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My mentor, William Lynch S.J., wrote a very difficult and very important book titled Images of Faith (UNDP, 1973) wherein he argues that “irony” is one of the central images of faith, epitomized in what he calls “the Irony of Christ”.

Irony, he admits, is a difficult idea, but it typically means some sort of reversal in expectations. The irony of Christ is the fundamental fact that Jesus, God incarnate and the great Savior-King, came among us as a poor man, born in a stable, a lowly carpenter, an itinerant teacher, crucified as a criminal. Clearly a reversal of all expectations about the Messiah.

And, of course, illness (perhaps especially a life-threatening illness like a stroke) is bad news. Yet, at least for my recent stroke, it also resulted in much good news — a tremendous outpouring of love and prayer and support from relatives and colleagues and friends. To such an extent that I feel very blessed and grateful.

And that is indeed ironic. Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar during some bad episodes of illness, or some other bad times in your life. I hope you have.

So I’m writing this blogpost as an expression of gratitude to the many who have reached out to me.

It is, of course, tragic that so many have experienced severe suffering without much or any support. I think, for instance, of the people today in Gaza, murdered and wounded by Israel. And of so many other innocent victims of war. And of many throughout the world who suffer from cancer, strokes, aging, other diseases — alone and without significant medical aid or family support. Of those dying alone from drugs or alcohol abuse.

I do believe that God is pure Mercy and sends angels in many guises to console even those, or perhaps especially those, who suffer alone. It’s one of Pope Francis’ constant assurances.

So it is one of the wonderful ironies about my recent stroke that I have met many such angels — on the phone, via emails, even while just enjoying fresh air and sunshine and starlight.

Hope this makes some sense. No need to say more. I thank God and so many of Her bearers of grace. And Mother Mary. (If you’ve never heard it, or even if you have, google Eric Claption and Luciano Pavoratti’s “Holy Mother” for a truly beautiful musical evocation of that Mercy.)

I previously only knew that stroke was some bad medical emergency.  Now I’ve learned a lot more.  My wife, Jeanie, and I were driving to our mountain place when I suddenly realized I had to stop driving and let her take over.  I don’t remember much after that since I was experiencing a brain attack (having a stroke) caused by one or several blood clots in the brain. 

Fortunately, Jeanie soon realized there was something serious going on:  I was not talking or perhaps just mumbling a bit; face pale and flaccid; eyes vacant….  She got me to an emergency clinic where they made a fast and accurate diagnosis; gave me a transfusion of blood thinner which was literally life-saving because it cleared the clot(s); then sent me on a “flight for life” helicopter ride over the mountains to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Denver.

I don’t remember anything (I was conscious but not aware) after asking her to drive.  Only time I ever rode a helicopter, and over Colorado’s magnificent “front range mountains”, and no awareness or memory of the trip.

The key to healing was the transfusion, but the folks at St. Anthony’s were really great – the neurologists and nurses in the ICU (including one student nurse from Regis’ nursing school which ranks first in Colorado). 

My next memory was waking in the hospital the next morning and seeing Jeanie and our daughter Anna sitting beside my bed.  And being able to listen and talk with them.  (What’s John without talking?)

Now I’m several days at home, feeling fine but exhausted, no longer able to drink any alcohol, and on 2 baby aspirins a day and 80 mg of atorvastatin to prevent further episodes. 

I write about this because I’ve learned that stroke comes after heart disease and ahead of cancer, especially in older folks (I’m now 82), as cause of serious illness and death. 

So I want to share an acronym you may already know:  Bfast.  Stands for balance, facial drooping, arms dangling, speech blurring – all clear symptoms of stroke.  And the final “t” is for “time” – seeking treatment within 3 or so hours makes all the difference.  I got treated 2-3 hours after the incident on the highway and, gratefully, am fine.  Jeanie’s the heroine for her quick action in getting me to the ER. 

So cut your drinking, check your BP, take moderate blood thinners (baby aspirin and others), and let something else kill you.

Happy trails.

We face futures of both growing social and political distrust and (or so I believe) of growing awareness of the need for nurturing social and political trust.  Said differently, both trust and distrust will spread across the globe in the coming year(s) – one the result of Trump’s influence (and the influence of his ilk elsewhere); the other of Francis’ influence (and of many other like-minded leaders and writers). 

In my previous Christmas blog post December 19, 2023, I indicated that “a second and follow-up posting would contrast Francis with Trump as cultural icons for two very different political and social futures for our world.”  Herewith that follow-up posting.

Result? Divided, even polarized families, countries, global arenas of influence….  And growing efforts to overcome such polarizations.

In my Christmas posting, I focused primarily on Francis, with some references to William Lynch, SJ.  Especially on Francis’ great encyclical Fratelli Tutti and secondarily to Lynch’s plea (in his 1975 book Images of Faith) that we need to imagine faith as not just something vertical, but also something deeply horizontal or embodied.  And he meant not so much the mystical body of the church, but the complex body of relationships of trust that makes society possible.   Without such a real body, faith in God (or the nation, or whatever) will be little more than dangerous illusion.

I’ll try to keep this brief since I suspect the contrast between Trump and Francis is pretty obvious to all but the most hardened (or sclerotic) minds and spirits. 

Trump may be the next US president (God forbid!).  Yet even if this catastrophe is avoided, his “iconic” significance will continue to grow.  Here in the US (perhaps especially if he is justly imprisoned), as well as in Russia and China, in the many neo-fascist parties growing again in Western Europe, in the Middle East, and in many parts of southern Asia — Modi’s Hindu nationalism is the most frightening example.  Perhaps even in my beloved Australia.

In much of Africa, there is perhaps little need for Trump’s iconic influence since tyranny is already pervasive.  Even again in my beloved South Africa.

Yet many leaders and critics – Francis primary among them – are deeply concerned about the decline of democracy and human rights throughout the world.  I, for example, am among many who have long feared the militarization of both economy and politics in this country. 

In that regard, Pope Francis’ recent Christmas message to the world “Urbi et Orbi” – Christmas 2023 | Francis (vatican.va), before discussing many specific conflicts throughout the world, made these memorable remarks which are worth citing at length:

“To say ‘yes’ to the Prince of Peace, then, means saying ‘no’ to war, to every war and to do so with courage, to the very mindset of war, an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. This is what war is: an aimless voyage, a defeat without victors, an inexcusable folly. To say ‘no’ to war means saying ‘no’ to weaponry. The human heart is weak and impulsive; if we find instruments of death in our hands, sooner or later we will use them. And how can we even speak of peace, when arms production, sales and trade are on the rise? Today, as at the time of Herod, the evil that opposes God’s light hatches its plots in the shadows of hypocrisy and concealment. How much violence and killing takes place amid deafening silence, unbeknownst to many! People, who desire not weapons but bread, who struggle to make ends meet and desire only peace, have no idea how many public funds are being spent on arms. Yet that is something they ought to know! It should be talked about and written about, so as to bring to light the interests and the profits that move the puppet-strings of war.”

Yet while this ringing condemnation must be heard and repeated, it also needs to be seen within the context of Fratelli Tutti, “On Fraternity and Social Friendship” Fratelli tutti (3 October 2020) | Francis (vatican.va).  As his major contribution to the papal tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, that letter repeats the pope’s condemnation of war and militarism. 

Yet the larger context for that condemnation is his message about the fundamental reality of and the great need for social friendship and trust. 

(The reader may remember that any objected to the title’s “All My Brothers” and urged a change to include women as well as men – especially since it’s generally more women than men who nurture and mend the web of social trust.) 

Might Francis, then — in his person, his words, and his actions – actually become an influential and international icon for the growth of social trust, for the future development of those many relations of trust which constitute society’s body of faith?

His is no easy task, as the continuing loss of faith in his (my) Church demonstrates.  And I don’t mean loss of faith in God or even in specific elements of the Christian creeds.  Rather loss of faith in the way his church operates.  On its failures regarding sexual abuse; on its meandering and conflicted efforts to deal with changing understandings of gender and sexuality; on opposing positions about his call for a new “synodal” path.

Let me end with that idea or ideal of synodality.  Francis certainly means a process whereby conflicts and polarizations with the catholic church might be lessened, or at least mediated, by folks at all levels sitting together, speaking and especially listening, in order to discern paths forward.  Yet such a synodal path is needed and often practiced not only in churches and synagogues, mosques and temples.  It is very much needed – and, again, often attempted and practiced – in many dimensions of social life – what I prefer to call “the human city”.

Here I should probably say “let me count the ways” in which such synodal processes are evidenced in our society.  Rather, I’ll ask the reader to remember and think about their experiences of such processes in their city or social world.  I’ve already attempted to give my list in five previous postings (during November 2020) about “Fratelli Tutti in Denver.” 

Adveniat regnum tuum. So reads the Latin for “Thy Kingdom Come” in the Our Father. Which is the meaning of the liturgical season of Advent. Awaiting the birth of Jesus who not only proclaims God’s kingdom or reign “on earth as it is in heaven”, but who is the coming or the incarnation of that kingdom.

Some feminists would have us say “kindom,” not liking kings and other masculine authorities. So be it. Yet I continue to say “Father” and “kingdom”, not because I happen to be male, but because I prefer the sound of those words. When saying the Our Father, whether aloud or in silence, I always add “Our Mother, Great Spirit”. But not “kindom” which, in English at least, sounds strange, even weird. Maybe it’ll catch on, but I’m too old to wait for that.

In any event (which sounds like “advent” and the great event it proclaims), I do find myself awaiting again, in this year of Our Lord 2023 AD, or Anno Domino, awaiting the celebration of Jesus’ birth. And remembering when my children, in costume, at church, dramatized the scene of that birth at the altar. (By the way, I use AD and resist the now culturally mandated “CE” because the birth of Jesus really does constitute THE major turning point in all of history.)

This year I’ve been part of a zoom group talking about “the cosmic Christ”. Some good readings discussed, but always returning to the central question about how Jesus, the Christ, is present and active in this world and throughout the cosmos – embodying the presence of the Kingdom.

Perhaps the point is that He, Jesus, is “Lord of Lords and King of Kings” (Handel), always present and active – the Alpha and Omega (to throw in a bit of Greek).

Where is this presence? God knows; I only guess. At the margins, as Pope Francis the Great keeps saying. In the smell of the stables and streets.

It happens that, a few days, ago I gave out clean socks and underpants, warm hats and gloves, and some books, to an encampment or tent-city surrounding the blocks around Denver’s main post office. Mostly homeless and jobless African American men with grizzled beards and hungry looks. Probably over 100 tents, typically with two or three guys sleeping and living there. Maybe some women, though I didn’t see any. I only had enough for the first 20 or so tents. And I’m not trying to boast. Rather I was humbled by how little I could do and by how I typically avoid encountering the poor. Next time I’ll buy cigarettes as well, for they seem the primary currency of street life.

The good news is that our Denver mayor has realistic plans for moving those folks to more permanent housing. Not to get them out of public eyesight, but with real compassion for the people on the streets. He’s a young Irish American, with Harvard and Yale degrees and a long history of anti-poverty work. He may be Catholic, perhaps influenced by Francis.

Still, and not just because Jesus said it, the poor will always be with us. In part because of the kind of capitalism embodied in Trump and his ilk. Also because of the inevitability of social stratification. And most deeply because of the reality of original sin with its continuing consequences. Yes, with Matthew Fox and other theological flakes, creation is indeed an original blessing. Yet however we understand Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and the rest of Genesis and Exodus, that blessing was soon stained by sin, deeply stained, wounding our own flesh and spirits. As a theological friend regularly said, it’s the only Christian doctrine that is empirically demonstrable.

Every Advent we await the coming of the Savior who takes away the sins of the world. Not, as my mentor Lynch says, in some big triumphal, capital “S” way. Rather in all the small “s” ways we try to love our neighbor, even our enemies, and are loved by others even with all our shabbiness. And every time a child is born.

“For (again Handel) unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.” True, analogously, for the birth of every child, daughters as much as sons. For the birth of every child is a new beginning for the world. However much stained by sin the world into which every newborn enters.

So yes, let’s together say “Amen” and “Alleluia”.

This Advent I’ll be listening again to Handel, and to Leonard Cohen’s deeply sad “Alleluia”.

Should you listen to these and other Advent and Christmas songs, then perhaps what I’ve been struggling to say in this essay will make more sense than my rambling words.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

I want to try to write something about Mary of Nazareth’s experience during the third trimester of her pregnancy. I imagine her visiting her cousin Elizabeth during the second trimester when moving around would have been easier. Then during her third trimester she’d have been confined to home while awaiting the birth of her baby.

I come to this writing having experienced a rebirth of sorts in my devotion to Mary, the Blessed and Holy Mother, not just of Jesus but of us all.

I’ve always had what we Catholics call a “devotion” to Mary. When I was young my family prayed the rosary every evening. It’s a series of prayers counted on beads which repeats the Ave Maria or “Hail Mary”. I went to Catholic schools where statues of Mary were featured on the grounds. There typically are statues of Mary in the front of Catholic churches. Eventually I joined a religious order of brothers and priests called the Society of Mary or Marianists who run high schools and universities throughout the U.S. and around the world.

The renewal or rebirth of this devotion came this Fall because of long covid. It was like a long dark tunnel of listlessness, coughing, and so on. In that tunnel I found myself calling on this Mother for comfort, praying the Hail Mary when unable to sleep.

Which, as I’ve said, led to wondering what she had experienced during her last trimester, during this period of waiting for the birth of Jesus which Christians celebrate during the four weeks of Advent or waiting for Christmas.

I typically avoid thinking much about how Mary got pregnant. I believe, without understanding, in what my ancestors and my church call the virginal conception of Jesus – that Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit without the involvement of her husband Joseph. I’ve also come to believe, as most Protestants do, that Jesus soon had brothers and sisters conceived in the normal or natural way.

At any rate, what was Mary’s third trimester of waiting like? Of course, it’s impossible to know since the Gospel stories say nothing about this. So I return to what, according to Luke’s Gospel, she was inspired to say in response to her cousin Elizabeth’s greeting. It’s the proclamation or song of praise typically referred to by its Latin name, the Magnificat. “My soul glorifies the Lord and my Spirit rejoices in God my savior because he has done great things for me.”

Repeating words from Hebrew psalms, Mary continues saying “He has put down the mighty from their thrones and has exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to help his servant Israel, for he remembered the promise [covenant] made to our fathers….”

These words have recently come to great prominence because of what’s called “Liberation Theology” or the theology of prophetic protest against the oppressive structures of global capitalism.

Did she actually say these words? It’s certainly possible since she was an observant Jew who would know the psalms and songs of her people. Just as her son Jesus would continually repeat these words in his preaching and embody them in his actions. Most notably, perhaps, in his attack on the money-changers in the temple just before his capture and crucifixion.

More to the point of this reflection, I’m guessing she thought about these words and repeated this prayer during her third trimester confinement. Wondering about the birth and life of her child.

Luke tells us that the birth happened in the squalid conditions of poverty, and soon thereafter had to flee to escape Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. A millennium later it was St. Francis who popularized the scene of Jesus born in a manger, now represented in many homes and churches and even (if controversially) in many public squares.
Yet even before that humble birth and that flight in fear, she must have wondered about what those words meant for herself and her child.

So this Advent I wait with Mary, wondering about her words to Elizabeth, noting as she soon did that the powerful remain powerful, the hungry still sent away empty, the homeless on our streets, refugees continue to flee, and the covenant with Israel is in tatters. And I will silently sing from memory the Latin words of the Magnificat which I regularly sang during my years in the Marianists.

I will also remember the time in Viet Nam when I stood before the beautiful statue of Mary in the square before the Catholic cathedral in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). And several days later, when I stood in awe and prayer, in a light tropical rain, before a magnificent statue of Quan Am, the Buddhist Mother of Compassion, in a monastery on the hills above Da Nang harbor where we had one of our largest military bases during the war. (Google “Buddhist Monastery Da Nang” for images of this statue.)

I prayed before both statues, of Mary and of Quan Am, and knew no difference. For she is the Mother of Compassion to whom I called during my long dark tunnel. And she is the mother in waiting who will accompany me during these coming weeks of Advent.

Several friends have been kind enough to ask why I had stopped writing blogs and whether I might start again. Truth be told, I have not written a blog post in many months – in part because of my own want of the energy (long covid), in part because there are already many very good bloggers and commentators out there.

For instance, since I’ve blogged often over recent years about Palestine-Israel (the last proclaiming I’d never write again about this mid-East mess), I’d rather have folks read better commentators like David Brooks who recently wrote about how we (Americans, Christians, Jews, Muslims) could endure the realities of the present without submitting to rage or despair. He urged a return to the two great sources of Western wisdom – Athens (or the Ancient Greeks) and Jerusalem (or the Biblical writings). He urged especially a recovery of the Greek’s tragic sensibility as a way of dealing with unexpected evil and fate. And a recovery of the biblical tradition embodied for Brooks most recently in the life of Etty Hillesum – the young secular Dutch Jew who grew to become “the girl who learned to kneel” and then “the glowing heart” of the camps where she was eventually murdered. I too highly recommend her journals published as “An Interrupted Life”.

I, at least, find that advice helpful as I face the simplistic temptations to rage at terrorists and murderers on many sides, and despair of any hope that anything will end this other than a drawn-out, exhausted stalemate, only to begin again soon enough (in one place or another).

But let me turn to a subject where I want to think I know something, or where I might learn something by trying to write about it. That is the topic of synodality in the Catholic Church and on the most recent Synod session in Rome, now several months ago.

I’m part of a zoom group of Catholic guys reading and talking about the Synodal process; I’ve tried to keep up with commentary about the recent Synod meeting, and the official document released by the Synod.

Here’s what strike me as the most “typical” responses to the process so far – 1) it has continued to be a saga of failed expectations at every level, just more ecclesial blah, blah, blah, even if this time coming from the mouths of women and laity and others; 2) it really is a hopeful start; clearly only a start, with many bumps in the road especially around still-controversial issues; yet the real beginning of something new – a sense of a need for new structures for participation of all God’s People in discernment as we move to next year’s synod in Rome and thereafter.

I want here to argue for the latter response even though I’m deeply disappointed on the lack of movement on ordaining women and married folks, and about the obvious need (at least in the US and Canada, and Western Europe) for accepting LGBTQ folks as full brothers and sisters in our communities. It’s pretty obvious, I sense, that the ordination issue is a no-brainer except for those with so much to lose once clericalism is dismantled.

By the way, I just read about the need to support our priests, especially the celibates in the secular/diocesan priesthood, as the sentiment of the folks moves to reject celibacy. I’ve taught some of those men and admire them and their ministry. Yet they mostly live alone (unlike religious-order priests) and must suffer the drift of opinion away from their hard-bought celibacy.

It’s just arrogance which leads some (and me not a few times) to reject the whole process. Not gonna do nuthin. Just rah, rah hype for the interested – and most are not.

Yet there’s no stopping the synodal process. In McLuhan speak, the medium is the message. Seeing laity, women, nuns, and cardinals speaking and listening at one round table is a game changer. Whatever the many bumps and discernments among polarizations down the road, the tooth-paste can’t be put back in the tube. Those images of listening, speaking, and praying are worth more than the thousands of words about the synod and about our polarizations.

I do not know where the synod process is taking us, neither on hot-button issues nor on local participation. I hope we move forward quickly but carefully to lay preaching, ordination of women and married folks, serious parish councils and diocesan synodal structures, and also to ecumenical and inter-faith dialogues or synods. But I suspect it will be more of a process (citing Eliott) of “hints and guesses,” “fits and starts” until we can, with Rilke, “love the questions themselves” and lean into the process with hope-filled yet realistic expectancy.

We need now, as always (as my master Lynch teaches) to embrace the drama of time, to move through many analogous pathways as we seek unity — not leaping above time to some fantastic vision of unity – and thus to suffer the inevitable step backward with every one or two steps forward.

I can’t resist a final note about Palestine: I’m mightily pissed at Biden for his seemingly unilateral and absolute support for Israel– with money and weapons and carrier fleets, yet will still vote for him if it comes down to him or Trump.