Bulletin for Sunday, July 3, 2011

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Friends,

This past Monday at Morning Prayer, Joseph Moore said, "It feels so good to have my pride and dignity back."  After years on the street, his life has been coming together again, with a job and self-respect. I remember the day he got his driver's license back. He said, "I feel like a person again."  It just feels better when you're a recognized part of society, no longer invisible and on the margins. (Joe gave me permission to share what he said with you).

Last week, hundreds of thousands of New York residents got told they were people by the state of New York, people with the same right to marry the person they love as anybody else. Hooray! At the same time as rejoicing, I want to point out that all the state has done is to legitimize a reality that was already there. Gay and lesbian people have been in loving, committed relationships, raising families, being together for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, all along. I look at my daughter and daughter-in-law, Bridget and Catie McCabe-Strong. They were married in Massachusetts last October, and they live with me, now. They are like any other young couple, struggling to make ends meet, sharing the chores, figuring out who needs the car when, supporting each other through life's ups and downs --- and loving each other through it all. How can anyone look at a couple like them, and not be in awe at the beauty of their love and commitment?

A woman named Jamie L Manson writes a blog for the National Catholic Reporter called "Grace on the Margins." Today she wrote, "I have been struck by the effect that the passage of the marriage bill has had on my own sense of dignity. Though I am blessed not to carry any guilt or shame about my sexuality, walking through New York City streets on Pride weekend with my partner, I did experience new, unexpected feelings of legitimacy and integrity. I can finally appreciate how good equality is for the spirit."

Congratulations, New York State, for doing the right thing! As Martin Luther King said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Indeed, it does. There is still much to be done. One state's legitimizing gay marriage, while a huge step in the right direction, doesn't end prejudice. It doesn't give gay couples the right to file their federal income taxes as married people. But it will make a difference.

One of the steps along this road was taken by Corpus Christi Church in the 90's. Celebrating gay unions was one of the issues that got us in trouble back then, and I believe that our refusal to bend and our willingness to pay the price for that, contributed to this latest wonderful step in the journey. Rev. Denise Donato, in particular, has been a stalwart and life-giving supporter of the gay community for many years. Doesn't it feel great, to see things unfold like this?!

I pray for the day when every young person who realizes that he or she is gay or lesbian will be able to joyfully embrace their sexual identities with the full support of family, church and state. May each of us be, utterly and completely and joyfully, the person God made us to be.

Blessings and love to all,
Chava

On Sunday, July 17 at 2 pm, Jeff Wilson will give a concert at Mary Magdalene Church in East Rochester. $10 and sure to be a wonderful time!
Friday, July 22 at 7pm, the Center for Sustainable Living will present a dvd on Thomas Berry at St Joe's, followed by a talk and discussion led by Tim McGowan. Free ­come and join us!

_________________________________________________________
Oscar Romero Church
An Inclusive Church in the Catholic Tradition
Mass: Sundays, 11 am
St Joseph's House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620

Bulletin for Sunday, June 26, 2011

Corpus Christi Sunday

Friends,

I'm writing this on the longest day of the year, here in the northern hemisphere. Did you get out and enjoy the day, today? Sometimes it's easy to miss the really wonderful things in our lives, just because they are ordinary.

This Sunday is the feast of Corpus Christi, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. Yaay! Back at Corpus we used to celebrate this day as the birthday of the parish. The Body of Christ is both the Eucharist, and all of us together who make up this wonderful body, the hands and feet and heart and lungs and voice and eyes of God in the world. It's a good day to remember that we are one body, even though we may worship God differently, or understand what's going on in the celebration of the Eucharist differently. Sometimes I get asked about that, because it's often a dividing point between Protestants and Catholics.

Here's what I always say: I do believe that God is truly present in the Eucharist. Absolutely, truly present. I also believe that God is truly present in you and me, in that tree and this flower, in the sun and the moon and in every cell of every living thing. I believe that what happens when we celebrate the Eucharist is that we become aware of the reality that is already there. The veil gets stripped away and we can be for a bit in the wonder and awe of an awareness that would be hard to walk around in. Everything cries holy, yet we still have to wash the dishes.

Imagine if we had the same reverence for every person that we have for that little white disc of bread. We should! Every person we meet is as infused with the presence of God as the bread of the Eucharist. Just as profoundly holy, every one. Every annoying, smelly, needy, lying, cheating, you-name-it one. A carrier of God. Julian of Norwich said there is no between in our relationship with God. Nothing in between us. God is as close as our breath, the energy driving our cells, the light that gets turned into food by photosynthesis. Thomas Merton said that we don't know that we're all walking around shining like the sun. Glory, glory!

Bask in the light of this time of year. And remember, that light is in you and in me. Let the Eucharist be a reminder that everything cries holy.

We had a pretty wonderful experience this past Thursday, going out west of the city to celebrate Mass with some Migrant workers, there. Many thanks to Librada Paz who helped with interpretation. I was delighted that Linda, Marty and Caroline came. We met Pedro, Santiago, Rafael and several other people and had a lovely Mass together. We will leave St Joe's at 7 pm again this Thursday, and every Thursday until the days get shorter and we move the time of Mass earlier. Hooray for this new ministry! Keep us in your prayers, please.

Blessings and love to all,
Chava

Some dates to save in July:
On Sunday, July 17 at 2 pm, Jeff Wilson will give a concert at Mary Magdalene Church in East Rochester. $10 and sure to be a wonderful time!
Friday, July 22 at 7pm, the Center for Sustainable Living will present a dvd on Thomas Berry at St Joe¹s, followed by a talk and discussion led by Tim McGowan. Free. Come and join us!


"Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished."
                      - Mary Oliver



______________________________________________________
Oscar Romero Church
An Inclusive Church in the Catholic Tradition
Mass: Sundays, 11 am
St Joseph's House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620

Bulletin for Sunday, June 19, 2011

Trinity Sunday

Friends,

We had such a lovely Pentecost celebration at St Romero's. Rachael really made the day with her flaming peaches at coffee hour! Real tongues of fire! We celebrated part of the Mass in Spanish, in preparation for our first Mass in the migrant camps this Thursday. A man came in during the service who needed our help. At the kiss of peace he told us what was going on with him, and at the end of Mass we gave him a blessing. After Mass, Rachael and Linda helped him find some new clothes, and we all had scrambled eggs (that Linda made) and sausage (that Louie brought and made) and big slabs of pineapple that made me think of El Salvador. He looked a lot better by the time he left, and really I think it was the community, at least as much as the clothes and food, that fed him. I thought of something one of the guests at the Corpus Christi supper program said, many years ago --"If you all stopped serving food, we'd still come. We'd come for the love."

We're living in an age of amazing things, including the ability to communicate across distances, to build relationships via computer. Saturday night when I finished making my "cheat sheet" for saying Mass in Spanish, I sent it off to Olga, a woman priest in Columbia --- whom I have never met, but who helps translate the bulletin into Spanish each week [as does Mary Wilkins] and then posts it on her blog! --- and pretty soon she had sent it back to me with corrections. Isn't that wonderful?  I have found myself instant messaging with a friend in El Salvador while having a facebook conversation with someone from my hometown I never expected to see again. Our church is even made possible in part by the internet --- over a hundred people get the English bulletin, another half dozen get it in Spanish, and it doesn't cost us anything. It really is amazing. (And even the translation starts out on the internet!)

So in this age of wondrous forms of communication it is more important than ever to remember to interact one-on-one, to build relationships of caring and trust. You can't touch a person through the internet, can't hold their hand. Tonight in the hospital I sat at the bedside of a woman who could talk but not hear. All the comfort I could offer was with my eyes, and holding her hand. And it was enough. You can't do that in cyberspace. I was called to the bedside of a Spanish-speaking man (imagine being in the hospital and not understanding what is being said around you) - and held his hands and prayed --- again --- there is a lot of wonderful stuff you can do with computers, but nothing replaces the human touch. Nothing replaces being able to look into someone's eyes, to laugh and cry together.

This Thursday we'll be going west of the city to offer that human touch, and leap over language barriers, and hopefully make some new friends. Please pray for us! Life feels rather barren out there. I pray that our Masses might be water in the desert, a source of life.

Sending love to our sister churches, Mary Magdalene and Spiritus Christi - MM celebrated two years on Pentecost, and Spiritus is twelve years old! How great God is, and what a wonderful journey we have been on in this last decade plus two!!

Blessings and love to all,
Chava


__________________________________________________________
Oscar Romero Church
An Inclusive Church in the Catholic Tradition
Mass: Sundays, 11 am
St Joseph's House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620

A Force For Good

By Chava Redonnet

On Wednesday, April 6, a mixed group of people sat in a circle, upstairs on a terrace of the “popular market” - el mercado popular, what we in the States might call a public market - in Santa Ana, El Salvador. Twenty-five or so red plastic chairs held Salvadorans as well as we visitors from around the United States, all here at the behest of Alex Orantes, Baptist pastor, organizer, director of the popular market, and friend to us all.

One by one, Alex introduced people to us: the man in the pink shirt, who would succeed him as director, as Alex was about to promoted to greater responsibility; a woman who spoke words of welcome; another woman whose birthday it was, and we all sang. I looked around the crowd, thinking of what we’d heard prior to the meeting, that at least one of the men here had been a torturer during the war [“the man with the scar” – but there were several men with scars], that others were members of gangs. Police officers, looking formidable, stood in a wide circle at the perimeter of our group. Alex introduced us all to each other  as “good people,” as “my brothers and sisters.”

                  

No one’s past behavior or current choices were on the table for judgment or accountability. All that was of interest was, what might we do together to make things better? All these good people, these people who are so much more than the worst thing they’ve ever done - how might we together make a better world, a better city, a better market?

Everybody knows Alex, and everybody knows he believes in them. Children, youths, tired families, police officers, gang members, visitors from the States – we’re all “good people” and potential partners in the work of healing this place, this world. Like the others in the room, I’m here because Alex asked me. Five years ago on my first visit to El Salvador, he asked me to come back. This past December on my fifth trip here, he asked me to come back in April for this study trip. Always, when Alex asks me to do something, my first response is, “it’s not possible.” Then I go away and think about it, and wonder if perhaps it might be possible, after all. Then I do it. I’ll bet that’s a pattern for lots of people, with Alex. He asks for impossible things that turn out to be possible, once we start dreaming.

After all the introductions, we are taken on a tour of the market. Twenty or so Salvadorans, including five police officers, accompany us seven North Americans as we talk to people in our broken Spanish, explore unfamiliar fruits, and each get our own coconut, with a straw to drink the slightly sour but refreshing juice.  As our tour draws to a close, we are suddenly hurried away, as there has been an incident somewhere in the market.

Before I came on this trip, I prayed that I might be shown the ways that I need to grow. That prayer was answered with a resounding “Yes!” as I came flat up against some prejudices that I didn’t know I had. It would not have occurred to me that a former torturer could be an ally in the work of healing Santa Ana. Alex stretched my world with his embrace of every person as a friend and brother or sister. My companions on this journey stretched me, too. One of the great gifts of this trip was the mix of people: two American Baptists, two radical Catholics, and two Evagelical young men. I was forced to confront my prejudice about Evangelicals as being rigid in their spirituality and having a narrow theology – that prejudice got smashed to smithereens by these two, so eager to explore all the riches of Christian spiritual traditions.  It gives me great hope for the church – for all the God-lovers together. May we break down the walls and find friends on the other side.

Don’t ever give up on anybody. I want to be like Alex – ready always to see “good people” and “my brothers and sisters” in every person – ready to work together to heal the world.

Chava Redonnet

May 14, 2011

Bulletin for Sunday, June 12, 2011

Pentecost

Friends,

This week we celebrate Pentecost, that wonderful moment when the Holy Spirit came barging in to a roomful of frightened disciples and set them on fire to spread the love of God, bursting over barriers of language to bring God's mercy and love and goodness to people in their own native tongues. Things get messy when the Holy Spirit comes barging in! But it's all about love, and communication, and including everybody, and joy. Hooray! It reminds me of a line from that movie, "Moonstruck." "Love don't make things nice! Love ruins everything!" The Holy Spirit isn't worried about our nice neat ways of doing things,­ the Holy Spirit is all about growth and love, and reaching people. What joy.

Given that the first act of the Holy Spirit among those early Christians was to break down language walls, it's with much joy that I tell you that our first Spanish Mass in the migrant camps will be in Pentecost week, on Thursday, June 16. We will leave from St Joe's at 7pm. Mass is late because people work late on the farms. As the days grow shorter we hope to start earlier.

Please pray for us! Pray that we will break down walls of language and fear and strangeness, and that our Masses may be life-giving for all who come. Pray for safety for all. Please pray that my often-clumsy Spanish will be more of a bridge than a barrier. Pray that our country will become a welcoming place and that we will end the hypocrisy of punishing people we depend on to plant and harvest our food, for being here. May we all be a blessing, each to each other, and may we all be blessed by our Masses together.

This past Saturday I was in Baltimore for the ordinations of four new women priests! Congratulations to Patti La Rosa, Marellen Mayers, Ann Penick and Caryl Johnson. It was a lovely ceremony, as always. My favorite parts are the opening procession with clergy of all denominations, and the part where the ordinands lie on the floor while the Litany of Saints is sung. Those moments connect us both with the church across the world in the present moment, and with the church through history. As Mother Teresa said, we are a drop in a mighty ocean --- but if that drop was not there, it would be missed!

Come and celebrate with us on Pentecost! Rachael is going to make her family Pentecost tradition, flaming peaches!

Blessings and love to all,
Chava

_______________________________________________________________
Oscar Romero Church
An Inclusive Church in the Catholic Tradition
Mass: Sundays, 11 am
St Joseph's House of Hospitality, 402 South Ave, Rochester NY 14620