Last night there was a reconciliation service for those of us making the 8-day retreat, with the opportunity to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The person leading the service picked Luke 8:40-56 for the reading, a passage that includes both Jesus’ healing of the hemorrhaging woman and His raising of the daughter of Jairus.

I just want to briefly share one point the leader made in her reflection on the passage because is it not something I’ve taken from this reading before and so I spent some time with it. She referred to the part of the reading where servants arrive from the official’s house and say that it is too late – no reason to trouble Jesus any further, the daughter of Jairus is already dead. Jesus’ response, as she interpreted it, was: “No trouble at all. I’m already on my way. You invited me to your house and I’m coming. Don’t worry about the details.” And, as we know from the story, Jesus goes to the house and says simply to the girl, “Child, get up,” and she does.

Once we invite Jesus in, there’s no going back. Once we invite Jesus in, everything changes….and anything can happen. A great message any time, and especially on a retreat where God’s blessing are abounding.

Here’s a line I savored several times throughout the day. It is Isaiah 49:16. “I have branded you on the palms of my hands.”

I talked yesterday about looking at my pin and calling to mind the love and prayers of the person who gave it to me. But I, or course, can fail to wear the pin…the reminder can be lost. But, branded on the palm of God’s hand is indelible. (Some translations say “engraved” or “carved,” equally indelible.) It means that God can not ever look at God’s hand without seeing my name. Pretty powerful.

Try sitting with that for a while.

As I was walking along one of the paths on the retreat house grounds yesterday, I glanced down at a pin I am wearing on my shirt. It was a gift I received the other day from my “big brother” (I am the eldest child of my parents, but this friend has all the feel of what I imagine a big brother to be like) and when I look at it I am reminded that I walk with his prayers and love during these days of retreat.

As I glanced at it during my walk, a memory came up from my high school days, something I haven’t remembered in a very long time. I was a high school debater and my debate team spent many weekends traveling to tournaments in one state or another. I’m not sure who started this or when, but it developed that whenever we went off on a debate trip, the other students and our teachers would pin something on our vests. (Some of you at least will remember Catholic school uniforms from the 60s and 70s – plaid skirt, white blouse and either a jacket, or, in our case, a vest over the blouse.) Many girls pinned the pin with their name that was part of our uniform attire, others some other pin they usually wore on their own vest. We would carry these vests with us into the tournaments and they would remind us that we had the support and love of our friends while we competed.

Before one particularly important tournament – I think it was the state championship – an old nun came up to me. She had been my freshman Math teacher and had been teaching at the high school for enough years that she had also taught my mother freshman math back when she went to the same high school. This woman had made one great trip in her life – she had seen the Pope. (I don’t remember which pope – she was old enough that it could have been any of three.) And she had one prized, precious possession – a medal that had been blessed by the Pope that she never took off her neck, and frequently showed people.

She walked up to me and told me she wanted to give me something special to wear during the tournament. And she slowly started to unclasp the medal from around her neck. It was clear to me then, though perhaps not as clear as it is to me now looking back, what it cost her to do this – to take the medal off her neck and put it on mine. The thought of the medal being out of sight and the risk that something might happen to it must have been difficult ones for her. Yet, at the same time, she wanted to send me off with something special. And so she parted for that three-day period with the precious pin. And I knew how much love and care went into that act. And it was sweet to remember it during my walk on this retreat.

Maybe reading this will prompt you to recall a time, perhaps something you haven’t thought of in a long time, when someone gave you a precious gift. A time when someone gave without counting the cost. And give you an opportunity to appreciate again, and give thanks again, for the blessing of that gift.

A strange looking tree I saw today.
Asymmetrical from birth, its branches jutting here and there, and large spaces where seemingly branches should be, mirroring their sisters on the other side.
VIsible are ragged stumps where limbs have shorn off at various times, victims of wind and storms.
Imprefect and wounded.
Yet, still it stands tall, performing its duties - shading from the sun, doing its photosynthesis thing, providing a home for birds.
And when I look at it, I see a beautiful tree.

So too with us.
imperfect and wounded, yet still, through the grace of God, able to live, to love, to grow, to serve.
And when God looks at us, God sees a beautiful being. “God saw everything he had made and, indeed, it was very good.

Arriving at St. Ignatius Retreat House yesterday afternoon was like coming home. This was the house I served on the adjunct staff of before moving to Minneapolis and it was my spiritual home for seven years. As you enter the grounds, there is a large statue of the Sacred Heart, Jesus arms stretched out wide. As I arrived and saw the statute, I felt my whole body start to relax and open up, as it does whenever I enter the grounds and see that statue.

I always - and still do - see those arms as a sign of welcome. Come to me, invites Jesus. Come rest in me. But last evening, as I wandered the grounds after dinner and strood for a while before the statute, I realized for the first time that Jesus gesture has a dual meaning. The same gesture that says Come to me, also says Go forth. I saw in the gesture Jesus’ sending us out (almost corraling us out the door, the way a mother might send her children out to play in the yard after a meal). Go forth and preach the Gospel to all nations.

Although I had never seen this before, the dual meaning makes perfect sense; it is central to our lives as Chrisitans. We are always both invited to rest in Jesus and commanded to go our into the world and proclaim the Gospel. This is who we are. But the former reminds us that we do not do the latter alone. We do iw with Jesus.

I fly to NY this morning where I will begin (after dinner this evening) my annual 8-day silent retreat. This is time I treasure and look forward to….time away from my normal routines and activities to be refreshed by and with God. (In my head right now, I’m hearing “8-day retreat” to the tune of “Eight Days a Week.”)

During these silent retreats, I avoid telephone and e-mail. If I manage to post during the week (I don’t know what the internet connection will be like at the retreat house), it will likely be occasional short posts to share some insights or blessing God has gifted me with during the retreat.

Believing firmly in the power of prayer, if you are reading this, say a little prayer for me and the other retreatants. And, if you haven’t done a silent retreat before, think about whether it might be something you might like to experience. You can start with a day or weekend. You’ll be amazed to discover what you’ve been missing.

We’ve had some severe stormy weather on and off here in Minnesota over the past week. The other day, while my friend John was visiting, a powerful wind and hailstorm blew in. The storm was an incredible display of nature. It knocked out electricity over a broad area (our home was only without power for 4 hours; other did not have their power restored until the next day) and felled many trees, including two in my yard, which fortunately fell in the wooded area that separates our house from that of our neighbor and therefore did no damage to either house. One was a tall, beautiful, healthy tree, that was sheared off about twenty feet up, literally splintering the wood.

As I reflected on the storm - and how it disrupted our plans to visit the Japanese garden at the aboretum that afternoon, not to mention the water that came in the house becuase we had gone out leaving windows open in various rooms - I thought about the illusion of power and control we often live with. We think we can carefully plan and organize things so that they proceed in accordanced with our desires. Storms like this bring a reminder that there are real limits to our ability to control things. Despite our best laid plans, power goes out, trees go down, we can’t go someplace we planned to go - and there is nothing we can do to change any of it.

We can, of course, allow ourselves to be unhappy about our lack of total control and miserable about the fact that things happen that disrupt our plans. Or we can just relax into humble acceptance of the limits of our power and control and recognize that our plans are only and always tentative ones.

In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the sower who went out to sow. As he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, where the birds devoured them; some fell on rocky ground, which sprung up for a while, then withered for lack of good roots; some fell on thorns, and were choked by the thorns; others “fell on rich soil and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

The parable describes four different responses to the Word of God. We all, of course, would like to see ourselves as the seed that fell on good soil - as the ones who hear the Word of God, understand it, accept it, and live our lives in accordance with it.

But if we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that one or more of the other descriptions have been accurate descriptions of us at one point or another. God is constantly communicating with us, constantly conveying to us His Word. Sometimes we do hear and understand and act in accordance with that. Other times we may be like the seed sown on rocky soil - we “hear the word and receive it at once with joy.” But some problem or persecution comes along and we become weak. Or some other attraction tempts us. Or, God’s word comes at a time when we are distracted, and we either don’t hear it or don’t understand it.

Fortunately for us, God’s fidelity is so much greater than ours: No matter how we respond, God continues to come back. Continues to sow his Word in us. So each day we have the chance to be like the seed planted in good soil - to hear the Word, understand it and act on it.

My relationship with Mary has developed over time and she has become a great friend and a model for me. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about her in connection with one of my writing projects this summer. I’m working on a piece tentatively entitled, The Challenges of Articulating a Catholic Feminist Legal Theory. The piece explores some of the issues that I think make it difficult for secular feminists to believe that Catholicism and feminism are reconcilable or that a Catholic feminist theory can add something meaningful to our thinking about the law.

For many feminists Mary is a symbol of Church’s treatment of women as subordinate and inferior. Mary is seen critically as a model of female self-effacement, timidity and subservience to men.

I think views like this miss the fact that Mary is not a model for women, but rather a model for all humans. Mary is a model for how all persons of faith should respond to God’s invitation, by listening, discerning and trusting in God. She hears God’s call and chooses to act in accordance with it. She is thus a model of faith in, and obedience to, God – a model of how all Christians, male and female, participate in the life and death of Christ.

Mary’s submissiveness to God is not timidity before men. The Scriptures portray Mary as a woman of tremendous strength and insight. Mary, who commanded the servants to do Jesus’ bidding at the wedding feast of Cana, even after Jesus (seemingly annoyed at her request that he do something about the lack of wine) had told her it was not yet his time, is not a woman easily dismissed. In Marialis Cultus, Pope Paul VI suggested that presentations of Mary as timidly submissive reflect outmoded notions and “[t]he modern woman will note with pleasant surprise that Mary of Nazareth, while completely devoted to the will of God, was far from being a timidly submissive woman or one whose piety was repellent to others.”

The Church has perhaps complicated matters by at times overemphasizing Mary as a model wife and mother. But Jesus himself made clear that it is not in Mary’s qualities as mother and wife that her greatness lays. Jesus’ response to the woman who called out “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you,” was “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” And when a crowd to whom he was teaching told him that his mother and brothers had arrived, Jesus responded, “Who are my mother and my brothers?…Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” The reaction of Jesus in both cases emphasizes that Mary’s spiritual identity is not tied to her role as mother; what makes Mary worthy of praise is not the fact of her biological relationship with Christ, but her doing the will of God.

Properly understood, Mary is a powerful refutation of the claim that Catholicism embodies a notion of subjugation of women to men. And so a more empowered story about Mary needs to continue to be spread. As I already said, I’ve come to regard Mary as a wonderful friend and model and think many could benefit from deepening their relationship with her.

P.S. If you missed it, earlier this week I posted a podcast entitled Mary’s Yes.

Today is the memorial of St. Benedict, patriarch of Western monasticism. Benedict and his followers formed a religious order dedicated “to prefer nothing to Christ.” Although we don’t think of monasticism as a lay movement, Benedict was a layman and his famous Rule (the Holy Rule of St. Benedict) was intended to be capable of being followed by laypeople.

Benedict’s Rule has been described as having “the moderation and compassion of the Gospel itself and it also has the urgency and the fire and passion of the Gospel.” It offers a “middle way” path to holiness such that “the strong would have something to strive after and the weak would not be driven away.”

Although some of the language may sound strange to our ears today, here is a translation of the Rule you may want to take a look at. It may prompt you to examine your own “middle way.”