2018.04.29 Memorial Homily: a Letter, February, 2018

May I speak to you in the name of the God who inspired St. Ignatius of Loyola to say: “We are created to live in God’s love and life for all eternity.”

Dear Pierre,

I am honored to be here today speaking your praises. I can hear your voice now in my ear: “Pffft non, non, non. It is the Lord, not me.” For all your adorable arrogance, Pierre, you were truly humble.

Still, I will speak.

I knew you'd choose scriptures that affirmed Ignatius’s wisdom:
    -From Isaiah, a message deeply personal and universal:  Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are precious in my sight and honored and I love you.
    -Psalm 23, of course. I picture you now beside tranquil waters in lush meadows—these could be French meadows, possibly resembling Marseilles, or Wallingford, Connecticut, where you lived with your beloved Mary. 
    -From  I John: Beloved let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us . . .” (I John 4: 4-10a)
    - Gospel of Matthew: Jesus recited Beatitudes, blessing the beauty and messiness of life all together—in terse inclusive phrases, a little blunt, like you, Monsieur.  Your beatitude? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  Thank you for your courage, Pierre. You took risks where others feared to tread.

For you it was always about Love and Jesus the Christ, the one you called “that guy.”  If on a directed retreat I didn’t see Jesus on the horizon as I prayed on the beach at Mercy Center, something was missing. You would question, not scold, but with intensity ask: “Leen, do you see the Lord, the guy? I squinted as I looked out to sea from the beach. No Jesus-guy.

In time I learned to see the Lord through my beeg eemaginashun, as you would say. I sat on this bench.

And too, Pierre, you would say when I came to visit in your latter days: “Hey, where is the guy?” You meant my guy, Dick Simeone, my beloved priest spouse. He is right here today, offering your praises and remembering with me.

Through your ministry, Pierre, especially the Spiritual Exercises of your genius-saint-guy, Ignatius, I discovered that you would never not be a Jesuit. You can take the guy out of the Order but you can’t take the Order out of the guy. Getting to know this Jesus-guy in my own flesh was the best spiritual gift I ever received. Merci Monsieur, merci beaucoup.

I remember when we first met met in the early 1980s. I’d heard a Roman Catholic chaplain colleague rave and rave about knowing Jesus so well. I thought she was pretty nuts. I also felt insulted, as if I didn’t know Jesus very well, which I didn’t. But I was also entranced and intrigued. I asked her how she knew Jesus so well.
    “You have to have a Jesuit for that!” she announced.
    “Where do I get a Jesuit?” I asked.
She intimated, but stopped short of telling me, that I should become Roman Catholic. I did, however, have to sign up for a silent directed retreat at Mercy Center with Pierre Wolff, her Jesuit of choice.

I sat in a retreat room among several other quivering eager newbies, half expecting to see Jesus sweep in. But it was you, Pierre, announcing that we all would introduce ourselves—briefly. Very short, you said, and gave your own introduction: “Pierre Wolff. France.” Spit spat. I would soon learn that you had a big heart— and a snappy mouth.

There followed a bunch of paragraphs-long, mini-bios, none of them necessary, except to quell our nerves. Then came the seestairs, your three female minions who would assist you in directing us on this retreat: Judy Fortune, Mary Daly, Elaine Deasy, Sisters of Mercy. Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.

Oh God, I thought, nuns! Maybe this is too Catholic for me. But I had harbored secret longings since junior high school, mostly because they had a woman up front in their churches. A woman, no less—a stone statue, but still . . .   I prayed I’d get one of these Mercies for my director. This Pierre-guy would not be warm and fuzzy! 

But I got my Jesuit. So began our fifteen-year relationship of spiritual director and directee. It was never a flirtation, although I had become quite expert in this strategy in my midlife. Pierre, you accompanied me, respected me, let me argue with you, even reprimand you, nursed me through the heartache of being rejected initially in the Episcopal ordination process, the grief of divorce, and the joy of remarriage, convincing me—over and over— that I was a good enough mother, and that God saw me as precious and honored and beloved, no matter what. When I’d get overwhelmed and freak out you’d say: doucement cherie, doucement. Take it easy.

You’d say: “Leen, you are my priest.” But no, Pierre, you were my priest. You taught me how not to fear. You taught me to be free—free! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1) The charism of the Jesuits is one of open-heartedness and open-mindedness—like you.

And you taught me how to hate. When I read and re-read your amazing small book, May I Hate God, I knew it wasn’t God I hated, but the Church—at least for a time. You weren’t so happy with your own Church, Pierre, all because of the dismissive ways women were treated.

You celebrated Eucharist  among us informally—people of all  traditions welcome. You knelt at a low table on which the bread and wine rested, awaiting words of consecration, yet already consecrated by our presence in God. This is still my favorite way to celebrate the sacrament. Free.

Still, imagine my shock when one day at work I received a call from you in your frenchified English talking about Mary and marry and getting married, and Mary again. Somehow I knew this was not the stone statue of Mary, but a woman of flesh and blood that you loved deeply. You wanted ME to officiate at your marriage to this Mary. I said yes with more aplomb than I felt, and before I knew what I was doing. I was hardly wet behind the ears, and this would be my first ever marriage liturgy: September 10, 1988, just six months after my ordination as a priest.

The requisite pre-marital counseling felt quite hilarious. Me, a baby priest, counseling you, Pierre, a larger-than-life authority figure to me. It was comical.

But you and your Mary were gracious and dear. I listened to you two talk about your relationship, your love, your desire to marry in the sight of your Lord. I said something lame. But then I just looked and listened to you both, and I knew: here was love that participated in Love Eternal; here was Easter Love that would nourish you two and everyone your lives touched; here was love that could sustain great grief as you, Pierre, left your country, your order, your faith of origin, your Roman Catholic priesthood in a short span of time. Blessed are you who mourn for you will be comforted.

All this for the love of a woman named Mary. That has a scriptural ring, no? And Mary: Blessed are you who mourn for you will be comforted.

I couldn’t be a Catholic priest because of my gender; I couldn’t be a Jesuit, wrong gender again, so I became an Anglo-Catholic priest and an Associate of the Religious Sisters of Mercy. And you, Pierre, became an Episcopal priest.

Merci, my French, Jesuit, priest, Jesus-freak, Episcopalian. Blessed are you, for you have lived and loved in God who is Love and who loved you first.

Merci, merci le bon dieu, adieu. Good bye. Amen.

Love,  
Lyn

Oh, and Pierre…….. doucement cheri, doucement.

2018.03.18 Pay Attention!

On International Women’s Day this year the former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, delivered a keynote address, “Time Is Now for Change in the Catholic Church,” to a full house at the Jesuit Curia in Rome. The event, entitled “Why Women Matter” was sponsored by Voices of Faith, an international women’s organization. 

Now why would I, an Episcopal priest, care about the politics of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church?
    -Because Catholicism is the largest religious faith in the world and what happens there matters to us all. It’s naive to think otherwise.
    -Because Ireland’s former president is a brave woman whose blatantly honest words are still relevant and have even prompted a civil exchange between an Irish bishop and herself.
    -Because for years I’ve harbored a strong antipathy toward Ireland, or at least the Irish Catholic Church.

I write in part to heal my own irrational anti-Ireland hatred. I’ve felt this ever since I saw the movie, “The Magdalene Sisters” in 2003. Oh yes, I know how beautiful green Ireland is, and I know it has changed over the years, and I know this is about the Irish Catholic Church not about the whole country, but . . . 

“The Magdalene Sisters” is set in Ireland in 1964. It’s a true story of four teenage girls who were committed, by their own families no less, against their will, to Magdalene Asylums (also known as Magdalene Laundries) an institution run by Roman Catholic orders from the 18th to late 20th centuries. It was an institution of confinement for “fallen” women. After a mass grave was discovered and media investigations occurred, a formal state apology was issued in 2013 and a compensation package was set up for survivors.

The Roman Catholic Church has to date refused to contribute to the fund. Some religious orders have contributed to a compensation fund, including the Religious Sisters of Mercy of which I am an Associate—and proud.

The film was made to publicize atrocities and to make money for compensatory practices. I tell you it’s the only movie I’ve ever seen that gave me nightmares— and still could if I allowed it. Maggie Smith played the sadistic Mother Superior who presided over this torture. I love Maggie Smith, but in this film I had a hard time remembering that she was an actor playing her role. Her embodiment of the Christian Gospel she vowed to serve was violently opposed to Christ’s kingdom of heaven on earth.

The “fallen” girls whose stories the movie focuses on were considered in need of redemption. One was raped; one was beautiful and normally flirtatious; one an unmarried mother; and one an intellectually disabled unmarried mother. These girls, innocent save for their gender and its natural expressions, endured unspeakable cruelty while imprisoned like slaves in forced labor camps. Some had spent their entire lives in this toxic squalor.

Humiliations, such as satisfying Father XXX’s need for penile stimulation, being paraded for regular breast-size contests, complete isolation from family, including their children and babies they were forced to give up, and the outside world, and harsh labor, not to mention constant verbal and physical abuse, were wrenching to watch. The girls coped by befriending each other and snatching late night times to engage in conversation, otherwise forbidden. Once they got even by placing poison ivy into the washer with Father’s linens, then watching him jump around frantic with itching.

The only way a girl could get out was if a relative of age, that is 21, came to get her and attest to her sanity. One girl of twelve had to wait until her little brother who had been seven when she was dragged off in the night by her father, got old enough (do the math) to come for her release. Release meant what was left of a lifetime suffering from torturous post-traumatic paranoid stress and terror of the Church, probably even of God.  “Redemption” for these Magdalenes consisted of hell on earth.

I was shocked by the institutionalized cruelty, horrified that no one had bothered to notice that history has redeemed Mary of Magdala who was falsely branded as a prostitute, and even more shocked when at the end of the film I learned that these laundries did not get disbanded until 1996. I’d fantasized that all this must have happened in a former century!

These women had been trapped in a culture whose dominant religion was so fouled by misogyny that in 2018 former Irish president McAleese would still call it “an empire of misogyny.”

McAleese met Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law in 1988. They had a verbal battle after he commented that he was “sorry for Catholic Ireland to have you as President.” 

McAleese was elected president in 1997 and served till 2011. She succeeded Ireland’s first woman president Mary Robinson and was the world’s first woman to succeed another as President.  She was also the first President from either Northern Ireland or Ulster. She worked as a barrister and a journalist and championed issues of justice and and social equality and inclusion. Imagine! As I read about McAleese my anti-Irish feelings softened. McAleese is also a practicing Roman Catholic who boldly and bravely critiques her religion. She has redeemed my hostility.

 McAleese’s words ring prophetic: “Back in this hall in 1995 the Jesuit Congregation asked God for the grace of conversion from a patriarchal Church to a Church of equals; a Church where women truly matter not on terms designed by men for a patriarchal Church but on terms which make Christ matter. Only such a Church of equals is worthy of Christ. Only such a Church can credibly make Christ matter. The time for that Church is now, Pope Francis. The time for change is now.” McAleese said in a BBC interview. “A Church that is homophobic and anti-abortion is not the Church of the future.”

It was time then, 22 years ago, and it is more urgently time now!  Do we have such credibility in any religion? 

Godde, help us credibly make Christ matter. Credibly!  Amen.

2012.06.06 What Does It Matter?

What does it matter when someone at a geographic distance, that you haven’t seen in 30 years and only glimpsed at a reunion, and with whom you have no personal connection but whose work you admire and whose ministry touched you once for a very short time, gets hurt unjustly?

Margaret Farley, RSM (Sister of Mercy, an order in which I am an Associate member) was one of my favorite professors when I was in seminary at Yale Divinity School in the early 80s.  She taught Ethics. The church required aspiring clergy to take Ethics. I thought I was ethical. What did I know? 

I remember Margaret’s generous spirit, her scholarship, considerable and accessible, and her wry grin. She is a faithful woman who has been subjected to three years of intensive interrogation from her church hierarchy and has had to defend her perspectives and scholarship over and over, only to be told her work is condemned because it runs counter to official Roman Catholic moral teaching.

Margaret’s view of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was always broad and deep. Now she is being persecuted, not by her Order but by the Vatican whose Gospel values to me seem shallow and narrow, an institution quite closed in on itself by fear,  and rife with its own corruptions.  Implosive I’d say. 

Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics,  a book Margaret has worked on over years and a compendium of much of her thinking on the radical topic of LOVE has made it to the condemned list of the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith (CDF) because it contradicts  Catholic moral teachings on matters of, what else, sex—the usual culprits, divorce and remarriage, homosexual sex, and, my favorite, masturbation, an activity the magisterium finds “an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.” Margaret suggest such an activity may improve marital relations, may enhance and equilibrate differences. 

So how do you screen for masturbatory activity? Who would know but God?  What precisely makes it unethical? (I remember my first time. I experienced bodily power I never knew I had; it helped me love the body someone else had abused and I had shamed and it helped my marriage.)

JUST LOVE is a wily and provocative title.  It can mean just love as if love alone made the world go round and was all you needed; or it can mean that all love must be just.  Knowing Margaret, even without reading this book, I’d vote for the latter interpretation. I’d bet that couples, friends, peers and colleagues, or most people who say they love someone or a group, a pet, nature’s beauties, or a cherished idea, don’t think of justice as an ethical boundary that must surround their affections. 

We think of justice more as a social category than a personal intimate one, but justice is the framework that supports love, both erotic and platonic, and allows it to grow.

The official Notification that Just Love may not be used in any Catholic institutions even for ecumenical discussion is deliciously ironic. Farley is a professor emeritus at Yale Divinity School, not a Catholic institution, and even more the recent censure has sent this book’s sales soaring.

Academic Catholic colleagues are weighing in with vigor in defense of Margaret's scholarly rights and in admiration of her person. I wish some Anglo-Catholic bishops would speak out. I suppose they are worried about damaging ecumenical relations, but this is about solidarity not  politics. 

Mercy’s leadership supports their sister and is helping her through this process while they are simultaneously defending themselves after vatican crackdowns for doctrinal offenses and serious feminist leanings ( more on sex and women) that threaten the same hierarchy, itself profoundly disordered by its own sexual scandals and coverups.  Its a mess. And why is everything conflictual always about money or sex? 

Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister minces no words. “Where has all this energy for empirical destruction come from in a church now projecting its own serious problems with sexual issues onto everything that moves?”

You can read all about it online, with the help of Google/God of course. Start with the Sisters of Mercy website, Margaret Farley, Yale Divinity School, even Huffington Post, and click along the links.

Why does it matter to me?  It matters because I am a woman, an Associate of Mercy, a former student of Margaret Farley, a member of the body of Christ wounded. It matters because anything that hurts one of us hurts all of us, no matter who or where we are.

Most of all it matters because it hurts God, the divine spiritual presence whose graciousness wraps us round with a love at once intimate and impotent, a love that waits upon human cooperation to create “JUST LOVE,” both political and personal.  Freedom, God’s loving gift, is valueless and serves no higher purpose, without justice to give it breath.  


What I remember most of all the wisdom Margaret Farley imparted is something she told us about Peter and Judas, the polarized hero/villain team of the Christian drama. She noted this paradox:  Peter—the favored one, the rock of the Church, the “pope,” leader and most faithful of all—  in the end discovered he had little faith, little enough to betray all of it thrice.

While Judas, the identified betrayer— condemned, cast off, placed outside the inner sacred circle of the faithful forever— discovered in the end that he had true faith, enough to die for its sake.

How timely!