Sunday Scribes Blog – St. Mary's Maine

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Readings: 2 Kings 5:14-17            2 Timothy 2:8-13             Luke 17:11-19

The reading from Luke’s Gospel this Sunday is the story of 10 lepers who ask Jesus for mercy.  We know that lepers were totally excluded from community life and had to deal with a horrible, progressive disease.  Jesus, in his mercy, sends them to the temple priest and while they are on their way, the lepers are cured (the Greek word used for cure is a medical term meaning that the disease went away).  We are left with an image of Jesus watching these 10 as they run away.  Theologian John Shea writes that this Gospel story is a good summary of Luke’s theological vision:  God relentlessly pursues us and we relentlessly run away.
 
One leper (a foreigner) does return to Jesus after he is cured and praises God in a loud voice.  Jesus tells him, “Your faith has made you well.” Interestingly, the Greek word used here is not the word for cure but translates as “saved” or “made whole.”  What about the other nine lepers? Can it really be that they weren’t grateful? Homilist James Liggett supposes that of course the other nine were grateful but they were also overjoyed to be able to return to their lives and their community.  They were so busy resuming their lives that there was no room in their lives for the Source of all life.  Only the foreigner could see beyond the gift to the Source of the gift.  Ultimately the cure led to a decision–now that they had a second chance at life, would they get back to life as it was or get a whole new life, a fullness (wholeness) of life in God?
 
We see this every day in our health system.  Some people are given second chances during a health crisis; they escape a close call or the tumor turns out to be benign.  Some use the second chance to make significant changes in their lives and we who witness it also have that choice.  What are we running towards or leaving behind in our frantic pace of life?  Is there room for the Source of all life?
 
This week we celebrate Mission Week and the ways that we continue the healing ministry of Jesus in the spirit of St. Marguerite d’Youville.  The themes from this week’s readings also relate to her life–she reached out to those excluded in society and she acknowledged the work of Divine Providence in her life and in her ministry.  We invite you to join us for a special Mass on Tuesday, October 12 at 6 pm in St. Mary’s Residences d’Youville Chapel in honor of St. Marguerite d’Youville.  Our CEO, Lee Myles, will be commissioned in his leadership role and we will also award the Marguerite d’Youville Awards for our values of respect, excellence, compassion, and stewardship.  It will be a wonderful celebration of healing and hope!

Elizabeth Keene
Mission Effectiveness

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Luke 10:38-42 July 18, 2010

In this week’s Gospel, we hear the story of Jesus’ visit to the home of Martha and Mary. In typical hospitable style, Martha is busy preparing a meal to welcome Jesus. Mary, on the other hand, is sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to him. Martha becomes annoyed that Mary is not helping her prepare the meal and asks Jesus to demand that Mary assist. Instead Jesus replies, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, but there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part.”* Often this Gospel passage is discussed in terms of the tension between the active and contemplative life and that Jesus is holding up the contemplative life as the better part. Yet in last week’s Gospel we heard the story of the Good Samaritan (it is the passage immediately before this story of Martha and Mary in Luke’s Gospel) which honors the importance of compassionate action (reaching out to a stranger in need) from the commandment, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus often breaks down the tension between either/or with a both/and approach. In the next chapter of Luke’s Gospel, he encourages the disciples to hear God’s Word and keep it (translate it into action.) Perhaps that is what he is doing in this passage because without first hearing (listening) to the Word, our actions might not be sustainable. Without connection to the life-giving Word, without a vision of what God is calling us to do, even the most compassionate acts could wear us down or burn us out. In other words, without a sense of mission, the work of caring for patients and families might lead to annoyance or exhaustion like Martha in today’s passage.

Why? What happens when we hear that life-giving Word that helps us to sustain our ability to provide distinguished patient, resident and family-centered care? Dr. Tom Long from Emory University writes that we realize “our lives are gathered into God’s life, that God is out there in the world healing and feeding and restoring, and therefore what we do for others counts, really counts and we can trust God and hope for God’s new creation.”

For us that translates into healing ministry. It means the work our CNAs do at d’Youville Pavilion really counts, the efforts our patient billing representatives make for patients and families really matter, the food assistance provided at the Nutrition Center really makes a difference. One way we can sustain these actions is through a connection to St. Mary’s mission whether we connect to it through the church, the spirit of St. Marguerite d’Youville or own sense of calling.

That way even in difficult times we can echo St. Marguerite d’Youville’s words, “We shall continue to love and to serve.”

*{Interestingly, Mary’s posture of sitting at the feet of Jesus was the posture of a disciple (usually a man.) In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus repeatedly turns expectations about the role of women upside down and here he welcomes her in the role of disciple. Later this week on July 22 we also celebrate another woman who was very important in the life and ministry of Jesus-Mary of Magdala.}

Elizabeth Keene
Mission Effectiveness

June 13, 2010                                               

Luke 7:36-8:3

In the Gospel of Luke this Sunday, we hear a powerful story of hospitality, forgiveness, and the extravagance of God’s love.  Jesus has been invited to the home of Simon the Pharisee.  Jesus and the Pharisees often clash because of Jesus’ teaching and Jesus’ tendency to include those considered outcast in society.  In this case Simon has extended an invitation for hospitality but does not follow the normal customs of welcoming someone into his home (such as having a servant wash the feet of the guest.)  Then a woman enters, someone known to be a sinner in the community, and she not only washes Jesus’ feet but she kisses them and dries them with her hair.  Simon and the other guests are shocked that Jesus would allow a “known sinner” to touch him.

Jesus then asks what some homilists consider to be the most important phrase of this gospel passage: “Simon, do you see this woman?” He then goes on to compare the hospitality the woman extended to the lack of hospitality Simon offered.  And he makes the connection that because the woman has known forgiveness and mercy, she is able to extend great love.

Simon really didn’t see the person before him; he only saw a “certain kind of woman”–someone known to be a sinner.  He is so caught up in the law and propriety that he does not even recognize who Jesus truly is.  As Christian writer Kate Huey notes,

            Simon, unfortunately wasn’t in tune with God’s presence in the
            midst of his party…in the wisdom and tender love of Jesus, who
            accepted her gratitude, and in his own need for God’s mercy and
            understanding…Instead, his eyes were clouded by judgment and
            he missed a golden opportunity for grace.  So where do we stand
            in this story?  And with whom do we stand? What about our hospitality? 

It’s an interesting passage for us to consider.  Are there times when we see only the labels we assign against people who disagree with our views politically or religiously, those we consider our enemies?  Can we widen our vision enough to see them as children of God?  Many of us find it difficult to understand the hospitality God extends–senseless mercy and extravagant love for everyone. 

Rooted in the spirituality of St. Marguerite d’Youville, foundress of the Sisters of Charity, we have received a call to love and serve in health care ministry.  But before we can love and serve, we have to see our patients, residents, and colleagues and, as Frederick Buechner notes, not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces.  Seeing them in this way makes it easy to recognize each other as children of God.  Then we too can be extravagant in love and mercy. 

Elizabeth Keene, Mission Effectiveness

May 16, 2010

Acts 7:55-60
Rev. 22:12-14,16-17,20
Jn 7:20-26

“So that they may all be one”

The readings this week are from the Gospel of St. John and Jesus is praying before his final journey to Jerusalem before his death. He prays for unity, not only among the followers of his time but for all who will believe in Jesus through their words in order to form, as writer John Shea notes, “a living chain across time and history.” We are part of that living chain in our healing ministry but what does it mean to be unified? That we all think alike? That we all do the same thing?

One of my favorite music groups is the Irish band U2. A lifelong dream was made real for me last summer; I was able to see U2 perform in their native Dublin, Ireland. One of their most beautiful songs is titled “One” and the lyrics say “We’re One but we’re not the same; we get to carry each other.” In other words, rather than calling us to be exactly the same, our unity calls us to care for each other bringing our own gifts to bear. Our foundress, St. Marguerite d’Youville, said it this way, “I look into the eyes of the poor and see Jesus looking back.” In this way she and the Sisters of Charity reached out to criminals, prostitutes, children, the sick and the elderly, all of whom reflected Jesus.

“They are your gift to me.”

Later in his prayer, Jesus acknowledges his followers as a gift and prays that the love with which God loved him may flow through us as well. It is the essence of the living chain that unites us. This love is a hallmark of our healing ministry here at St. Mary’s Health System. It is an observable love through our continued care of the sick, outreach to the poor and respect for the most vulnerable. Our patients, elders, families and colleagues are a gift to us; may we make the living chain that unites us visible through our service to them.

Elizabeth Keene
Mission Effectiveness

The great Easter feast, the resurrection of Jesus, is about a reversal of expectations: life coming from death, freedom out of fear, love out of rejection. Who discovered this amazing reversal of expectations on that Easter morning? It is the women who loved and followed Jesus, who go to tend to his body in death. The irony is that the women, who are not afraid to go to the grave or to be among the dead, are terrified when they encounter life in the form of two dazzling beings who ask them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?” The irony is that we, too, sometimes seem more terrified of life. Why is it so easy to forgive our family members in death but so difficult to love them in life? Why is it so natural to lament about what is wrong rather than to take action to try something new? Why can we find money to fund mass destruction but cannot afford to try to heal the planet? And why, as one homilist suggests, are we “so eager to bury Jesus in history and so unready to live with him and his teachings today?”

Easter is not simply an event that occurred once in history. This very day we are offered new life available to us in the form of freedom. And like the women at the empty tomb, we are charged with bringing the good news of new life and hope to others. Even when people don’t believe us, or want to hear it. Even when we ourselves don’t want to hear it. We may prefer safety, comfort and control to freedom. We may gaze longingly at the old ways, rather than embrace new life. We may even get used to being in the tomb with our pride, old hurts and shame to keep us company. It takes courage and the risk of vulnerability to come out of the tomb. The promise is not living happily ever after (in safety, comfort and control); it is fullness of life in the here and now, which includes laughter and tears, joys and sorrows, hope and pain, but above all, love. Love that even death cannot contain. And God with us through all of it. We witness this and participate in this every day at St. Mary’s Health System for patients, residents, students, families and ourselves. John O’Donohue, the Irish writer and poet, offers this blessing from his “Morning Offering.” It is a profound reflection for Easter and for every morning:

May my mind come alive today
to the invisible geography
that invites me to new frontiers,
to break the dead shell of yesterdays,
to risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
to live the life that I would love,
to postpone my dream no longer
but do at last what I came here for
and waste my heart on fear no more.

Elizabeth Keene, Mission Effectiveness