Sr. Debra's homily for St. John's Day (December 27, 2011)

From the cradle to the grave and beyond; from Christmastide through Epiphany to Lent and Easter; from the Incarnation to the Resurrection. On this the ‘Feast of St. John the Divine’, in Christmastide, we are invited among other things to reflect upon the journeys of lifetimes and the effect and significance those journeys have upon us as a Community. Our Lord Jesus, St. John, Mother Hannah — Each of our journeys separate, yet together.

Just a couple of days ago we found ourselves singing at the stable and today with John, we find ourselves standing at the entrance to the empty tomb gazing in wonder and expectancy. Like John we see and we believe. Like John what we see is more than the folded grave clothes and what we have come to believe is more than the empty tomb.

As I continue in my own spiritual journey I am interested in hearing how others have moved from one embraced understanding of God’s presence in their lives and in our world to another. For example, how did St. John move from being nicknamed by our Lord as one of the Sons of Thunder to being identified by Christ as the Apostle of Love. It seems to me that is a pretty big leap, especially if we look at some of the details of John’s early life and discipleship. Likewise how did Mother Hannah move from being a grieving widow to founding this Community of St. John the Divine.

For us as individuals and as members of this Sisterhood, it has been a long journey from a renovated stable on Robinson Street to this beautiful convent on Cummer Avenue. Likewise, it has been a long journey for [many] each of us from where we have been to where we presently are. On the day of our Patronal Festival, it is fitting that we take time to reflect. As someone reminded me recently, it is only in remembering where we have come from that we are able to appreciate the distance we have gone. In looking back we are able to acknowledge those who have been part of our formation along the way.

Personally speaking I was interested in exploring the relationship [as presented in our name, “The Sisterhood of St. John the Divine.”] between St. John the Divine, Mother Hannah, and this present community. At a glance the answer to this musing may seem obvious — we like St. John wish to be ‘Apostles of Love’ — or as G.H. Houghton put it in his letter of September 4, 1884, to Sr. Hannah:

“May the name which your Sisterhood is to bear be an indication of the Love which is to pervade and animate it; that all the members are indeed in a very special sense, ‘beloved of the Beloved’; are every mindful of the words, ‘Little children, love one another’; and that the things and thoughts and aims heavenly, are things and thoughts to which they are given.” (81 Memoir)

At a glance the answer to this musing may seem obvious: we are a religious community and we are supposed to be loving. Some assume that by virtue of our title and where we live, we are naturally H-O-L-Y, holy. In truth we don’t come to this place H-O-L-Y, holy; we come WHOLLY, filled with all manner of wholes that need Divine attention. We learn to love because we come to realize that God first loved us. When we realize this for ourselves we want to share it with others.

The relationship between St. John, Mother Hannah and this community is that we all share in a brokenness that has been transformed and continues to be transformed through the resurrecting touch of Christ. The relationship that we share in and that may be observed in the transformation which takes place in our lives and work, is a direct result of the intentional individual and corporate relationship we have with Christ through prayer and service.

While John was given a privileged place with Christ as part of his inner circle of three, he like us like Mother Hannah was very ‘human’. Remember, this is the same John who was jealous and resented what he perceived as competition from rival miracle workers. This is the same John who insisted on the best seat in the kingdom of heaven for himself. This is the same John who when he saw Jesus being rejected by a village of Samaritans asked, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Lord, if they are not for us, let’s wipe them out.) Jesus rebuked John as he had earlier rebuked Peter.

Somewhere in John’s journeying with Jesus, however, the thunderclouds broke and this Son of Thunder was transformed into the Apostle of Love whose name and devotion to Christ we, as a community, strive to emulate. So, when did it happen? When did this change in John occur? Was it as he watched our Lord being transfigured on the mountain? Was it at the raising of Jarius’ daughter from the dead or may as he waited sleeping in the Garden of Gethsemane? Could it have taken place as he stood with Mary at the foot of the cross? We don’t know. We often don’t know when and where the specific changes in our attitudes and ways of being take place. What we do know is a change has occurred. What we believe as members of the body of Christ is that God’s transforming love in Christ Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us has everything to do with the change.

Mother Hannah’s life and work is a testament to the faith and belief she had in the power of God to change the circumstances of the needy whom she served. Her faith and belief that God would provide through the generosity of others supporting her work in Christ is a faith and belief we continue to share today. It would not be possible for us to carry on the work we have been called to do in this place without the generous support and dedication to this ministry that is so freely given by our Anglican Church here in Canada and specifically by our Oblates, Associates, staff, volunteers, friends and partners [benefactors] in the religious life. Thank you!

Just as St. John faced the challenges of forming the early church in his time and Mother Hannah bore the challenge of beginning the only Sisterhood of its kind in her native land in her time, so we also bear the challenge of ministering in our time. We are not a new church and we are not a newly formed community. Our challenge is to spread an old gospel in a new way to a world that is largely indifferent to the message. The challenge for the ministry that we live with as a Sisterhood and members of the Anglican Church of Canada requires no less effort, persistence, faith and belief in our Lord’s sustaining presence than it did of St. John or Mother Hannah.

The evidence of Christ’s ever-present, sustaining devotion to us and with us in this ministry is sure!
Although three of our Sisters — Sr. Helena, Sr. Thelma-Anne and Sr. Madeleine Mary — were received back into the loving arms of our creator God this year, four new seekers have come to test their vocation in SSJD. In serving with you, we also participate in carrying out the mission and ministry of this household that was begun 127 years ago; as we learn the rule, the traditions and the ministry, we are finding our call alongside your call. At our Annual Chapter in August, each Sister reaffirmed her call to serve our Lord in this place through serving “the World God Loves” thus setting an example to us of your faith and devotion as the “beloved of the Beloved”.

As a Sisterhood, we confident that our Lord is leading us into new ventures in ministry even as we are being invited to embrace new partnerships. We continually pray for direction and the wise discernment necessary to follow our Lord in faith to the places to which we are being called. We are up to the challenge.

Finally I leave you with this quotation from Philip Yancey:

“The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step and set right all that is wrong. Rather they are to make the new heaven and the new earth and by so doing awaken longing for what God will some day bring to pass.”

May we by the grace of God offer a glimpse of the kingdom to this world through our lives and our
service that have been transformed and continue to be transformed by God’s love. Amen.

Sister Thelma-Anne McLeod SSJD 1928-2011

Today was designed to be a double celebration: first of John for whom the Fourth Gospel and the other writings attributed to him are named. Second, this was to be a joyful celebration of the 50th anniversary of the profession of Sister-Anne. I looked forward to her presence, hunched into her wheelchair, but it was not to be. Her death does not, however, relieve us from the opportunity to celebrate, to give thanks for her long, steady, and creative life as a member of this community.

First, however, a few words about St. John. Identification of the actual author is not as easy as the title of the day suggests. There are in the New Testament a number of men named John and scholars differ on the identity of the authors of this literature. I am reminded of debates about the authorship of the plays and poems of Shakespeare and the suggestion by a wag that they were written by another man with the same name. The title, “John the Evangelist,” refers to authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

The title, “John the Divine,” is frequently associated with the author of the book known as Apocalypse or Revelation, the vision of the last things and the final triumph of the kingdom of God. I have seen it suggested that the word “Divine” is used in a way that is associated with Anglican tradition. “Divines” for Anglicans are not simply godly people, they are theologians. The great Anglican scholars of our tradition’s most formative period are known as the “Caroline Divines.” They flourished during the reigns of Charles I and Charles II. When we refer to “John the Divine” we may really be saying, “John the Theologian.”

But let us leave aside questions of authorship and debate as to whether the literature identified by the name of John was written by a single man or even possibly by a community bearing his name. I offer a couple of points for reflection. The first is paradox. The author of the gospel seems to me to be able to hold together positions that might, at first glance, appear to be opposed. He presents Jesus as the embodiment—enfleshment, if you like—of the reason or mind or meaning of God. And with equal force he avoids the frequent temptation among Christians to suggest that Jesus only appears to be human. The Jesus of John’s gospel is totally human. He counsels the woman at the well who has a chequered marital history and suffers spiritual dryness and thirst. He weeps on the way to the grave of Lazarus. He says, “It is finished,” and gives up his spirit. And so in the first epistle attributed to John we read, “We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.” This is the heart of the theology of John the evangelist, or John the theologian, if you prefer.

And this tangible, physical, fleshy experience leads to a practical, tangible, physical experience of community. Behind the writings attributed to John there is this possibility, this vision, of a community bound together by love—not sloppy sentimental affection but commitment to mutual care and responsibility. As we read elsewhere in the first epistle of John, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them.” (4.16b)

This brings me to the second dimension of our celebration today: the anniversary of the profession of Sister Thelma-Anne as a member of the community of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine. Here I will speak more autobiographically. I first met Sister Thelma-Anne at a meeting of people concerned with theological education in the Province of Rupert’s Land. I met a sharp, forthright, direct personality. Our paths crossed a number of times in the ensuing years. And then she returned to the Toronto house of the community when I was a frequent presider at the Convent’s Sunday eucharist. She was the organist and director of music and we began a long friendship on the basis of liturgical collaboration.

Eventually the General Synod directed the Doctrine and Worship Committee to begin work on a new hymn book. Sister Thelma-Anne and I were members of the working group to which the task was assigned. The work went on for the next ten years. The mandate assigned to the Committee and its working group was to produce a collection which contained hymns both old and new, which would complement the Common Lectionary, and which would be as inclusive as possible in terms of theology, language, and gender.

Hundreds of hymns were considered. Some were selected as they were. Some were rejected. Others were tagged for adoption if they could be brought into line with the mandate, especially in the area of gender-specific language. Sister Thelma-Anne and I were constituted as a committee of two to work on these hymns. There were, as I remember, about 240 of them.

We met at the Botham Road convent for a day about once a month over a period of about eight years. Amending the hymns was concentrated work and sometimes we could finish only half a dozen hymns in a day. Sister Thelma-Anne brought committed but not fanatical feminism to the task. It was not enough to change gender loading; the result had to be as elegant and expressive as the original. Our goal was to make the work as invisible as possible. If people didn’t trip over the changes, we had succeeded.

This is a homily and not a biography so I will limit myself to two more aspects of the life of Sister -Anne.

First, for more than twenty years Sister Thelma-Anne offered her gifts of leadership to the Toronto chapter of Integrity, an organization of gay and lesbian Anglicans and their friends. Having become aware of discrimination on the part of both church and society against people with a same-sex orientation, she conducted retreats for the members of Integrity and wrote articles for their newsletter. In 2001 Sister Thelma-Anne was diagnosed to have Parkinson’s Disease. She treated it not as something she had, like a cold, but as something she was and which was therefore to be met and assimilated into the fabric of her journey. She met the disease with characteristic spiritual and intellectual vigor. All of this is documented in her book In Age Reborn, by Grace Sustained. She tells the story of the ups and downs of this degenerative disorder, a journey documented through the filter of her own ongoing development as a Christian and a religious. She concludes with the message that if she were asked to express in a single word what her experience has meant to her, the word would be grace. She wrote, “I have found again and again that what has been lost on one level is restored on another. And lost again. The gifts give me hope that lost ground can be recovered, if only temporarily. Nevertheless, the time comes to relinquish freely and generously into the wounded hands of the Saviour, the gifts and strengths we were entrusted with.”

Today’s psalm was doubtless chosen to highlight the ministry of St. John the Divine. It may be applied equally to the ministry of Sister Thelma-Anne, which we also celebrate today.

1 It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
14 In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Amen.

Paul Gibson

(Italics added)

Homily for Sr. Helena's Funeral

Isaiah 24.6-9 
Psalm 139.1-16 1
John 3.1-2 
Luke 24.13-16, 28-35


 “Walk slowly, look holy.” 


 This was the maxim that Sr. Helena taught all of us to live by – especially those of us who were trained by her in work of the sacristy and chapel. She herself was calm, contemplative, serene and gentle in her approach to chapel work, and she taught us, too, not to take ourselves too seriously – to remember that everything we did was for God. And because God’s love is unconditional, our worship would not be spoiled in any way if we made a mistake. 


 I remember one time when the chapel was set up for our Saturday evening Vigil of the Resurrection, with the water pitcher on the little table next to the baptismal font, ready for the Thanksgiving over the Water. The sister who was appointed to say the thanksgiving prayer that night picked up the pitcher and realized there was no water in it, and Sr. Helena herself realized it in a wink. But rather than jumping up, as some of us might, and running over to the font with a worried expression on her face, she did it all in a typically Helena way – got up from her choir stall, acknowledged the altar, walked contemplatively over to the font, picked up the pitcher, walked contemplatively out to the sacristy, turned on the water, filled the pitcher, turned off the water, walked back in, acknowledged the altar, brought it to the sister waiting to pour the water and say the prayer. The sisters knew what happened (and some might have chuckled under their breaths) but for the guests, it could easily have seemed to be a planned part of the ceremonial. 


This was Sr. Helena’s way of life. Whatever happened, God was there in the midst of it, blessing her, blessing everyone. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as the psalm says. “God formed our inward parts and knit us together in our mother’s womb” – so how could God possibly get upset over something as trivial as forgetting to put water in the ewer! 


Walk slowly, look holy. 


She never meant “look holy” to mean look religious or pious. She meant look like you are a beloved child of God. Don’t rush, don’t fret, don’t worry. Live the liturgy as it’s meant to be lived, with joy and peace. Walk through life with serenity and delight, relishing the love which God pours out on us.


 That is what the two disciples in the gospel narrative discover. They are grieving. They have lost their leader, they are going to Emmaus as though the cause has failed, back to their families and the occupations they were engaged in before they met Jesus. They are walking slowly but looking worried and distressed rather than holy. 


When Jesus meets them on the road, he engages with them as a teacher, explaining to them the passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that relate to him. But it is not until they are at table together, and he breaks the bread, that they recognize him for who he truly is. Then they return to Jerusalem to share the good news the other disciples.


The Emmaus story is a reflection of Helena’s life in community. She knew who Jesus was, she had been a faithful Christian for many years before joining the Sisterhood. But it was in community – around this table as we broke bread together, around the Refectory table at silent or talking meals, and in our common life – that she grew in knowledge of Jesus as the lover of souls, and in herself as God’s beloved. She was a strong contemplative, and needed lots of private time and space to keep her sane and to nurture her relationship with God. But she was also a social person, and like the disciples returning from Emmaus to Jerusalem, she couldn’t help but share her ever-deepening experience of God’s love with other. 


She talked to people and encouraged them in their spiritual quests. She ministered to peoples’ physical and spiritual needs. In her community life Sr. Helena worked in almost every house of the Sisterhood and most departments. It was a natural outgrowth of the life she lived before community. She had worked as a commercial artist, in the Civil service, and in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps during World War II. When she arrived on the Convent doorstep after the war, she said she was looking for two things that came out of her previous experience, and I quote her: I wanted “to live closer to God, and to help to prevent World War III from taking place.” In that dual call is summed up Sr. Helena’s desire to bring harmony to human life and the cosmos. It was her unique method of evangelism.


One thing I remember most about her ministering God’s love to people was the Bible studies she use to lead on Friday evenings for guests who came to stay at the Convent for the weekend. When I used to drive up to Willowdale with my friends from Detroit in the 1970s this was one of things we most looked forward to. After supper on Friday night, she would invite whoever wanted to come to join her in the Holy Spirit Chapel. We would read the gospel reading for the following Sunday, and she would lead us in a unique exploration, touching on topics I had never heard of – the cosmic Christ, the oneness of all of us in God, our coinherence in God and God in us – and also topics I had heard of but never grasped in depth before – the unconditional love of God, the unique value of each person God created, and the beauty of God’s Word in scripture. 


She loved scripture, and she prayed faithfully and earnestly for the Bible society throughout the world. She learned about new translations in languages I had never heard of. In recent years, when her blindness became severe, her wonderful friend Blossom would read the daily entries from the Bible society booklet to her and Helena would memorize them and pray for them in the intercessions each day at the Eucharist. 


Jesus was known to her in the breaking of bread, in community, in the breaking open of the scripture, and most of all in her own contemplative prayer. 


She loved Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Merton, John of the Cross and especially John the beloved disciple. She prayed with her soul, her mind and her body – we all will remember her unique, absolutely faithful brand of Tai Chi. Perhaps nowhere was walking slowly and looking holy more evident than when she was out on the lawn in St. Lambert or Botham Road – or here in the Sisters’ courtyard, doing her own ballerina interpretation of Tai Chi. 


Her holistic spirituality can best be expressed through something she herself said – this is an excerpt from her response to the wonderful toast that Sr. Thelma-Anne gave at her 50th profession anniversary. 

“Whatever measure we may – and should – take to promote human harmony, the one underlying absolute essential is the transforming presence of God in the inmost depths of the human consciousness, at the deepest root that is the gut source of human behaviour. This is no quick fix. Ask any gardener, even, or physiotherapist, or psychotherapist. But the whole power of God is behind it, and in it, and working through it. The inner consciousness of the whole created universe is one – in Christ – in God – shattered by a mysterious and deadly alienation out of God, yet still an amazing internet – co-inherent, intercontingent, interactive, interdependent – and each of us a web site, opening the way for God into, or shutting God out of, the whole internet. A bit simplistic? Or is it? You and I, each one of us in our small corner of life, has the amazing privilege and awesome responsibility of choosing to live toward God, to join in creation’s love song to God, with God-in-us singing God’s Love Song to all creation.” 

Sr. Helena had a sense of wonder about everything – about the cosmos, about God, about the love which God pours out on us. And the wonder of this love gave Sr. Helena a confidence about the future which is summed up in the letter from John: 

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 

She saw this, I believe, most fully just a few days before she died. One day, Sr. Jessica heard her describing a vision of beautiful flowers – daffodils and many other – she described their lovely scent and colours. Another day Jessica heard Sr. Helena describing a vision of children – “they are so beautiful,” she said. She saw God’s love in nature, in people, in the vulnerable, including children. She looked forward to the future with joy, and I think this can best be summed up in something she wrote back in the 1980's. Sr. Frances Joyce had asked all the sisters to write up a short history of their lives in community. I want to read the end of Sr. Helena’s which I think sums up her hope for her own eternal life and her confidence in the fulfilment of God’s eternal purpose: 


She tells that just a few hours after she had typed up her history for Sr. Frances Joyce, a Godincident happened. Fr. Russell, preaching at the Sisters’ Sunday Eucharist, said (in Helena’s words), 

“that chronological time is ‘artificial’ – that real time is happenings and experiences, and quoted a philosopher who said that time is the progress of the soul. And that is what we are about, isn’t it? However, chronological time is necessary for synchronising us all, and establishing history. 

Her sense of God’s time, or kairos – what Fr. Russell called “real time” – is captured not only in the reading from John’s letter but also in Isaiah:

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. . . . It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God for whom we have waited. . . . let us be glad and rejoice in God’s salvation. 

Another banquet, another table. Like the disciples who saw Jesus when he broke the bread, Helena now sees God as God is, and she knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that she is loved completely, unconditionally. Much like our own discerning of God’s presence in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread,

As we give thanks for Helena’s life, may we too discern Christ in the breaking of bread at this table, and may we remember two important lessons from Sr. Helena – that it’s OK to walk slowly and contemplatively through life, and that it’s good to be holy – and wholly aware of how beloved we are of God.

Sr. Constance Joanna, SSJD
April 14, 2011