Burying the Fat

Each year I usually get some little booklet for Lent that has daily reflections.  There were some 'freebies' sitting out in our mail room so I grabbed one with reflections by Fr. Thomas Connery.  

There was an interesting tidbit of information in the reflection for the Thursday after Ash Wednesday which said, In medieval times monks would give up butter, lard and fat for Lent.  They had an Ash Wednesday ceremony called "Burying the Fat," in which they put butter in a casket, held a funeral service and actually buried the casket  They took it quite seriously.  They felt it was their way of sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

I tried to imagine my community doing this...

There we are standing around an open coffin...Sr. Rita, our prioress, tosses in the Crisco while we sing an appropriate funeral song...

Next, Sr. Jane, subprioress, tosses in the butter and margerine sticks...we sing something somber...

There is debate as to whether the canola and olive oil should go in...it is 'heatlhy' after all.  But no...it's Lent!  "It all has to go!!!!" roars our prioress.  

We slam the coffin lid down and carry it out back where we drop it into the earth and each toss in a shovelful of dirt to cover it up.  For good measure we stand on the top of the 'grave' and stamp the dirt down with our feet.

While I may poke a little fun at my ancestors in the monastic timeline,  it does give me food for thought...or fat for thought.   There are other things I could be serious about burying.

Even discerning a life choice such as whether to enter a religious community will entail burying a few things.  

I would suggest tossing in these two things:  

 1.  The desire to make a decision only after you are 100% sure.  (This one can really slow you down or in fact paralyze you).  I've come to realize that God lets us live with a whole lot of ambiguity in these matters.   I think it is a matter of strengthening our faith.  As much as we might not like to stumble around in the dark, it is those times when we have to exercise the most faith and trust in God.  

2.  The desire to find the perfect community.   The reality is that there are no perfect communities.   And if there were, as soon as you would enter it, it wouldn't be perfect anymore (unless you are willing to claim that you are perfect).   The women and men in religious life are human with their own weaknesses.  God wants us to live with each other with all our annoyances and disagreements in order to teach us to really learn to love each other and practice self-giving and humility.   God does not promise us rose gardens in our communities.  

There are a host of other things that may need to be buried at some time.  But I suspect God is even willing to help us do the shoveling if we just ask...

  

Has the Pope written yet?

I had just arrived in my office this morning when my phone rang.  Our own Sr. Maria Victoria was on the line, "The letter I was expecting finally arrived.  If you want to see it swing by the portress desk."  I had no idea what she was talking about but was curious and so I trotted 15 yards down the hall to our front entrance.  

A little back ground information needed:  Sr. Maria Victoria was born in Argentina and made Final Profession on January 18 of this year.  

Sr. Maria Victoria reads her Profession Vows

"The pope finally wrote back,"  she said as I approached her desk.  She gave me an envelope with the return address of the Aspostolic Nunciature in Washington DC.  Inside was a blue rosary case with the papal seal containing a pearl white rosary and a picture of Pope Francis signed "Francesco."  Alas, there was no actual letter in the envelope.
And, the signature was printed, not written, on the card.

She grinned as she related how after Cardinal Bergoglio was elected she had sent a congratulatory card to him at the Vatican.  "I told him I was from HIS city in Argentina and we were praying for him because that is what our community does."  She also had sent him a birthday card last month with an invitation to her Final Profession.    And just yesterday Maria Victoria's younger sister had written to her asking cheekily, "Has the pope written back yet?"

Our Sr. Cathleen Marie got wind of the fact that Sr. Maria Victoria was trying to contact the pope and decided in December to e-mail Pope Francis himself, but alas the e-mail returned to her.  

So she e-mailed L'Osservatore Romano (the Vatican newspaper) asking them to tell Pope Francis about Sr. Maria Victoria with the suggestion that he call her.   (With periodic news reports that Pope Francis has called someone out of the blue, maybe it's not so far fetched.)


So, at least someone somewhere in the halls of the Vatican forwarded these requests to the Apostolic Nuncio office in Washington DC where they dutifully sent a rosary and a card.  

Heck, it's better than nothing.

Wait...do I hear a phone ringing?

At the Gate of the Year

Happy 2014!  To begin this new year I would like to share one of my favorite poems: 

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."

And he replied,
"Go into the darkness and put your hand 
into the hand of God
that shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!"


So I went forth and finding the Hand of God

Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!
What need our human life to know
If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things
Both high and low,
God hideth his intention.

Minnie Louise Harkins 1875-1957