Gaudeamus! Third Sunday of Advent

Infinity, they say, is played upon in real time and space.
In the real work of the people, the liturgy extends beyond, and beyond, and beyond.
Nebulous and That which is Divine moves and changes.

"Who are you? What are you, then?" the Levites and priests ask
But John only knows his (k)nots:
"I am not the Christ."
"I am not Elijah."
"I am not the Prophet."

"There is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me," is John's positive reply. One whom he may not recognize: Divinity moves.

Harry Potter and company have demonized the shape-shifters.
Divine is on the move, shifting shape, but never becoming less
Second person of the Trinity engendering,
Sent and come and coming,
Oh Awe,
I'm coming!
"Do not quench the Spirit," Paul reminds us.

"The garden makes its growth spring up.
So the Lord God makes Justice and Praise spring up."
And a pink candle glows to remind us that

Incarnation changes everything.


Kate Lassiter tries to draw her dreams, nightmares, and visions, but mostly she just uses words.
Photo Credit: http://mix.msfc.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIUM/0203045.jpg

How Do You Remember Your Patron Saint?

"Be who you are and be that well!" This was the quotation from St. Francis de Sales, the founder of the Order of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, that both high school and college students at my Oblate run institutions seemed to love. I was among that camp, as well. In the high school world of uniforms and schedules, pressures to take Advanced Placement courses, and participate in extracurricular activities and sports, this was the quotation that everyone who went on their mandatory junior retreat would come back stating. I do not know if Fr. McCue, the chaplain at the high school, ever realized that it would be this quotation from the patron saint that would serve as the summation of Salesian spirituality in our minds, but it did.

Even in college, this sentiment reigned. I recently talked to a good friend from college, Tiger. He and I both served on the Student Government Association and ran in a variety of crowds. In 1997 at the Oblate founded college, DeSales University in Center Valley, Pennsylvania, most of the students were from the Pennsylvania-New Jersey area. But what marked many of us was not our geographic region of origin, but the Catholic high school and the order who ran it. There were the Father Judge boys and the St. Hubert's girls, both schools located in Philadelphia and single-sex schools. Lineages from Northeast Catholic, Archbishop Ryan, and Monsignor Bonner. For everyone to be who they were meant an acceptance of diversity, at least in Catholic high school lineage. High school rivalries ceased as new identities were forged under the college banner.

Tiger and I came from the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales lineage, he from Father Judge, me from Bishop Ireton. As we chatted the other night, we found it to be no great irony that Alan, our other SGA friend-colleague for many years, went to St. Francis de Sales in Toledo, Ohio.

Tiger and I talked vividly about how "Be who you are and be it well" as a spirituality continues to live strongly in us, despite not having any formal connection to the Oblates at this time. Alan, in some ways, serves as our closest link; he joined the order and was ordained. A few years ago when I was living in Ohio, I ventured from Cleveland to Toledo to another ordination occasion. It was so strange to see him dressed in black and with a collar, and overhear women whisper, "Oh, Fr. What-a-Waste". It seems to me that a life is not wasted in becoming more fully a human person and grow to be more fully a unique individual. And just as Tiger and I both find ourselves not as closely linked to the Salesian tradition of spirituality as we once were, "Frankie D's" words still provide a homing for us to become the unique beings that we were born to be.

Kate Lassiter likes Catholic kitsch. She also likes chewy brownies and exercise balls. She can be reached at kate.lassiter@vanderbilt.edu.

Laying Foundations

Today is the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. It is a feast that celebrates the building in which the bishop of Rome is seated; it is the cathedral of the diocese of Rome. The basilica and the land upon which it sits has a long history, beginning in the time of Constantine when the land was donated by the Lateran family. It is the place where popes were consecrated until the Avignon papacy in the fourteenth century. When the pope returned from France, the church and the palace were in ruins. The building we now know at the Lateran Basilica began to be built in 1646. Most Catholics think of St. Peter’s as the pope’s church, but truly it is the Lateran Basilica which is. And likewise, it is the people’s church because it is the home of Catholics worldwide.

It seems odd, then, that the Gospel reading recounts Jesus’ anger in the temple, and his promise to destroy the temple. Perhaps it is even stranger to listen to today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which speaks of individuals being temples. “Brothers and sisters,” Paul says. “You are God’s building.” This Sunday then points to a creative human tension that exists: we celebrate the dedication of a building as a place that shelters and empower, heals and shepherds the people of God while also acknowledging that the power to build comes not from a physical structure and the trappings of it, but from the people who dwell in and around it.
The river that flows down side of the temple, as described by Ezekiel, does not just pool. If it did, it would become stagnant and unfruitful. Instead, it flows past the temple and waters the fruit trees whose leave and fruits serve to both nourish and heal. The people of God act the same way, then, streaming out of the basilica and into the larger world in order to promote greater healing and care for all people of the world. And yet this feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica gives us great pause, causing us to recall that no building can do what individuals gathered together can.

Kate Lassiter recalls laying bricks with her Dad, the handyman, when she was in 5th grade. She remembers being amused by the seeming orderliness of the lining up the bricks in a repeating pattern, while knowing that the brick sidewalk was built on a bed of sand.
Photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Shebli2.jpg

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In Masses that I have attended this particular 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time , the priest or deacon serving as homilist has often offered a catechismic interpretation on these readings, following an argument that the Church as divine institution knows the secret of being well-fed: place ultimate trust in God, that through God alone, all persons will be cared for. As a hearer of these homilies I have walked away with the following principle: to be fit to receive to the Eucharist, the bread of life, ensures that you will be prepared enter the feast of the Kingdom of God. One becomes fit by being content with the church as it is. Fit by making yourself ready to receive the Eucharist, confessing sins great and small to receive absolution on Saturday afternoon from the rector or monsignor. Fit by wearing clothing appropriate to mass. Fit by kneeling at the appropriate times. Fit by adoring those bells that still ring at many diocesan parishes at the point of epiclesis, moment of the Holy Spirit's descent. It feels like familiar territory where ordained clergy, also all male, lest we forget, proclaim that receiving the Eucharist, adoring the Eucharist, with the hope of the forgiveness of my sins--for only venial sins are forgiven with my contrition and reception--will bring more me fully into the Kingdom of God. Credo. Yes, I believe.

But I don't want to be merely penetrated by the idea of my lack, my lack as a female, a layperson, one who must pray and hope for my own redemption. The kin-dom beckons us to believe in something more than what is conveyed in the homilies I’ve heard on this Sunday at diocesan parishes. I don't know what that something more is exactly, but, Credo, I believe that is has to do something about not only taking Jesus, the Eucharist as the bread of life, into our being, but believing that somehow we are enough with or without reception of the Eucharist. Unsought for abundance is the central theme of the readings. Wine overflows; oil overflows; Paul is full; the banquet table is laden with food. How then is a theology of abundance subverted in a theology of proper observation of the Eucharist?

"My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?"

And she was reduced to silence.

The king said to his attendants,

"Bind her hands and feet, and cast her out into the darkness."

Many are invited. Few are chosen.

These words are the oft neglected part of the reading for this week. They do not fit neatly into the storyline. The king has invited anyone who can be found in the street to celebrate his son's wedding. "Come to the feast!", the servants call, gathering good and bad alike. The hall is full. But the king spots someone with no wedding garment. She is cast out. Commentaries note how wedding garments may just have meant clean clothes and that for an individual to be invited, not despite, but regardless of last minute invitations, and to arrive in soiled garments would be an insult to the host. Who do we truly insult with our dirt and soil, sweat and shame? Is it the God beyond God who will destroy the veil that veils all peoples or those who walk about the hall filled with guests?

In addition to preparing for doctoral exams in religion, Kate Lassiter farms with friends in Nashville, Tennessee, where they know what it means to be both well-fed and overwhelmed by the amount of fresh produce to can, dehydrate, and process during the growing season. She can be reached at kate.lassiter@vanderbilt.edu.