Author: catmaclamb

Gospel Reflection for 5 Mar 23:

By Ms. Catherine “Cathie” Lambert, OP

            This is one of my most favorite Bible verses.  Many years ago, when I read it for the first time, I knew – without doubt – that this was the way I wanted to live my life.  It’s what I wanted to do, but it took me a good long time to do it the first time!

            Life, I think you’ll agree, is full of unknowns.  At one time or another, it is what makes life miserably terrifying.  The thing is… there is no getting around the ‘unknowns’.  There is no knowing the specific purpose of our lives.  Not for sure.  There is no knowing the best decision to make in a chaotic bundle of possibilities.  Not for sure.  There is no knowing how, when, or why we are going to die… not to mention what will (or may not) happen afterwards.  These are perhaps the biggest questions for each and every one of us.  But all we can do is make assumptions and live as if we knew what we were doing.  Or is it?

            As I read and heard more and more of the Bible, I finally began to take it in.  Some of it – a lot of it – actually made sense in light of my experiences.  Take Abram, for instance.  When God told him to:  Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you._{(Gen 12:1)}  …off he went with nary a question.  And later, when Peter, John, and James followed Jesus up the hill and they saw Jesus – with Moses and Elijah, no less! – in his glorified state (the way he would look when he was Resurrected) Peter’s mouth became unhinged.  He pulled a Peter-thing, as he often did, and proposed a camp-out before even half understanding what was going on.  Misguided, but at least he was willing to do anything and everything Jesus might possibly want!  Right?

            When I was finally brave enough – I tried out this ‘walking by faith’ thing.  Man!  My instincts had me fighting, fleeing, and freezing singly, one-right-after-the-other-and-repeat, and all-at-once!  But, by the grace of God – truly, by his grace – I did it.  And then I did it again.  And again.

            You know, they say that hindsight is 20/20; and sure enough, when I look back over my seventy years, I do see that those times I ‘walked by faith’ and ‘not by sight,’ were the best times.  The absolute best! 

            And, hey!  After all this time, I know a thing or two!  (Don’t you roll your eyes at me, Kiddo!)  This is the biggest thing I know:  Don’t walk by sight – because some day hindsight will show you that when you did walk by sight – you must’a had your eyes closed tight and your fingers stuffed in your ears!  Because that’s just how bad things turned out!  My advice?

Walk by Faith

Because we can’t know…

But God does!

                As soon as they’re open, I’m going to join a gym.  And hey!  Once a month… no, twice a month is going to be a No-Screens-Family-Night with board games and popcorn once we’ve all helped clean up after dinner!  Ohhh!  Yeah!  2023 is going to be the best yet!  Oh – and yeah.  I, that is we are going to say the Rosary as-a-family every night before bed; well, maybe twice or, errrh, once a week.  Well, once a month for sure!

                Why all this new action, new effort, new determination?  A stupid question?  Now, my most favorite ole teacher told me that there’s no such thing as a ‘stupid question’!  Tell me why.  Please.  To get stronger – to feel better!  Yeah, I can see that.  And to get closer to the best people in the world – Family.  You bet!  That’s a good one, too!  And the Rosary?  Yeah, I kinda know, but what do you mean by it?  Hey, hey now.  Come on back!  I’m just messin’ with ya.  Come on.  Settle down. 

                Here’s what I’m getting at.  It’s good to be healthy.  Yeah, and it’s good to keep the home fires burnin’ so to speak.  But the praying stuff; you know, your last little thing on your list of Resolutions for this New Year.  The part you couldn’t quite explain.  Now-now, I know you think I should know.  And, I do, but I’d like to here it from your point of view.  Nooo.  This is not going to be like pulling teeth without an anesthetic.

                Let me get you started here… underneath Everything is Something Else, right?  Kinda holding that Something up.  Then under That is Something Else holding That Thing up.  And so on.  Until you get to the very Rock-Bottom-of-Things.  Now the Rock-Bottom-of-Things is already there when you first arrive.  It’s not something YOU make or put there.  But the Next Thing… that is the first thing you put on top of it needs to be:  Just.  Right.  It’s got to be stable and… and strong, and unmoveable so that the next levels on top of it can be that way too.

                So we’re building Our Little Houses – you know, Our Lives.  But they only last for so long, right?  Yeah, I know.  Sad-but-true.  But because of it, we want our lives to be, you know, Good.  As good as we can make them.  Are ya with me so far?  So how do we build on the Rock-Bottom?  What is the first layer of Goodness?  Yeah, good health so we can live a long time is good.  Yeah, but listen…  Yeah, close family ties so that long life can be a secure and happy one is really good, too.  Yeah.  But.  Listen…  It’s all going to tumble down one day, right?  It’ll all wear out…  one day.

                But that’s not the end-of-the-story, is it?  No.  It’s not.  There’s What-Comes-Next.  It’s the, you know, the “Why” we did everything as best we possibly could for in the first place.  But what is it?  Hey, ya got me.  But it’s there.  I can feel it – sometimes I can see the results of it right here under my own nose!  Yeah, I knew you could, too.  We all do, one way or another.  Anyway.  Here’s what I mean…  why spend all your effort, all your life on the part that goes away one day?  Yeah, sure.  It’s fun, and it does last for awhile.  But, then…  But… then…  (Come on, you know what I mean!)  But… then…  Yeah!  The What-Comes-Next. 

                Look, the Rock-Bottom is for when you’re healthy – and if-and-when you’re not.  It’s for when you’re in the middle of your close-knit family – and for if-and-when it disappoints or even falls apart.  The Rock-Bottom is for the beginning of life, the middle of life, the end of life… and for after the end of life.  It runs through Ev-ery-Thing!  And while your Ev-ery-Thing may not hold together or be what you want – The Rock-Bottom keeps you together with… well, with it’s wonderful, dependable, ole Self.

                Yeah!  Yeah!  You’ve got it!  The Rock-Bottom Bedrock we can build our Lives on is God!  He’s what puts us here, keeps us here as long as we’re meant to be here, and folds us up in his loving arms at the End-Which-Is-Not-an-End. 

                Building on the bedrock?  Well, no, you’re right, you can’t just lay things on top of it – you’ve got to connect with it.  You know.  Drive pilings right down into it so you can never come loose!  How?  Come on, you know how.  Just want to hear me say it, huh?  Okay:  prayer.  Don’t feel much like doing that?  I understand.  Then ask for his Grace.

                What’s Grace?  It’s strength when you are weak.  It’s determination when you waiver.  It’s even I-want-to when you don’t particularly want-to.  It’s the greatest Gift this side of Jesus-Son-of-God-on-earth-for-our-Redemption.  Well, it is God’s gift; yeah, Jesus’ gift, too.  Yeah, the Spirit’s Gift, too.  Well, yeah, he is… they are The Gift.  I don’t know how.  Well, of course we all want to know “How” it’s done.  No.  Nope, none of that.  The answer is there.  It’s like that joke that goes:  “Wait for it…  Wait… for it… “  Yeah, I know.  I want to know now, too.

                So.  What’s first?  Join the gym?  Set up a monthly family night?  What’s first for you this New Year?  Prayer?  Ahhh, regular prayer.  Yeah, well, asking for Grace-to-Want-to-Do-It is prayer too – I think you’re right on that one.  Yup.  Yup.  Amen, indeed.

Lectio Divina based on the Mass Readings for 1 Jan 2023

by Ms. Catherine “Cathie” Lambert, OP

  The Second Reading today contains one of St. Paul’s really cool bits of advice.  You remember:  “Do not let anyone have any food if he refuses to do any work.”  (ca. 2 Thessalonians 3:10)

     Apparently, in St. Paul’s time, this rule was more than just good advice that no one could figure out how to implement without getting thrown into jail.  What was that like, I wonder?  Tough times, huh.  Well, ‘tough times’ require tough decisions.  Right?  Yeah, right.  You know… Mama used to say that the only one we can really change is ourselves.  So… Get.  Real.  … with yourself. 

     Let’s say you’ve got the feeling you should be praying more, and more often?  Then do it.  How?  How about a little tough (self-)love?  Start off slow, you can only really tackle one thing at a time – and it does!  I mean, it also does take time to accomplish.  And something else; that is, it takes something else in order to get your bad self to your better self.  It takes the ‘grace of God’. 

     Well, how do I get that, you ask?  That’s it!  That’s exactly what you do!  You.  Ask.  Yep, you ask God for grace… the grace to want to do it.  Didn’t know grace could do that?  I didn’t either until recently.  Then I heard about it, then I thought, ‘Well, heck!  Let’s give it a try.’

     Someone suggested saying twenty decades of the Rosary – all in one day.  Twenty decades.  Twenty decades?  Oh, my gosh!  That’s… that’s… let me see – one, two, three, fffff…  That’s four whole regular Rosaries!  One for every set of the Mysteries.  All in one day.  Huu-huh.  Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

     I kept praying about it though – asking for the grace to want to do it.  And what’ll you know?  Slowly, bit-by-bit, I actually started to want to do it.  No, really!  Then I started praying for the grace to figure out how to get it going…  Come on, grace-of-God, I need you.  I need you a lot.  G’me some ideas here.  And ideas started whistling through my brain almost too fast to grab.  But, I did.  Grab one, I mean.  You know, an idea of how to get myself praying twenty decades of the Rosary a day… and loving it.

     Do you know, they say that if you put a live frog in a pot of cool water, and slowly heat it up.  You know, s-l-o-w-l-y… that the frog will never even know it’s being turned into frog soup (yuck).  Yeah, it’s true.  The frog will never even try to jump out of the pot!

     Not that I was making frog soup, or anything.  I was training myself to pray twenty decades a day.  That’s a lot better than frog soup!  But that’s what the idea I caught suggested.  No!  Not frog soup, you Silly!  Start out slow and easy, just adding a decade a week, for instance.  And keep praying that until it seems entirely normal.  Then adding another decade until that seems normal, and then… well, you get the idea, right? 

     And after – oh, say forty days (you know, about the length of Lent) – yeah, after about forty days, well there you go!  Frog soup!  Nawwh.  I’m pullin’ your leg.  Not frog soup, but saying four whole Rosaries every day – and feeling like it’s nothing much.  Feeling like it’s just what I’ve always done.  And that’s grace for ya:  the greatest way to want to work for your dinner since St. Paul suggested it. 

     Yeah.  Mama was right – can only change myself.  So how do I want to change myself?  I mean, what kind of person do I want to be?  Don’t know?  Start praying for the grace to be able to know.  Then grab one of those ideas that start whistling through your brain and, you know… Make frog soup!

Luke 15:1-10 ~ 11 Sep 2022 ~ by Ms. Catherine Lambert, OP

                When Jesus explained to the Pharisees why he was ‘consorting’ with sinners; he tells them a couple stories – parables we call them. 

                The first story was about a shepherd.  Jesus often told stories about sheep and the shepherds who looked after them.  Although lambs and sheep were a food staple for first century Israel, and were often given in sacrifice to God, there seemed to be something more in a shepherd-sheep relationship.  A good shepherd, Jesus said, was willing to lay down his life for his sheep.  And the sheep would follow a good shepherd because he would call each of them by name.  Wow.  I had trouble enough coming up with names for my two children – just think about trying to name 50 or a hundred!

Well, this particular shepherd actually did have a 100 sheep.  And although I can’t quite figure how someone could count 100 milling, roaming sheep, this shepherd noticed that one of them was missing!  One.  The shepherd was, of course, rightly concerned about the 99 sheep that were still where they should be, but the idea of that one missing sheep made him gnaw his lip in worry.  Anything could have happened to his well-loved Georgie, anything at all! 

The shepherd looked back at the 99.  They seemed pretty much okay, so he spiraled around and out further and further, looking and calling for his lost one.  He angled up a hillside,  then angled down it; he muddied his feet by the stream – almost lost a sandal; he wove in and out and around piles and pillars and scatterings of rocks.  “Georgie!” he called.  “Geoooor-gyyy!”

It was starting to get dark, he needed to get back to the 99 and herd them close together for the night.  He came across Sam, another shepherd watching after his own flock as he cornered briefly into the next little valley.  “Hey, Sam!  Have you seen one of my sheep anywhere?”

“No, man.  Just my own 58.  Which one you looking for?”

“Georgie.”

“Aww, that’s tough, man!  Georgie’s a prince!”

The shepherd decided he’d search all night if he had to.  He could duck back to his 99 every now and again to make sure they were still alright.  “Geoooor-gyyy!  Georgie!  Where are you?”  Wait.  What was that?  Was that a ‘bleep’, a ‘blatt’?  It was!  Over there by the stream! And there was Georgie himself, stuck in the mud up to his curly-wool belly.

“Georgie!  Georgie, there you are!  What in the world are you doing way over here?”

“Bleep.”  Georgie wasn’t much of a talker, but the shepherd could tell he was really sorry for causing so much trouble… and really happy to be found.  The shepherd did loose a sandal in the mud this time – but it was okay because he had his Georgie back.  He pulled and pushed and twisted Georgie out of the mud and up across his shoulders.

“You’re puttin’ on weight, Georgie!” quipped the shepherd.  “I won’t be able to carry you like this much longer.  HEY SAM! I FOUND GEORGIE – HE’S OKAY!”

“That’s great, man,” came the distant reply.

The shepherd turned his head so he could look Georgie in the eye.  “You stay with me, Georgie!  You’re safe with me.  I’ll take good care of you right to the very end.  You know that, right?”

“Blaaaatttt!”  Georgie seemed pretty confident about that.

What’s this got to do with eating dinner with sinners?  Well, although it would be quite the coincidence if even one of those sinners reclining at the table was named Georgie, there was no doubt at all that those rough and tumble, sly hucksters were in the presence of The Good Shepherd…  The Good Shepherd who was trying to find and rescue them.  The Good Shepherd who would take good care of them right to the very end.  Some of them had the feeling something like that was in the offing.

The Pharisees were invited to the party – all sinners welcomed.  They sneered, rolled their eyes and shuffled down the road with an occasional backward glance.  ‘Well,’ thought The Good Shepherd, ‘there’ll be time to pull them out of the mud… if they want to be pulled out, that is.’  He turned back to the dinner-folk who were politely waiting for him.  He had some pretty important things to talk over with them…

So . . . let’s talk about the idea of prayer.  That’s right, I want you to think about praying.  Not so much whether or not to do it.  And not so much which prayers to pray at any given time.  Not even so much about the quality of your prayers.  Or whether you pray out loud, silently, slowly, or as quickly as you have breath for . . . that’s all in the Up-to-You category as far as I’m concerned.  Well, you and The Big Guy.

Sunday, 17 July 2022

By Ms. Catherine Lambert, OP

                This Sunday’s readings are about “A Message”.  In the First Reading, the angel of the Lord (or the Lord himself) came to the man Abraham.  Abraham had stepped out for God, he’d made that proverbial leap of faith and left everything he knew behind.  That day, Abraham and Sarah were made a promise:  Within a year, they would be visited again and they would be able to show off their own son.  Abraham trusted, believed the divine promise.  But Sarah despaired of ever having children and, in Genesis 18:12, not a part of today’s Reading:  Sarah laughed.  Do you suppose she laughed for joy at hearing she would finally bear a son; or was her laugh drenched in bitterness, knowing she would not?  Who chose ‘the better part’?  Abraham or Sarah?

                Sometimes we don’t know what ‘the better part’ might be.  Then, sometimes God pierces the mystery and pours the very answer into the laps of the most unlikely of people.  St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, explains that the answer to the Mystery of the Ages is that Christ is among them . . . among us.  In that day, not all chose ‘the better part’, but many did.

                Life can be so distracting, shifting our attention this way and that.  Jesus’ friend Martha found this out one day.  She fretted about her duty to hospitality.  Abraham had done the same, rousing his household to quickly, quickly provide for the unexpected guests.  Hospitality was of great consequence and both Abraham and Martha knew that many little details needed to be put into play in order to do it well.  Jesus was important – Martha knew – and she so wanted to do it well for him.  But her sister – lazy girl – did not help her.  Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, as close as she could get, and was attentive to the only thing that was needed.  Martha cried out for help to do her will for Jesus; but Mary chose ‘the better part’, she chose to do Jesus’ will for her.

                Jesus was proud of Mary’s decision, but loved Martha no less.  He gently admonished Martha, pointing out her error.  What do you suppose Martha did then?  Do you think she scurried off to get refills for her honored guests?  Or do you think she dried her hands, put her towel down – rather thoughtfully – and joined her sister at the feet of Jesus? 

                What about us?  We’ve learned the answer to the Mystery of the Ages – we’ve learned that Jesus Christ is among us.  What do we do with that information?  Do we still bow to the gods of our time:  to a full schedule, to responsibilities to others, to an inflated sense of self?  Or, do we choose . . . The Better Part?

                I nearly died – a couple of months ago – from a really bad case of COVID.  No, I didn’t get the vaccine.  It bothered me that the tissue of an aborted or miscarried fetus was used to develop and test at least some of these vaccines, and I dithered one way and the next, trying to find a valid reason to either get the vaccine or not.  I must admit that one of my core traits came into play as well:  procrastination.  It wasn’t two weeks after talking to my doctor about the pros and cons of the vaccine that I contracted COVID.

                I wasn’t just stay-in-bed sick… I was have-your-son-take-you-to-the-hospital sick.  By the time I got to the hospital (the wrong one at first since I get my medical care through the Veterans Admin.) I was so sick I couldn’t stand up – could barely sit up in the wheelchair in which they brought me in.  They asked me, “Do you have pain?”

                “Yes.”

                “Do you have a ‘booming’ headache?”  I wasn’t too sure what they meant by that, but ‘looking within’, I did discover that my eyeballs and eardrums were swelling and shrinking in time to my labored heartbeat. 

                “Yes!” 

                “Okay, just wait here.”

                Finally they shuffled me into an ambulance and drove me the two miles to the Veterans’ hospital.  They stuffed me into a tiny room which evidently hadn’t been used in a while:  I made this determination after one of the nurses said, “What is wrong with this bed?  I can’t get it to go down!”  Then, glory of glories, two things happed which gave me the greatest relief:  They hooked me up to oxygen – I could finally catch my breath (and my snot bubbles dried up) and; they carefully led me to the bathroom – no need to explain the relief I got from that.  Then they placed me in an adult diaper and tucked me in.

                I was in the hospital for twelve days, getting the tiniest bit better each day.  At first I was given what I later found out was a massive amount of ‘heated, high-flow oxygen’.  It basically came blasting through my canula, forcing oxygen into my poor lungs even when I was exhaling.  (It worked and later I was weaned down to the amount of oxygen that could be handled by a home oxygen concentrator.)

                Then there was the food – but that was actually pretty good!  My favorite was the ‘hamburger’ which looked, smelled, and tasted nothing like a hamburger – but was really good.  I did my best to be a ‘good’ patient – being polite to everyone who came into my room and even writing little ‘thank you’ notes to the kitchen crew on the menu selection sheet for the next day.  The kitchen liked my notes so much that I started getting ice cream along with breakfast!  Not a usual selection.

                On the second or third day, I texted my Dominican sisters and brother to tell them what was going on.  Rene texted back right away.  She reminded me that I really should have the Anointing of the Sick.  (Didn’t they used to call that Last Rites?  Huh.) 

                I hadn’t really thought about the possibility of dying.  I wasn’t afraid (strange that my greatest fear about dying is being afraid).  I wasn’t regretful or sad.  I was, I think, just… waiting.  That night, my respiratory therapist told me with great enthusiasm, “You’re going to make it!  I know you’re going to make it!  Do you know why?  Because you want to live!”  I want to live?  That was news to me.  Though not burdened with dire trials as many are, I had never relished living.  I remember as a teenager, looking at an old, tottering, white haired woman.  I envied her… because she was so much nearer ‘the end’ of all this than I was.  Of course God could always throw a bus at me any time and I would happily precede even those on their death beds.  I had, I think, kind of felt like St. Paul  – you know the verse: 

For to me life is Christ, and death is gain.  If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose.   I am caught between the two. I long to depart this life and be with Christ, [for] that is far better.  Yet that I remain [in] the flesh is more necessary…  (NABRE, Phil 1:20-24_a)

                I texted my parish priest and asked if he would Anoint me because I was pretty sick.  He was there within minutes of my text.  I can’t but admire him for coming – in truth, it was an act of bravery.  I was, of course, on the “COVID Floor” of the hospital – no visitors, you know.  He came in with a face mask on and those blue gloves instead of the ‘CDC space suit’.

                It was just us in my little room.  He pinched off the tip of his glove on his index finger and thumb.  He then opened a tiny jar with the holy oil in it.  The scent was so warm, subtle, and comforting!  He put some on the palms of my hands and my forehead and I just felt so relieved of all worries, I felt I didn’t have to struggle any more… I just had to rest and wait with the mildest of curiosities, to see how things would turn out.  I share with you now the fruits my my contemplation.  I thought, ‘Huh.  I guess I really do believe this stuff.’ 

                It may not sound particularly profound, but like all of us, I have my faith, but I also have my doubts.  They’re like potholes in the road.  Some of them I see and avoid, but a significant number sort of sneak under the tire and give you quite a jolt.  Okay, I would think, that’s a Doubt which I can neither prove nor disprove… therefore – it doesn’t matter.  Keep on driving.

                But this Anointing of the Sick thing showed me something I hadn’t realized before.   See, I had decided to believe all this Jesus stuff, this Catholic stuff.  I’d made up my mind.  But what haunted me was that I’d made decisions like this before… and been wrong.  I wasn’t sure I could trust my ‘gut instinct’ – but I’d decided and I was darn well going to follow through – but I’d been wrong so many times before, what made this decision any different?  That is where the tire meets the pothole!

                After being Anointed though – I ceased to doubt myself and my decision – it all just drifted away.  I hadn’t so much doubted the veracity of Jesus or even the Catholic Church… I had doubted my ability to make a true and good decision regarding them.  But my reaction to being Anointed was so smooth, so calming, and… right, that the pothole-doubts were just – there.  They were part of the road but not a part of me.  I could chunk through them or swish around them, it really didn’t matter.  They were just there.  I knew… I know what I believe and – thank God – I know that I really do believe it.

                What a relief.  If I have to live some more – though that bus could come flying through the air a squash me at any time – then this is the way to do it.  I somehow always knew that ‘… to die is gain…’ but now I truly know that ‘… to live is Christ… ‘.  And I’m okay with that.  At last.

Ms. Catherine Lambert, OP

                She gazed at her left hand which was caressing her growing belly.  Such a study in contradiction, she thought.  This belly so smooth and taut beneath her plain work-a-day garment – the badge of a young woman with the first of many children within her; then there – her hand, swathed in unexpected blotches and wrinkles (she tugged her sleeve down a bit) – the badge of an old woman with few and dwindling years foreseen.

                She fretted, and was shamed that she should do so.  It had been said – there could be no doubt – that her son, John, would have a momentous future.  Yet she worried.  The babe had not stirred, had not pressed against his confines even once.  Could he . . . could her babe be merely waiting to be born for the grave?  Was he resting within her, or was he already d…

                “Zechariah!  Husband.  How are you today, my Love?”  His shoulders shrugged, his wise old hands out, palm up; well-known, well-loved lips tightened in a self-depreciatory half-smile.  Elizabeth’s thoughtful hand grasped his – gave it a reassuring squeeze.  He, with his free hand, gently patted her distended belly.  His eye was quizzical.  Elizabeth’s head drooped.  A tear fell, darkening the fabric obscuring the object in question.  “No.  Nothing . . . yet,”  Elizabeth forlornly admitted.  Zechariah’s age-smoothed, gentle fingers stroked her forehead with just a wisp of connection, lovingly tucked a stray lock of grey-lightened hair back under her head shawl.  His thumb passed beneath her damp eye and lingered on her cheek.

                “Elizabeth?” a soft, almost childlike enquiry, wary of intruding perhaps.  Elizabeth violently swayed sideways and back.  Zechariah frantically gripped her shoulders to keep her on her feet.  Alarmed, he hastily questioned her eyes with his own – What’s going on?!  Are you alright?!  Surprisingly, Elizabeth’s face was alight with joy!  ‘The baby!’ she mouthed, ‘Our John!’

                The sweet voice behind her, “Elizabeth, I’ve. . . I’ve come for. . . for a visit.  I thought I could be of some – help?”

                Elizabeth turned, Zechariah keeping a cautionary hand on her shoulder, “O Mary, sweet cousin!  Don’t question how I know, but . . . I do know.  It has been explained to me in the most wonderful way!”  Hands extended, she laughed.  Her son was rolling, and pushing, and kicking!  “Mary.  Mary, you are the most blessed of all women!”  Mary stepped back in astonishment as Elizabeth continued, “The fruit of your womb is blessed!”  Mary shook her head in puzzlement.  How could Elizabeth know – and Zechariah, too, standing behind is wife, holding her shoulders and grinning wide enough to display the missing tooth which he was always at great pains to conceal.  How could they know?  “I am a humble woman . . .”  Elizabeth glanced back and up at her dear husband, “We are just ordinary people!  How does this happen to me – to us?”  Mary’s eyes, no longer confused, were steady, serene, radiant. 

                “How does it happen, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  Elizabeth giggled like the girl that Mary was.  “The moment – the very moment – the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped!  He.  He who had not yet moved to admit to life – he leaped for joy!”  Elizabeth approached Mary with a rolling gait as her John still cavorted within her.  She embraced Mary’s slight form and whispered with elation into her ear, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled!”

                Mary leaned away from Elizabeth’s embrace, yet held tightly to her hands with nervous fingers.  It was true then.  It hadn’t been a dream or a hallucination.  It was . . . True.  Mary drew in a deep breath.  Then her breath burst out in synchrony with Elizabeth’s.  They locked eyes, grinning and laughing in their shared joy.  Elizabeth’s son was alive!  And . . . the Messiah was on his way!

Ms. Catherine Lambert, O.P.

God couldn’t have been happy with the split between the Southern Kingdom of Judah – ruled by Solomon’s heir and the Northern Kingdom of Israel – the rebellious majority who broke away and established their own kingdom.  The North . . . Israel . . . was indeed rebellious.  It would not consent to be ruled by Solomon’s heir, would not acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital, would not even worship the True God but degenerated into idolatry.  No.  God-the-Father could not have been happy with them at all.  And yet . . .

            I think that God-the-Son had a soft spot in his heart for the remnant of the Northern Kingdom – those left behind as the greater number was led into Assyrian exile.  There’s always a ‘remnant’, right?  Well, this remnant was not the ‘faithful few’ who often become the seed of a resurgence of worship and loyalty to God.  No; this remnant became the scorned Samaritans.  The  Assyrian exile had come and gone.  The staunch Southern Kingdom ended up molding generations Jews would rather walk m-i-l-e-s out of their way to avoid stepping foot in what was no longer the Northern Kingdom, but what had become the disparaged Samaria.  And yet . . .

            Jesus and the disciples were travelling, as they often did.  They came to the border town of Sychar.  Heading for Galilee, it was time to walk the wearying detour around Samaria.  However, despite the disciples’ sound advice to the contrary, Jesus not only stepped foot in Samaria, but actually rested on the lip of Jacob’s Well which was just on the edge of town. 

            While Jesus’ followers had been sent on into town to scare up something for them all to eat,  Jesus had a nice little chat with not just any Samaritan, but with a Samaritan woman.  A woman who even her fellow Samaritans agreed was ‘fallen’. . .

            The woman approaches the Well with an empty water jug on her right shoulder.  It’s not the usual time for getting one’s daily water – already it’s mid-day.  It’s staggeringly hot.  The sun pries at the woman’s eyes; she idly squints at her sandaled feet as they scuff up little puffs of dust with each tired step.  She’s not in a hurry.  Why should she be?  She’s wondering if it is worth the effort to cook an evening meal – her husband has not deigned to grace his home in two days.  Maybe he won’t come home tonight either . . . maybe he won’t ever come home.

            The woman rests her water jug on the Well’s rim.  There’s something not quite right, she thinks.  She narrows her eyes a bit more, trying the figure out what is different.  The sun is beating down on her head making a sharp, little pain over her left eye.  It’s hard to think . . . but . . .   there’s a shadowy silhouette upon the Well’s sun baked stones . . .  Someone must  be . . .  there’s never anyone here at this time of day!  That’s why she comes at this hour!  She knows right enough what she is . . . she doesn’t need to hear it shouted out by sundry and all.  Haltingly, she raises her sun-narrowed eyes.  Which of the village women is casting that shadow?  The one with the strident shriek that pierces her ears?  Or the one who says nothing but is dismayingly accurate with her spit?

            It is neither.  It’s a man.  He’s looking at her in no particular way . . . just looking.  Most unusual.  By his dress, he’s a Jew, one of those hated and hating people.  It’s a puzzle.  The man says to her, “Give me a drink.”  It’s not unusual for a man – for any man to make this demand . . . though his words are soft, gentle.

            “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”  She’d more expect a flung stone than a soft spoken request from any Jew.  It was a mystery. . . a curiosity which – as considerable as it seems now – becomes all the larger as the kindly man continues to speak with her.  By the conversation’s end, there is a catch in her chest.  She can hardly draw breathe! 

            Then she’s running, running in the stifling heat, the blinding light of the noonday sun.  She’ll tell someone . . . anyone!  There.  There is her husband-who-is-not-her-husband.  Somehow, she’s no longer angry with him.  She grabs his sleeve with urgent fingers.  “Come see a man who told me everything I have done!”  He starts to shake her off but is captured by the elation in her face.   “Could he possibly be the Messiah?” she asks.

            You know the story.  Sure you do.  Jesus and the boys stayed in Sychar of Samaria for a couple of days.  Jesus boarded at the woman’s house with her sometime husband hanging on his every word.  Of course, there wasn’t enough room for all of them there, so the rest were parceled out to the neighborhood; neighbors were amazed at the riveting conversation and cheerful comradery of these Jews.  The people became thoughtful – these rowdy men, these hard-faced women, these rough day-laborers and poor traders, these idolatrous, sinful people – as the man who told the woman at the Well all she had ever done, spoke to them . . . to them . . .  of the things of God and of the things soon to come.   Jesus was no respecter of persons – which is a funny way of saying that he respected everyone – equally. 

           The Northern Kingdom had been most thoroughly punished.  Those who were hauled off to Assyria made poor decisions.  They intermarried with the locals and disappeared as a people.  Those who had escaped being exiled became the hated and scorned dregs of Jewish society.  But God-the-Son (with his Father’s nod and the Spirit’s go-ahead) loved them anyway. . . loved them as his own – which, of course, they were.

by Ms. Catherine Lambert, O.P.

            You’ve heard the joke, right?  You know, it goes like this:  All religion is, is Death Insurance!  You pay the premium, but when it’s time to make a claim . . . The Insurance Company is more than willing to pay up – but YOU are NO WHERE TO BE FOUND!  YUCK.  Yuck.  Yuck.

            Weird thing is – that’s not far wrong.  No, no.  Don’t worry.  I’m not going to go all atheist on you.  But.  The fact of the matter is that Death is the Big Scary – and that’s for sure.  We don’t know what’s on the other side.  We think.  We hope.  We believe . . . then we hope some more. 

            But I say, “Why worry about it!”  It happens to us all – at least at this point in time (yeah, I do read sci-fi).  We’re going to go whether our Grand Exit is accompanied by organ music:  “duh-duh-duh – DUH!” or by a choir of angels:  “Ahhhhhhh . . . “

            Yup.  Yup.  Yup.  But that’s not really The Thing, is it?  It’s not so much how we are going to die or where we go after that (well, it sorta is).  It’s how we make our way there, don’t ya think?  We don’t need Death Insurance . . . we need Gettin’-Through-Life Insurance!  And Brother…  Sister…  do I have a policy for you!

Ms. Catherine Lambert, OP