Of Jesuits and Jason Gray

Love
Song of the day.

A wise Jesuit (Pedro Arrupe) said: "Fall in love, stay in love, and it will change everything."

The past few weeks, this unexpected feeling has been making its way into my heart: in my own small way, I am falling in love with Christ in the poor. Christ in the needs of those around me. Christ in the woman with a high-risk pregnancy six months along, who isn't sure she can make it through the day. Christ in her unborn child, wholly dependent on her all-too vulnerable mother. Christ in sorrow and heartbreak, in tiredness and cold, in wounds that show on the skin and those that bleed unseen. And I'm starting to see - slowly, slowly, slowly - what my wise supervisor told me over a year ago - it's not about me. It's not about spiritual consolation, or a job well done. It's not about being good at what I do. It's not even about whether or not my efforts succeed.

At the center of it all, it's about HIM - Love incarnate. Love laid down for others. Love broken and poured out.

Praise God.

Last Days

So, we are entering into the Last Days! Not quite as apocalyptic as those preceding the Second Coming, perhaps, but still - there are big changes ahead. We now have less than three weeks left in Philadelphia (well, I've got three weeks + one year, but we're speaking about this JVC experience). My community members are getting ready to become FJVs - finding jobs, signing leases for apartments, packing up clothes and books, figuring out class schedules for the fall. The "real world" is calling.

My hope and my prayer for all of the JVs on the East Coast who are getting ready to transition out of this experience is that the JVC lifestyle will become part of that "real world" they will soon be entering. I hope and pray that the values of community, simple living, social justice, and spirituality will be more than a one-year experiment. Each of us will, of course, take something different from this JVC year, and each of us will leave certain things behind. But wherever life takes us, I pray that we'll always be able to recognize the mark of this year in one another. I pray that being "ruined for life" is more than a catchy slogan. I pray that it's a reality that will manifest itself uniquely, but still deeply and substantially, in all of us.

For my part, I've been gearing up for big changes as well. I may be staying in the same house and the same job, but I've got six new community members arriving in August - which means six new perspectives on how exactly the JVC life is meant to be lived. I'm so very excited to meet each of these men and women, and to talk, pray, struggle (and hopefully laugh) with them as we learn what exactly it means to be in community with one another while living simply and working for social justice.

May God be with us as we go!

Being Eucharist

Eucharist
I just heard a wonderfully encouraging talk on the Eucharist from a Redemptorist priest named Father Bruce. While I really can't do justice to his words, the part that struck me most powerfully was something along the lines of "you may be the only Eucharist some people ever have."

We who come to the table of the Lord are gathered together into the Body of Christ, and then sent forth to bring Christ to a wounded world. In Communion, we not only consume the Body and Blood of Christ, but Christ consumes us, taking us into His own being. So then when we go forth from the Mass, it is Christ Who goes forth in us.

To be the Eucharist is to be comfort, love, acceptance, forgiveness, consolation, joy, and peace.

To be the Eucharist is to allow ourselves to be broken and poured out for others, as Christ was for us.

To be the Eucharist is to not only participate in, but to embody the Mass - to allow ourselves to become a living sacrifice of praise, a memorial of Christ's death and resurrection.

I pray that the Church will always go into the dark places, the difficult places, the seemingly impossible places where God is not to bring forth the light of Christ. I pray that we will never shirk from this sacred call to be light for the world.

Revive

Community
This past weekend, two of my community members and I drove up to Trenton for an ecumenical Christian conference entitled "Revive". The conference (or, rather, "revival") took its inspiration from that often-quoted passage from Luke 4:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free" (Luke 4:18, NAB).
I have to admit, I had mixed feelings about going to this conference - mostly because the prospect of rubbing shoulders with Christians from all points along the theological and political spectrum threatened to disturb the comfortable Catholic bubble I've been creating for myself here in Philadelphia. At the end of the day, however, I found myself renewed and encouraged.

Most of that renewal came from meeting Shane Claiborne, one of the founders of the Simple Way, an intentional community in the Kensington area of Philadelphia; and Bart Campolo, founder of Mission Year (a program very similar to JVC), who now lives in an intentional community in Cincinatti. Both of them talked about the challenges of trying to live a radical Gospel witness in contemporary American society. After ten months of living in community in the inner city and trying to be present to the needs of the poor and marginalized, it was incredibly inspiring to hear from two men who have walked this path for decades.

Both Shane and Bart talked about community as a huge part of what sustains them in this path. They talked about it only being possible to really love all of the broken people they encounter in their neighborhoods if the love within their community is strong enough to overflow and draws others in - (which is exactly the model of the Trinity - three Persons Whose eternal love overflows and draws in all of humanity!) They talked about a theology of place and a ministry of presence. They talked about the great Christian mission to love people, not to fix people; how it is our mandate as Christians not only to construct a just society in which our systems actually work for the people they are intended to work for - not only to staff soup kitchens and after-school tutoring programs - but also, and perhaps most importantly, to be in relationship with those around us, to truly love our neighbors, regardless of how broken our neighbors are.

And honestly, it was just really exciting to think that this way of living that I'm discovering through JVC could be more than just a one or two year stint after college. It's exciting, and terrifying, to think that it could be a calling, a vocation, a way of life. Or maybe (probably?), something in between the two extremes.

Love Will Hold Us Together

Love
This is currently one of my favorite songs: Love Will Hold Us Together by Matt Maher. I especially love the lyrics of the refrain:

Love will hold us together
Make us a shelter to weather the storm
And I'll be my brother's keeper
So the whole world will know that we're not alone

It's what Jesus told us - the world will know that we are His disciples by our love.

Christ in the city

JVC
I was blessed today to attend a day of reflection for young adults living in the Philadelphia area. We gathered in the Temple University Newman Center for prayer, Eucharistic adoration, group reflection, and Mass. The focus of the retreat was living a Christian witness in the midst of the city - an especially pertinent topic for me at this point in my JVC experience. My colleagues in the shelter keep asking me why in the world I'm staying on for another year - and secretly, I've been asking myself the same thing. Why I am staying in a place where there is so much pain and suffering, violence and poverty? Why I am working in a job where I net $85 a month, and where my best efforts often yield no results? Why am I living in a city of abandoned lots and run-down tenements, of gunshots and sirens, of drugs and human trafficking?

These were the unspoken questions that I brought before the Lord today, on my knees in adoration. And the Lord answered me in equally unspoken terms. I felt Him draw my eyes to the crucifix mounted behind the altar, and for one fraction of a second, I understood what Christ had done for us. He, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, who had lived for all eternity in the peace and joy and love of the Trinity, had seen our suffering and had not left us alone in it. He had taken on all that bound us - our pain, our sorrow, our infirmity, our wounds, our frailty, our fear, our loneliness, our mortality - so that we might know true freedom.

And in that fraction of a second, I also understood why I still live and work amidst poverty and violence - because Christ had stood beside us in all of the ugliness of human existence, so that we might stand with Him in the beauty of His eternal existence in the Father.

That is why I struggle against a broken housing system, why I welcome a tearful young woman into my office at the end of a long day, why I help a young mother pack up her children's clothing when we cannot keep her family any longer in the shelter. That is why I cradle a wailing infant to my chest and chase hyperactive children through the hallways, why I call ambulances and make visits to psychiatric wards where I will be asked if I am the Cambodian translator. That is why I rent storage units and save dinner plates and hand out SEPTA tokens, why I talk women through panic attacks and work on behalf of clients who may one day tell me that I have done nothing at all to help them.

I am not here for results. I am not here to save people or to solve anyone's problems. I am not here to end domestic violence. I am here because Christ is here. I am here because Christ lived among the poor and the broken-hearted, the marginalized and the dispossessed; because Christ was beaten and humiliated, abandoned by His friends, told that He was a liar and a failure. I am here because His Body is still broken in all of my clients' wounds, because His Blood is still poured out in all of their tears. I am here to be a living Eucharist, to say: this is my body, here for you in this moment. These are my ears to listen to you, my eyes to acknowledge you, my voice to affirm you. These are my hands to support you. These are my feet to go where you cannot. This is my body given for you, because He has given His Body for me.

Be still and know

JVC
My community just came back from a four-day Silent Retreat at a Jesuit retreat center in Morristown, NJ. We spent 40 hours of that time in silence, following guidelines laid out by St. Ignatious in his Spiritual Exercises.

Although I had been looking forward to this retreat for months (nothing is so precious to an introvert as some silent time!), when we arrived, I was not in the greatest of moods. Work at the shelter had seemed unusually stressful for the previous few weeks, and the last thing I wanted to do was get trapped inside my head with my thoughts.

Looking back, however, I'm pretty sure that this mood was all part of God's providential plan for me during this retreat. On the advice of the awesome spiritual director I was paired with, I tried to put down my expectations for the weekend and just relax and let God come to me. Which, of course, He did. I spent hours in the retreat center's tiny chapel, just sitting with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and being reminded yet again of how deeply and intimately God loves us.

Coming into the retreat as I did forced me to confront the darkness that is so often part of the spiritual life, those times when God seems far away from our struggles on earth. It forced me to lay down all of the pain and brokenness I had been carrying around with me from the shelter, to come before God and say, Lord, this is where I am, and I can't find You here.

And the miracle is, God found me. I struggle so often to see God amidst the chaos of the shelter, where change is slow and hope often seems far away. Yet what this experience taught me is that if I simply ask God to reveal Himself, He will. Jesus reminds us that whatever we ask of God in prayer, He will give us - even if it is simply the gift of His Presence, which is sometimes what we need most.

Happy Lent!

JVC
I guess "Happy Lent" is not the usual sentiment that one hears at this time of year... But even though Lent is a season of penance, marked by somber imagery and meditations on the suffering and death of Jesus, it's also a season that is meant to lead us to the joy of Easter Sunday - and that, I think, deserves a cheerful salutation!

Of all the meditations on the significance of the Lenten season that I read yesterday, the one that I enjoyed most was from Robert F. Dueweke, OSA, who wrote in the February "Living With Christ" missal:
"Ashes indicate there was once fire. The fire is now gone. We go to the source to be inflamed again. God is fire; without God, we are ashes."
I loved these lines because they reminded me of the inherently positive purpose of Lent. The three pillars of Lenten activity - prayer, fasting, and charity - are meant ultimately to rekindle the flame of God's love in our souls, which leads to true and lasting joy.

So this Lent, I'm trying to focus less on what I'm "giving up" and more on the parts of my life where the fire of God's love has gone out. Something I've been noticing recently is that my desire to serve my sisters and brothers totally and selflessly (which inspired me to apply for JVC in the first place) has been dwindling. Before this year, I would dedicate a few hours a week to service. That time was a welcome break from my other responsibilities, and taught me the joy that comes from being truly present to the needs of others. For so long, I yearned for a job that would allow me to live in this spirit of joyful service full-time.

Yet now that I have such a job, I'm learning that service isn't always joyful - sometimes, it's nothing more than frustrating! After a long day of dealing with housing authorities and welfare offices, I struggle to respond with openness and compassion to the clients who cross my path as I am trying to leave the shelter. I begin to feel imposed upon by the very people I am here to help. Even when confronted with a client whose "crisis" really can wait until the morning, I find myself speaking words that are far too short in a tone that is far too harsh.

This Lent, I pray that God will reignite the flame of loving service in my soul. And to all of my sisters and brothers in Christ who are also observing this season of penance, I pray that in your every act of prayer, fasting, and charity, God will send forth the breath of the Holy Spirit across the embers of your soul and rekindle within you the love that knows no limits.

God is so good!

Love
I'll say it again - God is so good!! If we are open to His Spirit, He will lead us exactly where we need to go.

Lately, I've been struggling to articulate a truly Christian response to the unjust state of gender relations in our world. Working in a domestic violence shelter, I see effects of violence towards women on a daily basis. This violence is not only physical, but emotional, psychological, and spiritual as well. This violence attacks every facet of women's worth and dignity. And too often, these abuses are subtly (and not so subtly) reinforced by cultural values that debase women by turning them into objects of sexual pleasure, by telling them that their worth is entirely defined by the extent to which they are able to sexually captivate men.

Too often throughout history, and even in our own times, sacred scripture has been used to justify and rationalize violence towards women. In the past, my reaction to this misuse of scripture was simply to disregard scripture and the Church that had preserved it. Yet lately, something has been pushing me to investigate Church teachings with a more open heart and mind.

And so, by a series of events, I was led to the "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the collaboration of men and women in the Church and in the World". I half-expected a rigid tome on traditional gender roles, one that would define woman solely by her biological "destiny" - yet what I found was an astoundingly beautiful reflection on the dignity of woman as a full and equal partner with man in the life of society and the Church. I am increasingly awed and humbled by the steadfast witness of the faith I once denounced as misogynistic.

I found this document so powerful for several reasons. Firstly, because of its honest acknowledgment of the fact that state of gender relations in our world has, more often than not, been plagued by unjust domination on the part of men, leading to countless violations of the dignity and worth of women.

Secondly, because of its bold proclamation that these abuses are not part of God's plan for men and women. In the beginning, God created both men and women in the image and likeness of Himself, and gave us as gifts to one another, to be joined in a union of mutual love, respect, honor, and dignity. Yet as a result of original sin, God's vision for men and women has been distorted, resulting in the unbalanced gender relations that have characterized so much of human history. Viewed through the lens of original sin, the harmony that is supposed to exist between men and women becomes "a relationship in which love will frequently be debased into pure self-seeking, in a relationship which ignores and kills love and replaces it with the yoke of domination of one sex over the other...In this tragic situation, the equality, respect and love that are required in the relationship of man and woman according to God's original plan, are lost."

And thirdly (and most importantly!), because of its deep faith that "in Christ the rivalry, enmity and violence which disfigured the relationship between men and women can be overcome and have been overcome." In Christ, men and women are called to reclaim the true love and respect of God's original plan for humanity. This is a plan which shows deep respect for the unique gifts of men and women, without falsely proclaiming that one set of gifts is greater or more useful than the other. This is a plan which upholds the dignity of women as wives and mothers, while at the same time bearing witness to the gifts of reason and intelligence which indicate that "women should be present in the world of work and in the organization of society, and that women should have access to positions of responsibility which allow them to inspire the policies of nations and to promote innovative solutions to economic and social problems."

The relationship between men and women described in this document is symbolic of the state of all of human existence - fundamentally good in the plan of the Creator, yet damaged and distorted by our fallen state. Yet the death and resurrection of Christ reminds us that the goodness of God's original vision can be, and has been, redeemed.

These truths give me hope that as we move towards the Kingdom of God on earth, we will move towards a world in which violence is no longer perpetrated against women. We will move towards a world in which all people are able to live out the fullness of their humanity - not in the fallen state we live in now, but in the glorious perfection of God's original vision for us.

And that vision is nothing more and nothing less than Love incarnate.

Many gifts

JVC
As I sit here in my room, snow is falling on Philadelphia. Our little corner of the city is silent for once, all the sounds of traffic and sirens and voices muted by the soft white blanket settling around us.

I am conscious this morning of so many gifts. The gifts of quiet, stillness, peace. The gifts of community, friendship, love.

Most of all, there is the gift of Christ's presence, which guides and comforts me even in the darkest of times.

Last night, the first Friday of the month, I took the subway down to Center City, to the basement church of St. John the Evangelist, where a group of young adults gathers each month to offer Devotions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Every time I step down into that church from the busy streets of Philadelphia and feel myself enveloped in the warm embrace of incense, candlelight, and the rhythm of Latin hymns, my heart leaps with joy to have come upon such an oasis of peace and reverence in the midst of all the clamor of city life.

As I prayed last night, my heart was heavy with the pain of the women and children I had worked with all week long in the shelter. I mourned their past and present traumas, feeling myself utterly helpless to do anything at all to alleviate their suffering and bring justice into their lives. Yet the gift of Christ's presence works marvelous deeds. As we stood for the final hymn, I felt my heart strengthened and consoled by the words we sung - Infinite thy vast domain, everlasting is thy reign.

The absurdity of those words in a world of violence and hatred and grave injustice, the absurdity of God's love, the absurdity of Christ's presence in the Eucharist - all struck me with a paradoxical hope. I was reminded that our call as disciples of Christ is to dedicate our lives to that absurd love, even - and most especially - when it seems most impossible. And I was also reminded, by the love and fellowship that filled the small group of us gathered there, that we do not confront that task alone - we are strengthened by our sisters and brothers in faith, and by all women and men of good will.

A few thoughts

JVC

Last weekend was our mid-year retreat for JVC. Called "Re-Orientation", the retreat was an opportunity for us to gather with all of the JV's serving on the East Coast for the first time since August, to reflect on our experiences from the past five months, and to refocus ourselves mentally and spiritually for the remainder of the year. A good deal of the retreat focused on Catholic Social Teaching - an amazing body of teachings that I'll have to reflect on here at some point.

For now, though, all I've got is a reflection on my work in the shelter. With five months of case management experience under my belt, I'm at least slightly more competent than I was back in August! But I've also realized how little I truly know about the nuances and subtleties of social services work.

In one sense, my job is very simple. I help my clients to assess their needs, refer them to local resources for employment, welfare benefits, and mental health support, and assist them in finding safe housing for after they leave the shelter. The daily reality of my work, however, is much more complex and has far less defined measures of success than such tasks suggest.

One of the greatest challenges of my placement has been coming to the realization that “success” in this line of work cannot be measured by results, nor can it be achieved by following a simple checklist of tasks. It often does not matter how hard I work to complete housing applications on time, to locate the right referrals for a particular client, or to create goal plans designed to lead that client to self-sufficiency. A family may be placed on a waiting list for transitional housing months longer than the full extent of their stay at the shelter. A client’s mental health issues may prevent her from following through with the very referrals intended to offer her relief. The lasting effects of trauma may prevent another client, who has spent her entire life surviving one crisis after another, from prioritizing her long-term self-sufficiency over the apparent needs of the moment.

When first confronted with these realities, I was tempted to question the value of my work. Yet I have slowly learned that none of these realities lessen in any way the vital importance of the services our shelter provides every day to women and children in need, nor do they offer an excuse for inaction in the face of my clients’ suffering. I have learned to respect the depth of my clients’ brokenness and pain by accepting that their path to wholeness may not be as quick or direct as I would like it to be. I have learned that my role is not to create a path for the women I work with, but to accompany and support them on the path they are making for themselves.

I still work just as hard to get housing applications in on time, to locate the right referrals, and to challenge my clients to plan for the future – but I also strive to understand that the most important work I do for my clients may lie not in these concrete tasks, but in the time I spend listening to their pain and affirming their worth. My more experienced colleagues are quick to remind me that the average survivor of domestic violence leaves and returns to her abuser seven times before she leaves for good. I often do not know at what point in a woman’s journey I am encountering her. Yet I am learning to rely on the hope that my ministry of compassion and presence may provide a small but important witness to her right to a better life.

Jesus Camp

Spirituality
This week for Spirituality Night, our community sat down to watch Jesus Camp, a 2006 documentary about an evangelical Christian summer camp and the children who attend it. It has been described by many progressives (a demographic somewhat overrepresented in our community) as one of the most terrifying films they have ever seen, so we knew that we were in for an interesting night.

The film captures scenes of children as young as eight speaking in tongues, sobbing as they contemplate the magnitude of sin, and writhing on the ground in the supposed grip of the Holy Spirit. They are shown smashing ceramic mugs intended to represent "corrupt government", praying fervently to God to end abortion in America, and poking holes in the argument for global warming. And they are also shown speaking openly and honestly about the all-powerful love of God and their ardent faith in Christ.

It is a film that is at times disturbing, at times laughable, at all times thought-provoking - and I think that it left us all more than a little unsettled. I, for one, found myself uncomfortable because I actually agreed with some of the positions being advocated by the children and the adults who minister to them. The sanctity of life? Check. Faith in Jesus Christ? Check. Global warming as a political conspiracy and creationism as the only possible explanation for life on Earth - not so much... But, I started thinking, if they got the big stuff right, why quibble about the details? What could be so wrong about indoctrinating kids, if they were being told the right things?

And that's just the problem, of course - the indoctrination part. There's no room for questioning within that camp, no room for spiritual exploration. No room for the love of Christ to blossom naturally, in God's time, in those children's hearts. There's only the saved and the not-saved, us vs. them, those who are within the circle and those who are outside of it. I tremble to think of what would happen to one of those bright, Spirit-filled children if she one day started to question her faith, started to wrestle with the more nuanced aspects of belief. Would her struggle be accepted as a normal part of spiritual growth? Or would she be stigmatized and burdened with guilt, made to feel as though she had stepped outside the sacred circle into the darkness of damnation?

I don't know enough about charismatic evangelical Christianity, or those children's particular faith communities, to have the answers to those questions. But at the very least, I was reminded tonight of the vital importance of respecting each individual's personal journey to God, regardless of the valleys of doubt and disbelief he might venture into. I have faith that God loves us all tenderly and unconditionally, even if we get it wrong on some of the political questions of our day, even if we struggle with some aspects of our faith, even if sometimes we can't believe at all.

And honestly, what good is it to have all of the right answers, to vote in all of the right ways, to believe all of the right things, if we forget how we are to treat one another? As a kind priest once said to me, after I had confessed to him my persistent struggles with certain aspects of Church teaching: the first law is love. Love of God and love of neighbor. A love that is to permeate all aspects of our beings - hearts, minds, bodies, souls.

The Long View

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

~Archbishop Oscar Romero

The Credo Project

Prayer for Generosity

Lord, teach me to be generous
Teach me to serve you as you deserve
To give and not to count the cost
To fight and not to heed the wounds
To toil and not to seek for rest
To labor and not to ask for reward
Save that of knowing that I am doing your will

~St. Igantius of Loyola