday)
Tasks:
1.1 Establish an 8-12 page detailed design for the Institute for a Catholic Theological Education by December, 2010. The design would include the following elements:
Catholic Community at Stanford University
Five-Year Strategic Plan (2010-2014)
(continued from last Sunday)
Nine Critical initiatives have been identified as vital to achieving these strategic goals. These goals will be achieved through development of specific programs and activities including:
1. Catholic Theological Education
Dear Friends of the Catholic Community at Stanford University:
Early in my tenure I sought the views of many among our community and recognized the need to develop a five-year strategic plan for the Catholic Community at Stanford University. The process was collaborative and exciting. After a year-long effort that included input from our varied constituencies, reflection on the mission and vision that guides our CC@S, and a detailed assessment of the various implications of alternative directions, the plan is now complete.
How are we to enter the prayerfulness of Jesus? How are we to enter this temple of his prayerfulness along with these two men in today’s Gospel?
In the readings this weekend we are given some insight into how our requests to God relate to time, our time and God’s time.
The beginning of an academic year encourages reflection on the community we have and the vision we have for the year. We are particularly blessed that the Catholic Community at Stanford is made up of so many diverse strands, each woven into the beautiful garment we call “Church”.
Like other parishes that serve college and university campuses, we have unique blessings and unique challenges:
(note: Ramblings repeats from last weekend because the Bulletins were mis-delivered)
Dear New Stanford Students:
Dear New Stanford Students:
Welcome to Stanford! We, the Catholic Community at Stanford, are glad you’re here. We’ve been preparing for your arrival and will do our best to help you feel at home. You’ve been through orientations to help you navigate your way around campus. Catholic life at Stanford may resemble what you’ve been accustomed to in other places; in some ways it will be different. Here are a few things it may help you to know.
Summer 2010
We must always remember, as we are often told in sermons, that ‘Gospel’ means ‘good news’. This may be almost a cliché, but it is one that must be constantly borne in mind, not least by the preacher. It is our task not to utter threats and dire warnings but to bring the world the joyful news of salvation.
The parable of the prodigal son must be among the best-known Bible stories. The title rolls off the tongue easily, and even many people who don’t read the Bible or go to church regularly have heard of it. But is it in fact a parable about a prodigal son? We could be in for some surprises.
Jesus has had his disagreements with learned scribes and Pharisees along the way to Jerusalem, while the unlearned crowds are still enthusiastically behind him. He speaks to them not to destroy their zeal, but to temper it with something more characteristic of his opponents. The crowds did not know what this road to Jerusalem meant for Jesus, nor did they know what following after him really means. Jesus wants to inform their zeal with a dose of learned realism, warning them that anyone who does not bear the cross and follow after him cannot be his disciple.
In the middle of the nave of the church, two chairs were perfectly lined up, waiting for the future spouses. Suddenly, I noticed something utterly banal: two labels had been put on the spouses' chairs saying simply, 'reserved'! Had these labels not been there, I wondered whether anyone would have ever thought to sit on these two central chairs with their red cushions!... Anyway, I will never know what the person who put these labels had really in mind.
Today’s Gospel reading is about Jesus sending out seventy- two disciples to preach the good news of the Kingdom. Since Dominicans are called the Order of Preachers, these words must have something special to say to us. But every baptised person is called to spread the Gospel too, so there will also be a message here for everyone.
My friend Robert Enoch is an all-too-rare combination of a committed Christian and a serious artist. Recently he published his work ‘Free’ on the internet. As http://photosoffree.blogspot.com/. As you’ll see, it’s eight years of photos of the word ‘free’. There’s step-free tube guides, a Freedom Pass, a place called Freeland, a smoking- and mobile-free zone, free thinking and ‘Judges free four terror suspects’. And a few photos of ‘free’ in the Bible...
The disciples remained near to Jesus as he was praying. That he should have broken off from his conversation with them and raised his soul with such solemnity and yet with such lightness to be with the Father and the Holy Spirit - for pure solemnity with any kind of heaviness would have broken off the intimacy with which he spoke to them - had probably become habitual and was regarded by them as normal. The elevated response of Peter to his question falls in completely with such a spiritual setting.
Spring 2010
Both the second reading and the Gospel for today’s feast relate to food as it bears on the community we form with one another and the Lord.
We are given Luke’s account of the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus made them welcome by what he spoke, and his healings. Then came an astonishing initiative. ‘The day began to decline’; the multitude stayed on, though, in that ‘desert place’. The fading light marks the available time for him to provide food and have the disciples distribute it, and then clear up the scraps.
Lourdes Alonso has served as Director of Campus Outreach for the past 4 years at the All Saints Catholic Newman Center serving Arizona State University. Working one-on-one with students and as an integral part of a ministry team, Lourdes is often one of the first friendly faces awaiting new students as they walk through the door. Whether she is listening with compassion, advocating for the poor and underserved, or sharing in community at Sunday Mass, Lourdes’ commitment to campus ministry shines through.
Pentecost Sunday is the day God gave the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. Our principal reading today, unusually, is not from the Gospel but is the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
The phrase ‘He ascended into heaven’ trips off the
tongue as we say the Creed. I suggest, though, that
we rarely think much about it. The Crucifixion and
Resurrection of our Lord, and the subsequent coming of
the Holy Spirit, these we talk about a great deal, and not
just during Lent, Easter and Pentecost. The Ascension is
much less mentioned.
Today’s readings relate to the past, the present and the future of Christ’s people. The first reading gives us the moment in the earliest days of he Church when the Jewish-Christian followers of the Risen Lord opened the Church to non-Jewish disciples, the likes of most of us. In their closeness to the Holy Spirit of God they can say ‘It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us’.
You know how it is when you go to the movies in April and among the previews is one for "a coming attraction" in the fall? Still quite a ways off. And, though you may be intrigued by what you see and hear, you’re sure to forget the movie in the meantime? Well, this page may seem a little bit like that. As I understand it, recently Fr. Carl basically said his "good- byes" to you all. So, Fr. Nathan has asked me (as Fr. Carl’s eventual successor) to introduce myself to you, although I won’t be arriving until a few months from now.
The fourth Sunday of Easter is known as ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’; in a narrow understanding this refers to vocations to the priesthood, but in a wider sense it encompasses the whole apostolic and pastoral mission of the Church.
The Good Shepherd is one of the best-known and best loved of the images in the New Testament. It has its roots deep in salvation history: David, the boy shepherd, was chosen to be king of Israel; he was the anointed leader of the people of God, to guide and lead them towards God and his kingdom.
Many of you have spoken with me of your pain, anger, and sadness over the recent stories of sexual abuse of children which have been in the news. I’m working with Dr. Thomas Plante, a member of our community who is on the faculties at Stanford and Santa Clara, on a forum on the topic in the coming weeks. I thought you might benefit from reading this article by the former Master of the Dominican Order, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP.
Godbless,
Nathan Castle, OP
Dear members of the Catholic Community at Stanford, It is with a mixture of excitement and sadness that I tell you that I will be moving on this summer. I will become the Pastor/Director of St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center in Salt Lake City on July 1 of this year.
Why did Mary Magdalene visit the tomb of Christ? Was it simply an act of sight-seeing? St John doesn’t tell us, and St Matthew does tell us that ‘Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb’, but the other two Gospels add the detail that the women went to anoint the body of Jesus, taking the first opportunity to do so once the Sabbath was ended.
Winter 2010
A tour guide in the Holy Land once pointed to a pile of pebbles lying by the roadside in Jerusalem, and proudly declared: ‘These are the stones that would have cried out, had they been needed!’ Those who had not read Luke’s Gospel would have been perplexed, although those who have are not necessarily more enlightened.
We are preparing to celebrate the paschal mystery and in our preparation we have to try not only to come to a better understanding of this mystery but to enter into it. We can only enter into it by learning to think as Christ thought.
In the epistle to the Philippians Paul exhorts his converts to adopt this way of thinking:
Let’s listen in as the Castle family makes plans to go out to dinner.
Castle #1: Jeet?* (jeet- Southern drawly contraction, a corruption of the phrase: “Did you eat?”)
Castle#2: No, and I’m starving.
Castle #3: I haven’t eaten all day.
Castle #1: Ya’ll wanna git sumpin’?
Castle#2: Sure, where ya wanna go?
Castle #3: I dunno.
Castle#1: Me neither, where do you wanna go?
Castle#2: I don’t care. Anywhere’s good by me.
And so on.
Being a typical Englishman I’m going to begin by talking about the weather!
We rejoice when it’s dry and complain when it rains. But in an arid country, such as the Holy Land, rain is considered to be God’s blessing. The presence or absence of water makes the difference between life and death. That became very clear to me when I contrasted the barren Judean desert with the nearby ancient city of Jericho, where the presence of well water enabled people to live and grow food.
“I know you’re busy, but...” Do you ever hear people saying that to you? I’m as busy as the next person, I suppose, but not too busy to pause and look around. In this little document that I’m using with community leaders, potential donors, you—our current community members, and anyone who cares about CCAS, I try to summarize “what’s goin’ on.”
“So! Whaddya gonna give up for Lent?”
First we have set aside the more familiar ‘beatitudes’ found in Matthew’s gospel. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. Matthew gives us a spiritualised set of attitudes. To discover the more material, gritty slant of Luke we need to work out what sort of congregation he has in mind.
|
