Billy Elliot, Doubting Thomas, and the Resurrection

The Resurrection of Jesus is one of the most challenging Christian tenets to explain and to believe.  In my experience, painstaking argumentation often does a poor job of deconstructing doctrines like the Resurrection, the Trinity, or the Assumption.  Perhaps I'm just not clever enough to pierce the mystery's veil.  Thomas Aquinas I am not, and even he admitted, "all that I have written seems like straw compared to what has now been revealed to me."  Ain't it the truth.

What I have found useful is to tell a story, to share a personal experience of, say, the Blessed Virgin Mary, that will offer insight into why the Church has long venerated her as the God-bearer, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, or Our Lady of Sorrows.  After all, it is no surprise that people would have an easier time connecting with my lived relationship with Mary than with a dry abstraction.  In seminary, I was taught that the Hebrew Bible was the story of one people's attempt to come to some kind of understanding of their identity and their relationship with God.  Scripture, Doctrine, and Tradition--often spelled reverently with those initial capitals that convey authority--are at best a best-guess, an attempt to codify a faithful people's experience over time of mysteries that defy rational explanation.  That is not heresy, but humility before the mystery of God.  We feel, we cogitate, and then we struggle to find words that can capture our deep experience of God.  We want to nail it down, but alas . . .  One my favorite French words is insaisissable, which translates clumsily as "uncapturable" or "elusive."  The translation misses something, maybe its all those s's hissing away musically like air, invisible, and yet perceptible.  Maybe we should rely less on theologians and more on poets, storytellers, artists . . . 

Or dancers.  This weekend, my partner and I went to see a community production of Billy Elliot, the Musical.  It is the story of a young boy in an industrial town in northeastern England during a coal-miners strike in the mid-1980s.  Billy turns out to be an aspiring, albeit reluctant, ballet dancer in a culture where gender roles and expectations were fixed and rigidly enforced.  There is one especially moving scene when Billy dances with his future adult self and takes flight, connecting with the promise of a new life and identity on the other side of his current existence of stagnation and hopelessness.  Even after he succeeds in getting into the Royal Ballet School, he wavers, fearful to leave behind his family and the life he has always known.  He especially grieves the loss of his ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, who practices tough love by telling him to leave and never come back.  The musical closes with Billy setting out for his new life in London as the rest of the town returns to the dirty, hard-scrabble existence of the mine.

There is no guarantee that what we or Billy will find on the other side of the grave/mine will be all peace and light.  In the example of Jesus' life, crucifixion, and resurrection, we detect a model for our own striving, for reaching beyond places of certain death and despair to grasp the potential for continued growth.  Like Billy, who knows what kind of people we will grow into beyond the mine?  Jesus shows us that giving into death is not an option, and that it is worth the risk to venture into unknown territory, even if it promises uncertainty, the discomfort of growth, and the possibility of failure.  The Resurrection, in this understanding, then, is not a single event, but an orientation of hope built on trust, trust that God is leading us toward something good and that we have what it takes to engage what we find waiting for us, however insaisissable it may be. 

This past Sunday focused on the story of Doubting Thomas.  I always have an easy time relating to him, his skepticism, his demand for empirical proof.  He would make a great patron for postmodern seekers.  What rises to the surface of his story for me is his failure to recognize the risen Christ; and perhaps that's because, Jesus, like us, is changed by his experience of transformation, of crossing the threshold of hopelessness and death and emerging into the light of new life.  His wounds, like ours, remain; they become integrated into us as we mature and grow and learn.  But we become different people.  As our seminarian preached yesterday, these wounds become scars, which remind us of all we have been through, all we have survived, and that is an empowering message.  Thomas's story invites us to put our hands into our own wounds (and those of others) as a sign of our own triumph over the grave.  It may not answer the question about our ultimate destiny following bodily death, but it illustrates nonetheless the striving for hope that Jesus commended us to practice.  Easter is a time to affirm that in the midst of death, life is still possible.  Our wounds serve as reminders that on the other side of suffering, shame, and despair may be a transformed person we don't yet recognize. 

Easter joy and blessings,

Fr. Ethan.+

More Than Just A Holy Week

Last Saturday, I drove to rural southwestern Michigan to bury my grandmother.  Although I had conducted her funeral a few weeks before at the Episcopal parish her great-great grandmother had help to found, we had been obliged to delay the burial because snowbanks had barred access to the gravesite.  I tossed clumps of still-frozen ground onto the coffin, "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and recited prayers in the King James English my Grandma Kib would have found familiar--the Lord's Prayer, the Benedictus, the commital.  I was aware as I watched family and friends bundled against the cold--some praying, all grieving--of the enduring relevance of the Church to the deepest moments of human experience, despite frequent claims to the contrary.  We waited for the casket, encased in its concrete shell mounted with a cross, to be lowered into the ground before dispersing.  Burials are about closure, finality, no going back.  Then, we all returned to the land of the living and had lunch, sharing our favorite stories of the lady to whom we had just offered our final goodbyes.

The next day, I entered Holy Week, palm frond in hand.  I went to confession, dodged the unanticipated hail during the procession down the block, and confected the Sacrament at the altar with my brother and sister priests.  Later that day, I rehearsed the Exsultet for the Great Vigil of Easter and emailed a couple that I am marrying on the Saturday after Easter.  Colleagues at work on Monday began to comment, "this is your big week, right? to which I usually responded, "it's already begun."  But the truth is that Holy Week is not a priest's or even a Christian's big week, even though it is a bit of an endurance test.  Sure, there is that juggernaut of liturgies known at the Holy Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter.  And then the Easter Sunday High Mass, which at Atonement, includes an orchestra playing to a packed house.

Exsultet, 2014

BUT Holy Week is really an invitation to a holy life.  What a lot of people miss is that Christianity is meant to be a lifestyle, a pattern of living that shapes identity and faith out of an accumulation of little moments, whether we are in church every Sunday or only come at Christmas and Easter.  As a priest, these little moments are often explicit: presiding at a burial, a wedding, and the Eucharist; reciting the Daily Office; meeting with my spiritual director and confessor; offering comfort to a person in distress.  They are meaningful in isolation from each other, but they also have a cumulative effect, a significance and a relevance that add up to be more than the sum of the parts.  These moments reinforce singly and together the values and commitments we make as Christians.  Holy Week enacts a story, a single narrative, that integrates all of our little moments into the larger chronicle of human redemption and salvation by a loving God.  The text of the Exsultet, which the Church sings at the Great Vigil of Easter, encapsulates this story well.  It puts into perspective and brings into relief the bread and butter of human experience: birth and growth, suffering and struggle, love and commitment, life and death.  What could be more relevant than that?

Abundant blessings for a solemn Holy Week and a deeply holy life,

Fr. Ethan+

#TractSwarm - Confiteor

I sat on the sofa in Fr. Bob Orpen's modest living room, listening to him talk about his long career as a parish priest, while his wife, Vinnie, pottered about in the kitchen nearby.  I had just finished my first year of seminary and was doing the one unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) required for ordination at a South Side retirement community.  As luck would have it, I had been assigned to the two floors where two retired Episcopal priests lived.  I visited them every couple of weeks for a chat and some much-appreciated mentoring.  At the time, Fr. Orpen was the diocese of Chicago's most senior priest.  He was kind, humble, and wise, and I was grateful that he was willing to spend time with me to tell and show me how to be a good priest.

It was he that explained to me the difference between saying prayers and actually praying--his daily list of intercessions was comprehensive and sincere, and stretched back decades.  Fr. Orpen was also the one who urged me to get a confessor and make regular use of the sacrament of reconciliation.  Fr. Orpen was a slight, quiet man with glasses, and he would lean gently from his blue armchair toward me to impart some special point of priestly spirituality.  On this particular day, he leaned over and explained that the experience of what used to be known as auricular confession was quite different than the general confession we did in the Eucharist on Sunday mornings.  It has a specificity and accountability, and hence intensity, that just cannot be matched by the anonymous, catch-all confession I that I was used to.

I took his advice.  I sought a recommendation from my rector, who said, "I know just the person for you," and he pointed me to the great priest who is still my confessor.  I was open to his suggestion, but knowing the priest in question, I wondered how vulnerable and exposed I would feel in the confessional, to reveal my brokenness to someone I so admired. We debated whether it would be better for me to choose a confessor who knew me or whether I might be less inhibited by a priest I did not know.  There is safety and comfort, after all, in anonymity.  After much debating back and forth, I decided that I wanted my confessor to know me, so that he could offer me counsel and guidance over the long haul that would speak to my unique situation, my own set of virtues and foibles.  If confession was supposed to be a regular spiritual discipline, shouldn't my guide know my patterns of sin and misguidedness?

So, like many adolescents of a bygone age, I prepared for my first confession, which took place on 17 December 2010.  I obviously cannot reveal what was spoken in that space of sacred trust between confessor and penitent, but suffice it to say, I arrived with a very long list of sins and trespasses.  In the end, I prioritized and focused on the ones I thought were the most grievous.  We talked about them; the priest offered me spiritual advice; and I recited the psalm he assigned to me as penance, or rather, as nourishment.  The fascinating thing is that my confessor is so well practiced in the art of hearing confessions that he always seems to know the psalm, canticle, or reading that will be most useful to me to engage in that state of brokenness.  I find to my amazement that the teaching of the particular psalm sticks to me for weeks afterward, marinating in my mind and heart as I seek to lead a better life.  I am grateful that my confessor has come to know me, because I seem to return to the confessional with the same set of sins and struggles that separate me from God and my neighbor. Thanks to his help, I have come to recognize the sinful patterns in my thinking, feeling, and behavior, which has improved my mindfulness and discipline.  In this way, confession complements the work I do with my spiritual director.

I am still nervous whenever I walk into the confessional.  It is anxiety-producing and embarrassing to lay bare all of one's lesser qualities.  My confessor, however, reassured me one Friday morning by reminding me that "we come to confession for forgiveness, not condemnation."  Indeed, as another experienced priest shared with me when I was still a seminarian, "it is humbling for a confessor to be asked to forgive sins that he or she also commits."  And now that I am a priest, I've experienced that sentiment myself.  There is an intimacy that develops between confessor and penitent that one must be willing to accept by the gradual building of trust.  Even in the Anglo-Catholic parishes where I have served, the number of people who avail themselves of this sacrament are few, which is a shame. Part of this reticence has to do with lack of encouragement and teaching on the subject and the failure of clergy to lead by example.  Priests of Fr. Orpen's generation were trained for this.  They get it.  Sin, moreover, is a concept that is out of pace with the ethos of postmodern culture, and yet I would argue confession is nonetheless just as vital and needed in a world that is severely wounded.  As proof of this, I received a surprising request for an impromptu confession while doing Ashes-to-Go this year, and so, grabbed a corner table at the Starbuck's, heard the confession, and pronounced the Church's absolution to this stranger in distress.

I now go to confession about four times a year, although I used to go monthly, which I think is a much better schedule, matching the regular grounding I get in spiritual direction.  Perhaps that should be one outcome of my Lenten preparation this year.  Another should be to teach the faithful about the theology and benefits of the sacrament of reconciliation.  And a third is to encourage each other as priests to embrace this sacrament by hearing each others' confessions and by developing mentoring and apprenticeship relationships between seasoned confessors and priests inexperienced in this role.  So, to those priests of an earlier generation:  we are eager to learn from you.  Teach us.  We are ready, for the harvest is great, but the laborers are few.

Prayers for a holy and transformative Lent.

Ethan+

Differently Visible, Not Vanishing

Selfie at AAP National Nominating Committee
meeting with pediatrician, Dr. Sarah Stelzner.

The Atlantic published an article yesterday by David Wheeler entitled, "Higher Calling, Lower Wages: The Vanishing of the Middle-Class Clergy," that discussed the high-debt load and poor job prospects of clergy.  Shrinking and aging congregations have resulted in fewer full-time, paid positions for seminary graduates, who have had to seek secular jobs to supplement their parish incomes or support them entirely.  The Church has labeled these clergy "bi-vocational" or "tentmakers."  This is, of course, old news.

In fact, I remember, when I was a lay person in the early stages of the ordination process, talking about the likelihood of gainful employment with the Canon to the Ordinary (who, incidentally, is now a bishop).  When I showed up at Canon Hayashi's office at the appointed time in my suit and tie, instead of asking me to sit down, he lamented that his elliptical machine had just broken and wondered if I'd be willing to get a little exercise.  It was deep into the Chicago winter, so we worked our way through the corridors that connected the diocesan offices to the cathedral.  As we power-walked around the perimeter of the nave, he challenged me to rethink the decision to pursue ordination.  I had worked with him for several years on a diocesan commission, where we had developed a good rapport, so I was surprised to hear discouragement instead of a pep-talk.  He was very pastoral, but he laid out honestly the grim state of the job market for clergy.  He had always encouraged my call to ordination, so I suspect he was trying to spare me disappointment and sacrifice, for which I remain grateful.  There are simply too few parish jobs, and there's no point in sugar-coating that fact. 

As I read the article, with its take-away message about bi-vocational clergy, essentially, "the job market is bad, but we're making the best of it," I remembered Canon Hayashi's kind attempt me to steer me along a safer career path.  I don't deny the dearth of full-time paid clergy positions; and I respect those clergy who take on multiple congregations, or get some other job just to pay the bills.  More alarming still is the stark reality that for many clergy a full-time parish job may not provide an adequate income to cover the cost of seminary and other educational debt, save for retirement, and sustain a reasonable standard of living.  We all do what we have to do.  However, I question the assumption that the job market is necessarily bad news, that the sky is falling, or that the Church is no longer relevant.  I believe that the current state of affairs may be calling clergy to serve in different capacities, as well as in traditional parish settings.  Sure, we have hospital chaplains and seminary professors, but there must be other places where we can be life-giving and productive, not in spite of the fact we are clergy, but because we are clergy.  Unlike Mr. Wheeler, I'm not discouraged; I'm actually quite hopeful.  I would argue that clergy are still relevant even in this increasingly secular culture.

With women members of the AAP Board of Directors.

Like many new clergy, I found the parish job hunt daunting.  And I wasn't entirely sure I wanted a full-time job as a curate, vicar, or rector.  At least, not at the moment.  I considered returning to my prior career in health policy with an unpaid Sunday gig at some poor mission or a parish with an overworked rector who could use some help.  As it happens, I became a staff executive for the American Academy of Pediatrics, a not-for-profit organization for pediatricians that does research, education, child advocacy, and policy.   Although my clergy credentials were unusual, they proved to be an asset in the interview process, since the position's complex relational, administrative, and leadership development responsibilities were remarkably similar to parish ministry.  In fact, several members and staff shared how glad they were to have someone with a clergy background in the position.  Everyone knows I'm a priest, so staff and members frequently seek me out for pastoral care and spiritual guidance--in addition to my official duties--which has expanded my understanding and practice of priestly vocation.  As unexpected as it may sound, I believe that my training and identity as a priest are benefiting the organization; and similarly, I also know the organization is benefiting me as a priest by teaching me skills valuable to parochial ministry and the wider Church, such as managing a multi-million-dollar budget, doing leadership development, conducting policy and advocacy work, and enhancing administrative competence.

Censing the Lady Shrine at Choral High Mass.

In the Episcopal Church, vocational deacons and many professed religious support themselves through secular employment, which means they may have much to teach us priests about how to engage our priestly identities more fully and creatively outside the familiar parish setting.  One clergy colleague approached me after mass one Sunday, and asked where I was now serving. "I assist here on feasts, evenings, and Sundays, but I work for a not-for-profit during the week,"  I said brightly. "Oh," she said as she gently touched my arm and donned a sad smile, as if to convey, "I'm so sorry.  How awful for you."  I'm sure the sympathy was sincere, but I was disappointed and a little hurt that she was not able to perceive that both parish and not-for-profit work were healthy parts of my priestly vocation.  I need to say mass, to do pastoral care and community outreach, to baptize and bury.  I say the Daily Office, go to confession, and see a spiritual director.  But I care for people at work, too; and this is a very fulfilling part of my life as a priest.

I admire my priest colleagues who are doing full-time parish ministry, and I am not suggesting that this should change.  At some point, I may wish to join them there.  I loved being a parish priest, and often miss aspects of it.  I offer my perspective and experience simply to encourage those clergy for whom a full-time paid parochial cure may not be feasible or desirable, to say, "do not despair; there is life after parish ministry."  In many instances, our skills as clergy are transferable and applicable to other professional settings.  The Church has not been very effective, however, in re-visioning priestly ministry outside congregations or in helping clergy leverage and promote their skills for work in other professional settings.  Younger generations of clergy will need to take the lead in this area as paid parish positions continue to decline, but with initiative and imagination, the Church and its clergy can still be relevant and responsive to a world in desperate need of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.


Peace and Blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

The Rev. Ethan Alexander Jewett, SCP
Convenor, Chicago Chapter-in-Formation, Society of Catholic Priests
Assisting Priest, Church of the Atonement, Chicago
Director, Executive Services, American Academy of Pediatrics

Disciplines of Easter Joy

Now that Easter has arrived, we can resume our consumption of alcohol and chocolate, empty the swear jar, or ease up on whatever Lenten practices we may have taken on during the Church's season of repentance.  It seems odd to me, however, that we don't have a response for the 50 days of Easter like we do for the 40 days of Lent.  If the Christian response to John the Baptist's call, "Repent," is to adopt disciplines of contrition and penitence, then should we not also have a meaningful response to the joyful message of Easter, the resurrection of Jesus?  The Gospel of Matthew says:

But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, “He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” This is my message for you.’

The Resurrection by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Surely, this message requires some answer from us, but not just saying Jesus has risen.  The reaction of the disciples was to encounter the risen Savior, to recognize him anew, to put their hands in the wounds in his hands and his side, and now as believers in the Resurrection, start to to live differently.  Ultimately, Jesus would leave them, send the Holy Spirit into their midst, which would begin to lead them into all truth. The Church would then be born to carry on Jesus' work of new life.  So, as the inheritors of the Resurrection and those first disciples, what might we be called to do?

The general structure of the Sacrament of Confession or Reconciliation provides us with the answer.  We begin Confession with a feeling of true contrition, followed by the declaration of our sins to the priest, absolution, penance, and finally amendment of life.  It is this last piece that is the Christian response to the message, "Alleluia, Christ is risen."  When we answer, "the Lord is risen, indeed. Alleluia," what we are really doing is assenting to the invitation to embrace a life of greater holiness.  After repenting in Lent, we agree to amend our lives in Easter. 

Easter joy leads to a new life focused, not on repenting for past sins and transgressions, but actively seeking to start again with a holy and healthy way of life.  Easter holiness may entail returning to regular recitation of the Daily Office or attendance at Mass on Sunday, periodic Confession or work with a spiritual director, practicing patience and generosity, daily exercise and healthy eating.  When these become our everyday rule of life, rather than a seasonal exception to the rule, we proclaim the truth of the Resurrection and live into the promise of new life that Jesus opened up for us. 

With Paschal Joy,

Ethan +

Faith Is All Around Us

Love, Actually is one of my absolutely favorite films, in part, because of its optimistic outlook on the ubiquity and variety of human loving relationships.  Even though it’s a Christmas movie, I watch it year-round, especially on those days when I’m feeling a bit blue and in need of an emotional pick-me-up.  The movie’s opening and closing scenes take place at Heathrow Airport, featuring numerous vignettes of family members, lovers, and friends greeting each other at the gate, some clearly after a lengthy separation.   The narrator’s essential point is that, despite all of the media coverage of wars, violence, and apathy, love is actually everywhere; hence, the movie’s name.  And a tragically cheesy version of the song, “Love is All Around Us,” serves as the movie’s unofficial theme song.  Some folks consider the film saccharine drivel, but I love it.  It’s hopeful, and in a world full of terrorists, gun violence in schools, and human trafficking, we can use all the hope we can get.

I write this as I fly back to Chicago after spending the weekend in Florida celebrating my mother’s birthday and baptizing my eldest sister into the body of Christ.  Whether it was coincidence, my own heightened awareness, or the movement of the Holy Spirit, I noticed that, like Love Actually, faith is actually everywhere.   Much has been made of the decreased role of religion in public life and the gradual drop in church attendance.  Research studies have unequivocally documented the overall decline in membership among Christian denominations and organized religion, generally, and the emergence of a generation of people who consider themselves “spiritual, but not religious.”  I don’t deny any of this, but I do believe that we are making too much of these trends.  I don’t think God is dead; and I don’t think Christianity’s best days are behind us.  The problem with religion—especially Christianity—these days is that we expect it look like it did in the 1950s in order to regard it as vibrant.  We hold on stubbornly to metrics of success that fit a world that no longer exists.

We may no longer be able to take it for granted that our political leaders, intellectual elite, and captains of industry will be people of faith.  We may not be able to assume that our neighbors, in pursuit of suburban respectability, will go to church every Sunday and keep up with the Joneses.  Instead, we should assume that the United States (and other nations) is a pluralistic society where religion no longer holds sway the way it did half a century ago, but that faith is undergoing a variety of transitions and permutations in order to stay relevant and viable.  The very notion of “spiritual, but not religious” is a challenge to organized religions to adapt in order to respond effectively to the spiritual hunger postmodern people are experiencing, by recovering ancient traditions, exploring innovative models of worship, service, and community; and adopting more sophisticated forms of theological education and catechesis.  If many people find religion useless, maybe it's not because human spiritual yearning has stopped, but because we're offering stale answers to increasingly challenging questions.  Religion cannot rely simply on its established authority as a social institution to keep people in the pews.  Those days are gone.  For people to come to us for more than the odd wedding or funeral, we have to answer their toughest questions better than we are doing.  I think it's a shame that many seminaries have stopped teaching apologetics, because that's what we really need of both clergy and laity right now:  apologists.

During my trip home this weekend, faith has been everywhere.  Sitting at the gate in Tampa was a priest in a black suit and clerical collar working on his iPad.  Walking through the terminal were several Orthodox Jews in traditional dress.  Sitting next to me on the flight to Cleveland was a man reading a book on Catholic spirituality.  In the nearly barren Cleveland airport, there was a Muslim man kneeling for evening prayers near a water fountain.  If religion really didn't matter anymore, it is unlikely that any of us would see as many signs of faith as we do.  I think it far more likely that people have gotten used to just shutting off their awareness of religious and spiritual life, and many of us have cooperated in playing down our faith and making it less visible.  Are we not paying attention?  Faith is all around us. If religion has become discredited among many, then it is our job as people of faith to redeem it in the eyes of those who think it has nothing to offer.  So, I charge all of us, in this Resurrection season, to work to become better apologists and answer the tough questions.  In a postmodern, post-Christian society, the default position is no longer fides quaerens intellectum--faith in search of understanding--but understanding in search of faith.  Let us help those bereft of faith find it.

Easter Joy and Blessings,
Ethan +

Ashes to Go, Palms on the Way ... What Next?

An Atonement parishioner with "Radar"
Photo courtesy of Atonement.

"The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.  A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!"  When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, "Who is this?"  The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee." Matthew 21:6-11

Yesterday, we did it again, as we do every year at the Church of the Atonement; we reenact Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem by processing around the block led by our friend, Radar, the donkey.  Arrayed in red vestments, holding palms, with bells pealing, we offered a witness of the Christian faith and story to the urban neighborhood in which we live.  I always look forward to it.  Once around the block, and then back inside for the Passion, the homily, the Eucharist, coffee hour, and the rest.   But that procession was just the first steps of the entire Holy Week journey to the cross, the tomb, and new life.  We walk with Jesus this week, marking out the places and events that define the essence of Christian identity.  And hopefully, we will be changed by the experience. 

Clergy in procession on Sheridan Avenue.
Photo courtesy of  Atonement.

Yet we often walk this journey, as so many congregations do, in an insular sort of way.  Not intentionally, to be sure, but I'm always left thinking about how brief our foray into the community is on those rare days when the church's life is on display--I mean REALLY on display. The procession can be seen as an invitation, encouraging people to be curious about who we are, what we do, what we believe, and what we stand for.  Unfortunately, it offers little opportunity in the moment to engage the neighborhood in conversation about religion, spirituality, and faith--about why we're marching down the street holding palms and wearing red, about who Jesus is for us, and why we identify as Christians.  I wish we could have those conversations a bit more often, and more organically.  Many parishes contribute to the community, as Atonement does, in some deeply meaningful ways by hosting cultural events, donating to the local shelters, food pantries, and soup kitchens, and volunteering in community-based programs.  These are all wonderful things. 


Through formal community engagement, we meet many spiritually hungry people, but there are many we don't meet.  The procession may be an invitation to these other folks, but it can also be a spiritual "hit-and-run" experience, that cleanly tosses the ball in the other person's court, and relies on his or her initiative to inquire further.  What an intimidating thought.  The Church meets me where I am, but before I can ask a question or have a conversation, it's passed by me.  You mean I have to venture inside that imposing building down the block to find out more, to learn what that spectacular parade was all about?  The procession is a great beginning, but it may not be enough.  The Palm Gospel above provides some insights on what might be required of us.  The faithful go out in procession, SHOUTING to invite the whole city to learn about Jesus.  The curious ask what all the turmoil is about, and Jesus' disciples in the crowd convey some pretty startling news.  The procession is a means to an end, a disruption to tell the whole city about Jesus.  That conversation changed everything, and here we are millennia later acting it all for the benefit of another generation.  So, how might we do a better job of inviting people to explore the Christian faith?

Mthr. Kate Guistolese passes out palm crosses.

The popularity (and effectiveness) of "Ashes to Go," in which churches go out into the streets to administer ashes to people in the community, has given rise to a reevaluation of how the Church lives, more generally.  Atonement conducted a similar outreach event for Palm Sunday, called "Palms on the Way," in which clergy and parishioners offered palm crosses to passersby with a card inviting them to join us for worship during Holy Week.  I hope that many new people will show up for the Triduum and Easter Sunday, but even if they don't, there is value in having even a brief conversation on a street corner, answering questions (and people did have questions!), and just being visible.  Perhaps it will plant a seed that germinates over time and leads to something spiritually fruitful and life-giving.  Perhaps it will dispel misconceptions about what the Church is or isn't.  Perhaps it will suggest that there really isn't much difference between sacred space and secular space, between the Church and the world outside its walls.  Perhaps it can push the procession a little farther down the block and invite more people into the community and mystery of the Christian life. 

But it will take more than good signage or an advertisement in the local paper.  It will take ashes, and palms, and other hands-on invitations that build relationships.  It will likely ask us to try different and uncomfortable things.  Imagine, for a moment, a Church that would offer to wash strangers' feet in public as a sign of servanthood--on a street corner, in a prison, in a park.  And then feed them.  What kind of message would that send to the world; what kind of invitation would that be to a stranger?  Reflect on that as you hear the Word of God, and have your feet washed, and eat and drink, and strip the altar bare.

Many blessings for a very Holy Week.

Ethan +