Parish: 'the thought'

May 7, 2019

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Modo Umano

(When you are pulled in too many directions)

Carissimi:

In Italy they say that all work should be done modo umano , in a human way. This week I share with you what Pope Francis said to some Jesuits who told them that, because their numbers are few, they feel pulled in too many directions at once. His advice is good for your pastor to remember and may be good for you too!

"The evil spirit does lead us to a sort of “not-working-enough complex.” Sometimes we feel guilty just because with prudence we take a little bit of care of our own health! This is a temptation. Jesuits must work without losing peace, without losing the encounter with the Lord, and without losing rest. This is important.

"The first law of work for a Jesuit is above all to do what others don’t do or can’t do.

"The second is that the work should not get in the way of familiarity with the Lord.

"The third is that it should not remove peace.

"The fourth is not to do what you can delegate to others. This is what comes to mind in response to your concern. But you do well to be worried about these things."

On Mother's Day....

7 Things You Don't Know About Mother's Day's Dark History

The holiday started as an antiwar statement. But battles over who owned Mother's Day kept coming.

By Brian Handwerk | National Geographic

Mother's Day seems harmless enough. Treat mom to brunch. Buy flowers. Good times.

But the story of the modern holiday—which is celebrated this Sunday in the United States and many other nations—is rife with controversy, conflict, and consumerism run amok. Some strange-but-true facts you probably don't know:

1. Mother’s Day started as an anti-war movement.

Anna Jarvis is most often credited with founding Mother's Day in the United States.

Designated as the second Sunday in May by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914, aspects of that holiday have since spread overseas, sometimes mingling with local traditions. Jarvis took great pains to acquire and defend her role as “Mother of Mother's Day,” and to focus the day on children celebrating their mothers. ( Read more about Mother's Day's early years. )

But others had the idea first, and with different agendas.

Julia Ward Howe, better known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," promoted a Mothers’ Peace Day beginning in 1872. For Howe and other antiwar activists, including Anna Jarvis's mother, Mother's Day was a way to promote global unity after the horrors of the American Civil War and Europe’s Franco-Prussian War. READ MORE

From the Archives....

When Mother's Day is Hard

Taking solace in Scripture's difficult and unsentimental image of motherhood.

By Jenell Williams Paris

Mother's Day is hard for many women, myself included. Several of my friends long for marriage and children. Several are infertile or have lost new lives to miscarriage or stillbirth. One friend hardly speaks to her estranged mother, and several have mothers who have died. Another struggles with how her marital problems challenge her parenting. As for me, my triplet baby sons died last September. Each was lovely like every mother's son, but their lives and my mothering were cut short. Like my friends, I face Mother's Day with ambivalence—glad for all the good mothering in the world, but sad about my losses.

In the first weeks after their deaths, I couldn't bear to look at a calendar because it showed only days and days of sadness ahead. Even a clock seemed too much, displaying minutes and hours ahead in which I would have to bear the absolute goneness of my children. This sharp bitterness has mostly passed, but this month the calendar shows Mother's Day coming. Holidays are frequently hard for bereaved people, especially the holidays that celebrate the very someone you've lost. And the hype of Mother's Day is just so hyped, salting the wound of childlessness, bereavement, or estrangement. READ MORE

On the Mothering Heart of God...

Can we call God ‘Mother'?

In using maternal metaphors for God alongside the paternal ones, we embrace the fullness of God’s love for us.

By Katherine Attanasi

Most Christians are familiar with referring to God as Father, but can we call God “Mother”? Many places in the Bible and Christian tradition as well as theological voices answer this question affirmatively: God can be referred to as “Mother.” In fact, every recent pope since John Paul I has made some reference to the value of understanding God like a mother.

The Bible does not shy away from using female imagery—particularly related to birth and motherhood—to describe God. Isaiah 42:14 speaks of God “cry[ing] out like a woman in labor” with gasps and pants. Similarly, Isaiah 46:3–4 describes God as having carried the house of Jacob “from the womb.” In Numbers 11:12, Moses tells God that having birthed Israel, God (not Moses) should “carry [the nation] in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child” to the Promised Land. In Isaiah 66:13, the Lord tells Jerusalem, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” READ MORE

3 Ways That Calling God 'Mother' Transforms Us

In using maternal metaphors for God alongside the paternal ones, we embrace the fullness of God’s love for us.

By Lee Ann Pomrenke 4-03-2019

The concept of father, in a church formed and influenced by patriarchy, aligns well with other qualities we have associated hopefully with males: mighty, disciplinary, just judges. Yet, our familial theology is missing more than a uterus when we only refer to God as father and not mother.

What difference would it make if we called God mother instead of only father?

1. It changes our theology

By entering into relationship with humankind in a fleshly, tangible way, God mothers us. As Hannah Shanks writes in her 2018 book This Is My Body , no matter how we are born, we all enter the world through breaking. READ MORE

Our Poor Box Collection this Mother's Day Weekend...

Our Poor Box Collection this Mother's Day Weekend will go to the Asylee Women Enterprise

We need your support to welcome these families and provide shelter and comfort as they rebuild their lives.

In May and June of 2018, 2,654 children were forcibly separated from their asylum seeking parents . This tactic was, in part, to deter families and women with children from seeking asylum in the United States. Some reported being told the children were being taken for baths, to later find out they would not be returned and had been sent to separate detention facilities. Hundreds of parents were deported to their native countries before attorneys and advocacy groups could intervene on their behalf.

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), twenty-nine of these parents were located in their home countries and have traveled back to the United States in an attempt to recover their children and apply for asylum. In partnership with the ACLU and Al Otro Lado, Asylee Women Enterprise (AWE) has sponsored five of these individuals that had no family ties and would have remained detained indefinitely. They have now been processed by Immigration and released to AWE so they can begin the process of reunification with their children and finally have a chance to apply for asylum.

The families’ children range in age from four to fifteen and have been detained from seven to ten months. On April 18, the last three families arrived at BWI and were taken to tour new temporary homes. AWE is greatly in need of donations to cover the costs of housing and living expenses.

AWE says: "We are humbled by the opportunity to stand with these parents as they begin to put their families back together and start their long journey to healing from this nightmare."

If you would like to know more about the Assylee Women Enterprise visit their website at www.asyleewomen.org , or check out their Facebook page.

To contribute, the Poor Boxes are located in the Chapel of Grace and in the Narthex of the church at the top of both side stairs. – Thank you for your kind generosity

A Little Irony...

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