No to Yes: A Profound Change

Turning away from sin and turning towards God—that is metanoia, a change of mind and heart. That kind of change comes from experiences of insight, new awareness of the plight of others, and the example of struggle and sacrifice of persons for the sake of others. We often describe ourselves as changed after a retreat, a serious illness or disaster that we call life-changing, after six months of COVID-19 seclusion, and/or after some sort of “awakening.”

Metanoia requires that we are malleable, capable of learning and being coached, able to take instructions, and willing to be humble. “I once was blind, but now I see.” It is important to give voice to the change we experience.

What would it look like in my life for me to follow Paul’s instruction to the Philippians not to look out for my own interests, but to look out for the interests of others? Who is doing this now where we live? Do we know people who are marching for racial justice? Who are putting their lives at risk in health care or education? Who are trying to change the climate crisis? Who are advocating for higher wages and good jobs for persons displaced by COVID-19? Who care about the well-being of the police as well as the policed?

Climate change, violence, poverty, prejudice: these are not your fault or mine. At the same time, we share a mutual ownership of these conditions. What opportunities we have to look out for more than my own interests, to the interests of others! How do we contribute to them by our words, choices, silences? We can no longer say that it isn’t my problem, it doesn’t touch me and therefore I don’t have to do anything except guard and protect my own corner of the world, my own family, myself.

“Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.” Will you say “yes” and never show up? Or will you say “no” and then change your mind and go? What vineyards is God calling you to work in? How can you be more responsive to God’s call? What conversion of mind, heart, and life is the Lord asking of you?

The elections are a vineyard in need of workers. Pope Francis and our bishops, as well as our local Church leaders ask us to vote with an informed conscience. Each of us is responsible for personally studying the issues—all of them—and making choices for the common good, the needs of others, not just our own. Our study of the issues should include multiple sources—Jesus and the Scriptures, the social teaching of the Church which documents our responsibility for each other—for all human beings, the research, and studies of reputable organizations who work for the common good.  Good conversations open dialogue with persons who think differently than we do can also offer clarification that informs our consciences.

With prayer, study, and reflection, all of us can become workers in the vineyard who produce good fruit. We can become more than persons who say good things, but don’t act and aren’t accountable to anyone. We can become persons who act on our commitments, whose words we can count on.

For this, let us all work and pray!

“Because no one has hired us.”

Parables are written or told with the intention of drawing us into the story. Parables also provoke our thinking. My thinking was both provoked and challenged. In no time at all, I was thinking of the people in San Antonio who have no work to do and no money to earn. COVID-19 has left many of our brothers and sisters who work in hospitality and tourism without work, work that often did not even pay a living wage. No work! No money to earn! No money to live! Do you know anyone like that?

Most of us will remember that vineyard workers in this parable are hired at different times of the day. The first negotiate for their rate of pay. Others join them as the employer visits the marketplace to find others to work. Late in the day, some are still present, still there, apparently waiting for whatever work they can get. When the employer asks them why they are standing there idle, their reply is “because no one has hired us.”

My curiosity makes me wonder why they were not hired. Were they not hirable for some reason? Were they some of the people we would list as ones who “need not apply”? Was it their appearance? Their gender?

Nevertheless, hired they were! And although they had worked only a short period of time, they were the first to be paid, and they were paid as much as everyone else. Can you hear the grumbling by those who had labored all day, in the hot sun? They assumed that because they had worked longer, they would be paid more than they originally bargained for. They received payment and they grumbled. They protested. This wasn’t right or just! Seeing that those hired last got what they needed to survive another day wasn’t all that angered them. What really guiled them was their observation about the employer: “You have made them equal to us.”

This parable does provoke and challenge. Right to work? A living wage? Rights to safe workplaces? Non-discrimination? The dignity of work? Ready to work but no one is hiring?

When we reflect on scripture, we are challenged to see differently, to open our hearts to recognize that when someone in our community is suffering, we all suffer. Think of the waiter at your favorite restaurant, hotel workers, and workers at our entertainment venues, small business owners, and countless others who are without work.

Parables often call us to action. During this 2020 election, we all have the opportunity to do something for displaced workers. Ready to Work SA is Proposition B on the ballot. It provides for workforce development, for job training that will give low wage workers the new skills they need to be gainfully employed in jobs that pay a living wage ($15 per hour or more), to support their families, and to break out of generational poverty. Developing a more skilled workforce will change the image of San Antonio. This is an opportunity for 40,000 of our brothers and sisters to be trained and hired in the next four years, without any new taxes.

In addition, we can pray for the dignity of work and the rights of workers.

Lord God, Master of the Vineyard,

How wonderful that you have invited us
who labor by the sweat of our brow
to be workers in the vineyard
and assist your work
to shape the world around us.

As we seek to respond to this call,
make us attentive to those who seek work
but cannot find it.

Help us listen to the struggles of those
who work hard to provide for their families
but still have trouble making ends meet.

Open our eyes to the struggles of those exploited
and help us speak for just wages and safe conditions,
the freedom to organize, and time for renewal.
For work was made for humankind
and not humankind for work.
Let it not be a vehicle for exploitation
but a radiant expression of our human dignity.

Give all who labor listening hearts
that we may pause from our work
to receive your gift of rest.

Fill us with your Holy Spirit
that you might work through us to let your justice reign.
Amen.

Copyright © 2019, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. All rights reserved. This text may be reproduced in whole or in part without alteration for nonprofit educational use, provided such reprints are not sold and include this notice.

Mercy in Real Time

“The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, rich in compassion.” Oh, how I miss the Jubilee Year of Mercy! For me, that year and all the time since has been a continuous reflection on what mercy means. Our Sunday readings this week remind us that mercy is the virtue most often named in the Scriptures. In fact, we are reminded that if we believe and want to be saved, we must be merciful. We are merciful as a reflection of God’s mercy towards us. God initiates; we follow.

For me, the next 32 days, the days before early voting begins in Texas, as well as every day forward will be dedicated to educating myself and others in what our Catholic faith (in doctrine and in practice) teaches about mercy and justice. We have a rich tradition of following Jesus through our Baptism and our call to be priest, prophet, and king. In mercy we accompany those whose rights are ignored, whether they are the unborn, the immigrant, the homeless, the prisoner, or the millions upon millions of people whose own equity is socially compromised because of gender, race, tribe, caste, religion, or sexual status. Mercy searches for justice. Mercy is about promoting the common good—the good of the police and the good of the protesters. Mercy is about equity in education, especially early childhood education. Mercy is about a living wage and good jobs for all in a good jobs economy. All of these are not about individual preferences, but rather about choices we have for the common good.

To promote the common good is to promote the wellbeing of all people, to provide for the needs of all humans to live and act well. When we encounter resistance to wearing a face mask, we have an example of how unaware we can sometimes be of social responsibility, our responsibility for each other, not just ourselves.

To be priest, prophet, and king is to lead in efforts for the common good. Baptism is a social event. We baptize to welcome into community. We enter into a sacred covenant to love and care for each other—no exceptions, throughout all of life!

So what is capable Catholic leadership? Fr. James Keenan, an ethics professor at Boston College, describes it this way—“someone who understands the limits of reality, recognizes financial constraints, attends to details, respects boundaries, appreciates the importance of the law, knows how to motivate, is able to summon the best out of oneself and others, and can challenge all to think beyond self-interest. The Catholic voter turns then to one capacious to lead out of mercy for the common good.”

https://www.ncronline.org/news/theology/preaching-election-mercy-where-we-start-common-good-what-we-aim

Just think about it! Seek a variety of sources to inform your conscience! Pray about it! Work for it!

Watching Out and Watching In

Watchmen and women, love and prayer! These are three key words guiding our reflection this weekend. Ezekiel is called to be a prophet, to be a watchman who addresses injustice in his world. Our Baptism anoints each of us as priest, prophet, and king. So we too are called to be prophets (watchmen and women). We are called to “watch out” for injustice, especially that which diminishes life in any way.

How are you a watchperson? What do you see as unjust as you take watch? What do you do about it? Do you speak with the strength and conviction of Ezekiel who knows he is responsible for the lives of the people he is watching? Who are your partners in keeping watch? Who are the watchpersons God is sending into our world today? Can you think of ways to bring justice and God’s desire and vision for all human beings to live and to thrive?

God tells Ezekiel that he must speak, he must be the towncrier, calling out the wrongdoings, asking for a change of heart. Ezekiel is responsible. We are responsible. To work actively to seek solutions is to examine ourselves and our responsibility, to “watch in.”

God’s greatest commandment, Jesus teaches us, is love of neighbor. No exceptions! Every person on this earth is our brother or sister. Love makes us responsible for all.

And what becomes of us if we get it wrong? If we fail? That’s why we have community. As brothers and sisters to each other, we learn to intervene when we see wrongdoing. We take risks in doing so because we believe that change of heart is possible in each of us. The Christian community is called to defend the interests of the least ones in our midst, as well as to create the space and conditions for forgiveness and restoration to flourish.

Our strength, our courage to speak and act comes from our reliance on God to grant our request in some way when we gather with others to pray. Prayer helps us to discern what message to speak. Prayer helps us to discern what actions on behalf of the least among us we are called to take.

For this let us all work and pray.

Know Better—Do Better!

“Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” These words from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans seem to be an exhortation to all of us today.  In the confusion and conflicts, the strains on relationships of all kinds, various pressures, the storms and wildfires, and the strong pleas for justice, many of us are searching for an understanding of what God is asking of us.

In her preaching for this weekend, Sister Nicole Trahan, a young Marianist Sister from San Antonio (https://www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/08302020) describes her personal journey to renew her mind, to seek transformation and to discern the will of God. Her mantra is “Know better. Do better.”

Conforming to this age might be giving in to cynicism, despair, paralysis. It might mean competition for limited resources rather than sharing generously. Jesus tells Peter that following him means taking up our cross. Pope Francis in The Joy of the Gospel says: “Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will…enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness.”

What opportunities do we have to enter into the suffering of others? How can we turn our laments about the way life is into hope? Each time we participate in the Eucharist, we hear the words “this holy and living sacrifice.” Are we offering sacrifices of our own?

One opportunity to “Know better” and “Do better” is the training being offered this Friday evening and Saturday on Recognizing the Stranger. Archbishop Gustavo, with funding from the Campaign for Human Development, is partnering with COPS/Metro to help parish members throughout the diocese to renew our minds, change our hearts, and move us to action. Several of our parishioners and I are signed up. Join us!

St. Francis of Assisi prayed: “Most High, glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart and give me true faith, certain hope, and perfect charity, sense and knowledge, Lord, that I may carry out Your holy and true command. Amen.”

Who Is Jesus?

“Who do you say that I am?” Jesus poses this question to his disciples in this Sunday’s gospel. Jesus poses the same question to each of us. Who is Jesus? Try answering the question 20 different times. What are the first responses? What do they become as you proceed?

My own images of Jesus have changed over the years. When I joined other women in answering the call to religious life 55 years ago, I know that I was responding to Jesus’ words “come follow me.” Thanks to my formators, I was led to exploring what that means. Our formation sessions were Scripture-based lessons describing who this Jesus is whom we follow. Long before it became a slogan on a rubber wrist band, I found myself often asking “What would Jesus do?”

Much of my formation as a person also came from all that was happening in the 60’s. It was a time of revolution, of murders of leaders who were working for change in systems, of the Catholic Church’s study of reforms needed in Church life. The Jesus who broke boundaries that excluded, who included women as persons of dignity and worth, who turned the tables on the rich and powerful became the one I follow.

Because Peter recognized Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he was given power and authority. Peter’s role in building the Church were keys to building the kingdom of God on earth—loving and forgiving, bringing about justice, and living compassion and mercy. As followers of Jesus, we too participate in the building of that kingdom on earth.

We pray this weekend that elected officials govern with fairness and respect, that pastoral leaders in the Church never fail to be agents of God’s mercy, that all of us take seriously our ministry to bring reconciliation to all broken relationships, and that those who have been abused and persecuted by others will find a way to be healed of such injustice. For this let us all work and pray.