Volunteer Missionary Movement - USA

Last week, a very special friend of mine, Sister Anne Lemire,

celebrated 60 years of religious life. I met her in Edmonton in 1982.

She was founding an alternative school in Edmonton and had placed an

ad in the paper for a science teacher - an ad that called for every

bit as much "craziness" to respond as the VMM invitation in 1996 to

teach high school in Chahal, Guatemala. Both experiences, Caritas

High School and Chahal, were hard but extremely rewarding. I cannot

imagine what I would have missed and how different my life would have

been if I had not responded to those two invitations. The Jubilee

Reflection is given by Sr. Mary Alban who celebrated her 60th also

and who is also a dear friend. The spirit in which it is written is

pure VMM spirit and so, with Mary Alban's permission, I offer it to

you today.

Sr. Mary Alban Bouchard, Jubilee Reflection, June 14, 2009

Readings for the June 14th Jubilee Liturgy

First Reading: Micah 6: 6-8

"With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before god on

high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a

year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten

thoughts of rivers of oil": Shall I give my first born for my

transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He had

told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the Lord require of

you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with

your God."

Second Reading: Ephesians 3: 14 - 19

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every

family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according

to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened

in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ

may swell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and

grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend,

with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and

depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so

that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Gospel: John 15: 1-9

I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every

branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he

prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by

the world that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you.

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by its self unless it abides in

the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me, I am the vine, and

you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much

fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not

abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches

are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and

my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done

for you."

Jubilee Reflection

In the first reading, the Prophet Micah puts it to us plainly. The

part we all remember is the last three phrases: to do justice, to

love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.

Sometimes it would seem easier to do the part that goes before: bring

in the burnt offering, the calves, rams and rivers of oil. But to do

justice that’s a challenge!

One of the things I learned early on in Haiti was that I didn’t know

how to do justice. It didn’t seem possible even to make a dent in

the injustice, the poverty, the suffering, the deprivation. I

couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t live in complete solidarity with the

poor, live as they lived, much longer than five minutes. And how

could I help people without creating a dependency which is a "no-no"

in the definition of justice.

But I stayed because the people had no choice but to stay. And as I

stayed and observed the Haitian people who were poor in material

necessities, I saw their endurance, their resilience, their faith in

Granmet (their name for God). I learned to walk more humbly with our

God and with my neighbours. I learned to pray for grace and

strength , not to do what I had thought or hoped to do, but to walk

in the works God had prepared for me .(Eph.2:10). Following the

insistent inner urging that we come to recognize as a call from God

meant giving up, not just good food and comfort and friends, but

giving up being afraid. This is not to say I am never or no longer

afraid. It means to keep on walking right through the fear, trusting

God, and also knowing that St. Joseph is a great Protector. It means

walking in faith. My definition of faith is that faith is God’s song

sung in the dark. If we are attuned with the inner ear, we will hear

the song; we will know and trust God’s voice. Embracing God in the

darkness of faith we come to know God.

What happens then is that we experience that God does what we cannot

do, does even the impossible. You know, it could be disheartening to

hear Jesus tell us that when we have done our best, we must say "I am

an unprofitable servant"! Or to say to us: "Without me you can do

nothing; NOTHING!" Doesn’t that sound like a bit of a put-down? Are

we not even good for washing feet?

And furthermore, isn’t God forever asking the impossible: for

instance, in the second reading from Ephesians today, Paul wants us

to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth and

to KNOW the love of Christ which is BEYOND all knowing? But the fact

is: once we catch on to the truth of the words that apart from God we

can do nothing, we learn that everything is possible for us, because

nothing is impossible for God. We learn to pray for what God wants

to give us, and then to give thanks. We are freed from fear,

especially the fear of failure. Haven’t we all experienced God doing

the impossible? For example, haven’t we taught subjects we never

took and taught them well because we walked humbly with our God?

Or take me, for an example. Who would have predicted that I would go

to Haiti, let alone stay in Haiti? I was the least of the likely!

Twenty years later, I have been given to do things I never dreamt of

doing. Sometimes I say: DID I DO THAT? And immediately I have to

answer: "NO, I DID NOT DO THAT. I KNOW WHO DID THAT through me."

And so one must walk humbly with God; what follows is immense

gratitude, not only for what God has done, but because one has

recognized God. To return to doing justice, that’s the only way I

know how to act justly.

Then there is that other little phrase nestled there between doing

justice and walking humbly with God, that other little thing That God

asks of us. It is to LOVE KINDNESS, to LOVE TENDERLY. That is hard.

Sometimes kindness is displaced by anger for any number of reasons:

sometimes it may be disillusionment; sometimes impatience at the lack

of co-operation with our wonderful project! Maybe someone’s

ingratitude hurts us or maybe its fatigue, pure and simple. So it may

happen that small rocks of anger lodge in our heart. So God has to

come at us obliquely, from a different angle, as it were, to bring us

back to the truth that without God we can do nothing. The awakening

may come through a conversation, a book we pick up, or it may be

through a dream. If I may be very personal for a moment: a few

years ago Sr. Lorraine and I made a retreat in Haiti at the

Benedictine monastery which sits on a mountain top overlooking the

sea. About three-quarters of the way through the retreat, I had a

dream that shook me to my roots. I awoke in the night, my pillow

drenched with tears, my insides heaving with weeping. I sat up. I

steadied my breath. I asked: "What is this dream?" I knew I must

sit with it when day came, sit with it until I understood it. I sat

with it all day and when evening came, I was given under-standing.

What I came to understand I wrote down so as never to forget. I will

read you what I wrote:

It is evening.

I hear the inner voice

Of my Teacher say:

"I struck the rock of your heart,

The hard places,

Water came pouring out,

The water of your tears.

Now you understand:

What is necessary is

Deep mercy, deep mercy, deep mercy."

Is not that the meaning of the word of God in Micah: to love

kindness, to love tenderly, always with compassion. Deep mercy, deep

mercy.

And what God asks of us—to do justice, to love tenderly, to walk

humbly---God also gives us in Jesus the Beloved Son, by the Holy

Spirit poured out in us without measure, the Spirit that Fr. Medaille

calls the SOUL OF OUR SOUL. The Soul of our soul: God can’t get much

closer than that, or more intimate than that!

Just this past week we heard in the letter to the Romans: "You did

not receive a spirit of timidity (or "of slavery") to fall back into

fear, but a spirit whereby we address God as Father, Mother. We are

heirs with Christ. With that same Spirit we can say with Christ, not

"yes and no" but always "YES", as Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

Sisters, by the gift of God, by the shared gift of the Spirit, we’ve

got the goods! And our response is immense gratitude.

Now I would like to tell a short story to comment on the Gospel.

(Bear with me: I only get to do this every sixty years!) The theme

is Christ the Vine whose branches we are.

Several years ago I flew to San Francisco to do some pre-chapter work

with a religious community there. When the work was finished the

sisters drove me up the Napa Valley. The Napa Valley is a beautiful

valley of vineyards and wine-making. The Brothers have a winery

there. We took the tour. We were told how the wine is aged in huge

wooden vats holding many gallons, oaken vats, I believe, that are set

in an earthen bank which keeps the temperature correct. As we passed

the earthen bank to enter the winery, my attention was caught by a

very strange tree such as I had never seen before. I asked the tour

guide,"What kind of tree is that?" He replied,

"That is an oak tree. That tree has a story, but if you don’t mind

I will wait and tell the story to the group". So we went inside, but

all the while that I was examining the wall of very unusual cork-

screws and bottle openers, I was thinking of the oak tree. When we

finally came out of the winery, the guide began to tell the story. It

happened that one of the vats was leaking and a lot of wine was being

lost over a period of time. So they finally had to drain it out and

send a man in to investigate. What he found was the roots of the tree

that had penetrated the oaken vat. So it was the oak tree that had

been drinking the wine. It had flourished, grown in all directions

with curving branches that made it appear to be dancing---or drunk…or

both.

I think I don’t have to make the connection to the Gospel of today.

Suffice it to say that if we remain connected to the Vine which is

Christ Jesus, the sap of everlasting life will flow in our veins. We

will taste the wine of life. We will flourish like the oak tree---to

the point where we may appear to be drunk. Recall how Peter and the

other apostles and disciples were thought to be drunk after they had

been filled with the Spirit at Pentecost.

Knowing we never did or could do anything fruitful of ourselves apart

from the Christ-Vine, we will know that remaining attached and one

with him, we can do and be more than we could ask or imagine. We

will continue our life-witness to the reign of God, the reign of

greatest love. The result will be immense gratitude.

Concerning gratitude let me offer to you three quotations from three

extraordinary spiritual writers known to us all: The first is Ronald

Rollheiser, Canadian Oblate, who writes:

"To be a saint is to be FUELLED by gratitude "(fuelled as in

gasoline) ---

"To be a saint is to be fuelled by gratitude, nothing more and

nothing less."

The second writer is Albert Nolan, South African Dominican, who writes: "The grateful heart is a manifestation of one’s TRUE SELF. Nothing

sidelines the ego more effectively than a grateful heart".

As you know, the ego is not our true self but an image. The true

self is that inner being that Paul speaks of in the second reading

praying it may be strengthened by the power of the Spirit.

The third comment is by Gustavo Gutierrez, Peruvian liberation

theologian. He states:

"Only one kind of person transforms the world spiritually i.e.

someone with a grateful heart".

We remember that the word "Eucharist" is the Greek word for

"THANKSGIVING" and Eucharist is central to the spirituality of the

Sisters of St. Joseph as anyone who has read the earliest documents

left by Fr. Jean-Pierre Medaille would know. The Feast of Corpus

Christi together with a Jubilee is a great occasion for gratitude. I

conclude with the prayer from the third Eucharistic prayer of the

liturgy expressed to God the Father in Christ the Son: "May He make

us an everlasting gift to You and enable us to share in the

inheritance of your saints…." Is that not the very meaning of our

VOWS AND OF OUR LIVES? May He make us an everlasting gift to