Homily: Advent 1B - St John's Convent - November 30, 2014

Homily: Advent 1B St. John’s Convent, November 30, 2014

  Sr. Constance Joanna, SSJD

 Isaiah 64:1-9  /  Psalm 80 /  1 Corinthians 1:3-9   /  Mark 13:24-37

In the name of God, to the Glory of God, for the love of God.  Amen.

Advent is the season of the church year when we wait for the coming of the Christ, the Messiah.  It is a liturgical way of expressing the deep human longing for God. Even those who don’t know or believe in God long for whatever gives meaning to life.  They long to be free of anxiety, of family strife, of the pressure of competition in the work place or school.  They long for peace and fulfilment.

And don’t we all?  The passage from Isaiah gives expression to our deep longing for the end of terror and sadness.  The prophet sounds as if he could be talking about our own time:

We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls on your name,
or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.

There is such poignancy in those verses – such grief, and yet such hope.  God is the potter, and we are the clay.  We trust that God will not abandon the work of the divine hand, from the stunning splendour of the cosmos to the delicate beauty of human life – my life, and your life.

We can so easily get discouraged because we don’t see results.  But everything good comes from waiting, and Advent is a time of waiting.  It takes seeds time to germinate, babies nine months to mature so they can safely be born, years for the first flush of infatuation to deepen into true love.  Even a good baked potato takes enough time in the oven to soften, to develop flavour and texture. And we too need time as we learn to trust in the work God is doing in us and among us.

Advent is like a womb, or an oven, or rich soil where this can happen.  It is a sacrament of waiting, and that is the beauty of the liturgical year.  We get to start over again, become pregnant again, wait for that child again – the God-child who wants to be born again and again in us.

And in our world.  The readings this morning seem gloomy and frightening.  And that is because the only way to let the God seed in us come to maturity is to let go of what we are deeply attached to and that we allow to take the place of God in our lives – like our need to control our own lives, to protect ourselves from other people, to acquire more and more stuff, to fill our rooms and homes and offices with things that we think we need.  It takes time to recognize that God wants to be born in us, and then it takes time for God to woo us away from our attachments and addictions.  It takes even more time for God to be born in our world, where all the same destructive tendencies are acted out on a global scale in the form of addictions to power and control, to violence and anger, to self-protection and fear.

Jesus was only too aware of this human suffering, too aware of where his own life was leading.  The thirteenth chapter of Mark’s gospel draws heavily on the imagery in Daniel and other Old Testament and apocryphal books that described visions of the end times.  People took the imagery of cosmic destruction literally, and there was good reason.  Forty years after Jesus’ death Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried the entire city of Pompeii under molten lava and ash.  Earthquakes devastated the Greek peninsula. There was war and famine and so much terror that the Roman historian Tacitus said that the gods seemed to be bringing vengeance rather than salvation to the Roman Empire – not unlike the mood of the reading from Isaiah, but without the hope

And so using this imagery, Jesus says to pay attention to the signs. Just as the fig tree tells you that summer is near, so cosmic events will be a sign of the second coming.  Just as the landlord going on a trip provides for someone to take care of his house, so we too are enjoined to be prepared, to be ready.

Two thousand years later we still wait.  We see warning signs in environmental destruction, climate change, cosmic disturbances.  But even more we see the signs in attitudes of our culture that are quieter and more subtle and insidious.  What images would Jesus use if he were here today?  I fantasize that he might say something like this:

From the economy learn this lesson: when you see people standing in line from midnight till 6 am to get the bargains on Black Friday, then you know the end is near.  When you see ads promising a Black December, with bargains promised right through Boxing Day, know that the end is near. When you see people sleeping on the streets in one of the richest cities in the world, you know the end is near.  When you see celebrities and politicians brought down for drug use and sexual assault you know the end is near.

I think Black Friday is a far more prophetic term than we might at first think.  I read somewhere that the phrase was coined in Philadelphia back in the 1980s because of the chaos that the shopping frenzy caused in the city on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The term later came to have a more positive interpretation because it was the day when merchants got their books in the black after eleven months of being in the red.  But to me Black Friday is an appropriate sign that our culture has succumbed to the belief that all our problems can be solved by money and material things.  It is a black time in human history when we should believe such things.

We can’t be saved by money or things or power or public acclaim.  We can only be saved by accepting our baptismal challenge to help bring about the reign of God in the way Jesus models – to heal the sick, visit those in prison, serve the poor, help the hungry and homeless, bring hope to the despairing, and pray for those overcome by the addictions of our society.

And above all to keep alert, to watch for the signs of hope. Tend the God seed in you.  Stay awake, Jesus says – not because I am going to destroy you if you are in the middle of a shopping frenzy when I come again, but because you might not recognize me.  Stay awake so that when I show up in your life – as that quiet inner voice, or that friend who consoles, or that new opportunity – you won’t miss me.

“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake”!

- Sr. Constance Joanna, SSJD

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God and Mammon

God and Mammon
 St. John’s Convent, November 8, 2014

Philippians 4:10-19  »  /   Psalm 112  »   /   Luke 16:9-15   » 

I sometimes feel that I should preach homilies that are more pastoral and less political. And then the lectionary goes and throws things like today's Gospel. Because really, one of the things we perhaps don't acknowledge often is that the Gospels are overall more political than they are pastoral; especially if we understand political in the larger sense, as being about the great questions of how we organize our common life. Besides which, I've recently been meeting with a national church task force trying to develop resources on the theology of money, so it's not a good day to try to dodge this challenge.

“You cannot serve God and wealth.” The old translation, “God and Mammon,” though a bit obscure, might actually take us closer to the meaning, because, by using the name of a minor Roman god of wealth, it makes it clear that what Jesus is talking about here is that core sin of idolatry. We may not consciously worship money, not quite – but we do, for the most part, allow money, the systems of finance, to govern our lives, to make our choices for us, to tell us the way in which we should go. I feel reasonably sure that the average Christian, and the average congregation, think and talk about money far, far more often than they think and talk about God. And in many – most? -- of our churches, a platter full of money sits on the altar through the eucharistic prayer, along with the bread and wine, along with the body and blood, and we think that this is a good thing.

But there is little point in blaming individuals. We are all enmeshed in a gigantic, global economic system from which there is very little possibility of escape. Every choice we make is made within the boundaries of an unjust economic order, built on debt and interest and speculation in imaginary wealth, built on cheap consumer goods and slave labour and hunger, built on an endlessly turning wheel of false desire and fear. I participate in it constantly and unconsciously by having money in banks which invest in socially and environmentally destructive projects, by buying a harmless cookie which contains palm oil, the production of which is devastating the rainforests. There is no easy way out.

We need to look back at that very weird bit at the beginning of the Gospel passage, though. I have no idea why the lectionary editors did this, but they've attached, at the start, a throwaway and obviously sardonic comment which Jesus uses to conclude one of his strangest parables, the story of the unjust steward, whose cleverly devious financial manoeuvres save his job and his life. The story, in fact, of someone trapped inside a system of injustice, compelled to play by the rules of injustice, who, for reasons which are not particularly good or worthy, finds himself undermining the system and accidentally driving it towards grace. He doesn't get out of the system; but he bends it a little, faithful – really entirely despite himself – in this little thing.

It would be better if we were a bit more consciously faithful. And we can be, to some degree, even while acknowledging our inescapable complicity. This Sisterhood is actually an outstanding example of the degrees of escape which are possible, a community which foresakes the principles of individual ownership and endless consumer desire upon which our system is built, a community built on a rethinking of human nature more radical than it may, on the surface, appear. And, because you are a community, you can do more than most individuals can to, say, generate some of your own electricity, reorganize your investments, all those things which you are doing. It is not very dramatic in the terms of the world, and it does not solve our great problem of being enmeshed in Mammon's world; but it is that little escape from idolatry which can let the rest of us know that some escape is possible.

Mammon isn't getting out of our lives, or our churches, any time very soon. But accepting that we can only be faithful in relatively little does not mean that we settle for being faithful in as little as possible. At the very least, those of us who are not part of this Sisterhood should be more mindful of the real and important challenge the Sisterhood poses to us. Pray, and choose, and renounce, and care. And allow ourselves, little by little, to be welcomed into that great community, before which all the values of the world fall down.

- Maggie Helwig

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United Nations Day, 24 October 2014

HOMILY, UNITED NATIONS DAY
 St. John’s Convent, October 24, 2014

Micah 4:1-4  »  /   Psalm67 »   /  Luke1:26-33 » 

My heart was heavy when I read the passage from Micah in preparation for this homily. I wait – we all wait – with poignant longing for the peace of God that has been promised for so long. The end of the reading especially struck me this time: “they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.”

We are sitting here under the equivalent of our vines and fig trees – with the stunning beauty of autumn reflected in our trees and gardens – and yet I feel afraid – afraid for the world we live in, and guilty that we live in a place of relative peace. Both my fear and my guilt are heightened by the events of this past week, with the killing of Warrant Office Patrice Vincent in Quebec, and Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial in Ottawa yesterday – bringing the terrors of our world much closer to home.

But the readings today speak of neither fear nor guilt – both of these emotions are really useless, and the fear-mongering of some of the media just renders us more helpless. Fear and guilt make us blind to the purposes of God. They make it difficult to hear what God is really saying to us, as individuals and as a nation. And they play into the hands of terrorists whose strongest weapon is fear.

The readings today speak of very different feelings – feelings of hope, of obedience to the Word of God, and of trust in the purposes of God. They speak of good news, not bad news.

The last words of the reading from Micah remind us that the prophet is not just mouthing his own wishful thinking – he speaks the Word of God: “they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” The mouth of the Lord – the Word of the Lord – instructs and teaches, judges and arbitrates. The prophet himself is speaking the Word. And the people are asked to do two things:

First, we are asked to “go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” We may not be able to change the thinking of those who believe that violence is the way of God. And we may have ineffective weapons against the insidious pull on young people through the internet and social media to a life of violence. We know that terrorism in the modern world is harder to confront than traditional war because it knows no national boundaries and can spread its darkness through the ether. But we have been promised that the light of Christ will never be overcome by the darkness. And we can allow our prayer to reach out to the darkest corners of the world with the love of God. People may not be streaming into the Lord’s house in our time in our society. But we are called to go anyway, to be faithful and obedient to the call of prayer.

And second, we are asked to listen to the Word, to allow ourselves to be instructed by God – “for out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” What is it that each of us is called to do in order to spread peace on the earth and to cooperate with the purposes of God? God’s word may speak to each of us in the privacy of our hearts, calling us to reconciliation with those closest to us with whom we may be in conflict. And God’s word may speak to us as communities of Christians as well, to hear what we may do to promote healing and reconciliation around us locally. If we listen, we shall surely hear, and we shall be instructed.

And then the gospel reading today gives us our third mandate: After we have prayed and been instructed, we are to say the words that are left out of the appointed reading: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord: let it me with me according to your Word.”

The angel promises the same thing that the prophet Micah promises – both of them are prophets who speak the Word of God, and the words spoken to Mary are similar in many ways to those from Micah: “Do not be afraid”; “you will conceive and bear a son . . . God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David . . . and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Mary would have had no clue what this might mean in concrete terms. She could not have imagined the suffering that would precede the resurrection. But she said “Yes” to the instruction of God.

May God give us the grace to go up to the House of God, to pray for the United Nations and all organizations and efforts that make for peace, to release our fear and guilt, and to live instead in hope and with obedience to the instruction of God.

- Sr. Constance Joanna SSJD

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Homily preached by the Rev. Lucy Reid - October 19, 2014 on the ACPO weekend

Readings: Isaiah 45:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.”

Discernment. Are you tired of that word yet?  I don’t know how many times we’ve used it this weekend, and here it is again in the gospel: the imperative of being able to discern wisely between one thing and another.

Discernment isn’t necessary if something can be decided by a simple choice — whether to have toast or oatmeal or both; to put on this shirt or that.  But where the choice is not obvious and the outcome is significant, discernment is essential.

In the gospel, Jesus is saying that discernment is necessary between the claims of the emperor and the secular world and the claims of God and God’s kingdom. Where does our allegiance lie? Christian discipleship is incomplete without discernment.

This weekend we’ve been seeking to discern the leading of the Spirit, the call of God, in our lives. Assessors and candidates, Sisters and guests, we’re all in this discernment process one way or another. It’s an on-going part of the Christian life. One part of the discernment, in this particular ACPO context, is to identify a call to priestly ministry rather than to other forms of ministry — just as each of the sisters had to discern and test a call to the religious life, from among the many other Christian paths.

Discernment is about seeing clearly , and it demands openness, honesty, courage and vulnerability — the willingness to see through the clearest lens possible, and sometimes that lens is held up for us be someone else. Robbie Burns saw the precious value of that when he wrote in his poem, “To a Louse”:

O Wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae many a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion. . .”  (1786)

Or as translated into standard English:

And would some Power the small gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:

You candidates have allowed yourselves to be seen by others and soon you’ll see what that looked like. I can understand your anxiety! I say again, the clear sightedness of discernment demands openness, honesty, courage and vulnerability. But it can free us from many a blunder and foolish notion.

There’s one more piece of good news, and it’s expressed in the epistle: “God has chosen you.”  Paul, Silvanus and Timothy are greeting the Christians in Thessalonika, but listen to these words as though they’re being spoken directly to you, because they are!

We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you. . .  (1 Thess. 1:2-4)

You are here today because of “your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” You are beloved and chosen — whether you are called to priestly ministry or to another ministry. Do you believe that?  Can you trust it?  All of us, ordained or lay or religious; retired or just beginning; burning with faith or getting a little rusty; successful stars or hopeless failures — all of us are brothers and sisters beloved by God, and chosen by God. There’s nothing you can do to make that cease to be true. That’s how low grace sets the bar. You are eternally beloved and chosen, whether you recognize it and live into it or not.

Even Cyrus, the king of Persia, unbeknownst to himself, was chosen by God as the means by which the Jewish captivity under the Babylonians would end.

Listen again to what Isaiah writes:

“Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus,
   whose right hand I have grasped. . .

I will go before you. . . .
I call you by your name,
  I surname you . . . .
I arm you, though you do not know me. . . .”

Imagine that! — being grasped by the hand and called by name to do something for God — even if you don’t know it. And what’s more God gives you a surname; God “surnamed” you. It’s a verb I hadn’t noticed before. And what is that surname? Beloved. Chosen. Precious. Mine.

The path of discerning God’s grace and call, active in the world and in you, is a constantly unfolding one. This ACPO weekend is part of a much larger process, a much longer journey.  There will be times of clarity and times when you have no idea what God is up to. Times when you feel you’re being wonderfully used by God and times when you feel utterly useless.  Take it from me; it’s true.

But the bottom line is this — God calls you by name, chooses you and loves you and God has work for you to do in this beautiful, broken world, through the grace and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. May you discern, first and last, the truth of that.

Homily by the Rev. Joanne Davies, September 24, 2014

Readings: Proverbs 30:5-9; Ps 119:105-112; Luke 9:1-6

Looking at the readings for today, three verses would not leave me. No matter what else I sought to understand, to reflect upon, they kept insisting themselves upon me. And so, I surrendered. And took to heart a quote I love from Anne Johnston:
   
“Search out God's heart within each word of scripture, fill it full with your own loving and carry on from there.“

So my searching, my finding and my own loving is what I now share with you.

My three verses are…

"Shake the dust off your feet"  I hear: you may leave and know you do not have to take baggage,  yours nor anyone else's, neither spiritually nor bodily, with you.

"Give me neither poverty nor riches - feed me with the food that I need."  I want to be aware of life and not be buried by goods nor bereft of possibilities. The food that I need is both the food that is God and the food of God's creation.

"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."   Always, with my deep gratitude.

Once upon a time I owned a house. Then I realised that the house was an unwanted weight in my life, slowing me and worrying me about flooring and chimneys and plumbing in such a single enclosed space that seemed to lock me in. I sold the house and moved out to a rented apartment.  I didn't even take half my belongings with me. And, I was relieved to give away all the stuff I had stored in the basement for so-called future needs. Moving 19 years ahead, I recently moved from a two bedroom apartment with a good sized storage room to a one bedroom apartment with no storage room. For me, the delightful freedom of having less — but as much as one needs — illuminates creation and makes my home, all that I can see in one turn around, a place of rest and comfort and not a weight or a distraction. Makes my home not the walls or the things but a place of sacred care…the food that I need.  

Having just the food I need also makes my home something that allows me to move on. To change. To discover. To journey. To be unencumbered to know God's presence on the path, without the weight of personal responsibility to walls.

And to journey in healing. Having just the food that I need opens up my life as a chaplain. Allows me to sit in the sadness and the pain and know God's presence and know God as forever joy  even in the sadness and pain. Having just the food that I need means I can leave my baggage and hear someone else's to help them leave it. Having just the food that I need means I can still be surprised and filled with wonder by my work.  And know God is lighting my path.

On Monday evening I was with a large family, children, siblings and parents, as they said goodbye to their loved one. He was dying, really only alive because of modern medicine's ability to keep a heart beating for awhile longer. The patient's son told the story of how he heard the news that the interventions in his father's life were now doing more harm than good. His father loved robins. Always called them, "my very own bird". When the phone rang the son was outside and a robin landed at his feet. As the doctor began to give him the difficult news about his father he went inside. But, forgetting to close the door. The robin followed him inside and landed on the kitchen counter where he was leaning. Without really thinking, and holding tears, the son put his hand out to the robin. The robin alighted on to his hand and stayed there…keeping him present to fully hear the words of the doctor. To not dismiss them or seek a way to avoid them. And then when the call was disconnected,  the robin flew out the door.  

God feeds us with the food we need. May we delight in that freedom and honour it in how we live our lives in this world, together and alone.

Homily for Sr. Susanne’s First Profession — September 23, 2014

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus says to Matthew, “Follow me”. And he did — just like that. I have often wondered or tried to imagine what might have preceded this exchange of words. Had Jesus seen Matthew hovering on the edge of a crowd of spectators at some point? Was Matthew already feeling discontented or disconnected from his work or perhaps even feeling guilty about working for the Roman occupation knowing the effect of the taxation system on his fellow Jews? What enabled him to let go of everything when Jesus said, “Follow me!” What enabled each of the sisters here to answer God’s call to enter this community? When I look back on my own call, there were little signs that I had ignored or not even been aware of consciously before I came to the Women at a Crossroads program in 1996. So it is with each of us.

My journey with Sr. Susanne began quite a while ago. Not long after the Sisters moved into this convent, early in 2005, Susanne came to see me about becoming an Associate of the Sisterhood. When she came to my office, she immediately noticed the two figures that I had on the window sill — called “Sisters”.  They represented for Susanne the close relationship she had and has with her sister Linda. It was as if these figures formed an invisible bond between us during this first meeting. We had a fairly lengthy visit during which we talked about what it meant to be an Associate and what had brought her to this point in her life. She had been working in the field of bankruptcy for 18 years and been involved in taxation all that time having filed many a tax return for her clients — an interesting connection with St. Matthew, the tax collector. She told me she was from the Roman Catholic tradition but had recently joined the Anglican Church. It seemed to me as if she might be at a crossroads of some kind.  I even wondered if she were feeling somewhat burned out?

In her sharing with me I sensed a deep desire for something more in her life; but what I remember most about this visit was this inexplicable desire growing in me to ask her if she had ever considered a call to the religious life. But that seemed such an inappropriate question to ask someone who was enquiring about being an Associate.

So I kept pushing this thought to the back of my mind trying to ignore it. But the question was so insistent that I finally blurted out, “Susanne, have you ever considered becoming a Sister?” I’m sure she was as surprised as I was. Her answer?  “But I’m divorced.”  I think I probably responded, “And... your point being?”   I’m sure I went on to say that that was not a problem, that we had other Sisters who had been divorced or widowed. Until that moment Susanne had never considered that the religious life was an option for her, but the Holy Spirit had now planted the seed in both of us.

Susanne started the process of becoming an Associate but she also applied for the Women at a Crossroads program for the summer of 2005. We had so many applicants that year that we asked 4 of them who lived in or near Toronto if they would be willing to come to a second Crossroads program we would offer in November, 2005. Susanne was one of those four (along with Anne Day who is also here today).

Susanne made the decision to enter our community in October, 2006, but left just under a year later for reasons that are no longer relevant. The church she then started attending was St. Matthew’s, Islington, another connection to this feast day. We were sorry to see Susanne leave but delighted when she enquired about returning; in 2011 she began again to test her vocation to the Religious Life. And so we are now celebrating Susanne’s First Profession on the Feast of St. Matthew.

Very little is known about St. Matthew, but in St. Mark’s Gospel, Matthew, or Levi as he is also known, is described as taking Jesus to his home after Jesus called him from the tax booth. Matthew invited many other sinners and tax-collectors to eat with him. It was on that occasion that some of the Pharisees asked Jesus why he ate with tax-collectors and sinners, and Jesus replied, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’   It suddenly occurred to me that Sr. Susanne has been in the Guest House ministry almost her entire time in SSJD and is now the Guest House coordinator, so there seems to be  another link between St. Matthew and Susanne.

Today’s reading from Proverbs calls us to “trust in the Lord with all our heart” and not rely on our own insight. We are called to acknowledge God in all our ways and not let go of loyalty and faithfulness. Life has not always been easy for Susanne, a French speaking Canadian brought up in Niagara Falls, but I believe she has never wavered in her faithfulness to God. In the hymn based on Psalm 42 the psalmist describes his longing for God, a longing that is similar to a deer which is so thirsty that it is panting for water. The psalm also echoes the theme of trusting in God:

You alone are my strength, my shield, to you alone may my spirit yield,
you alone are my heart’s desire, and I long to worship you!

This longing for God, which I think we all feel but may not understand, does not take away from the love we have for our friends and family. Susanne has a deep love for her sister Linda, her two daughters, Melissa and Chrissy, her granddaughters Lauren and Catherine, and her extended family. One can see the joy in her whenever her family comes to visit or she talks about her family, but underneath all of that is her deep longing for God, to know God at a deeper level, to worship God, and to serve God to the best of her ability. It is that longing which has has drawn her to the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine.

She longs for that fullness of life that is described in the Gospel of John when Jesus said,  “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  What is that abundant life? For me it is

! the life that fills us with the joy of living or as the French say: that joie de vivre;
! the life that inspires us to give generously of ourselves to others;
! the life that fills us with deep gratitude;
! the life that pushes us to seek the Kingdom of God now and help to bring it about in the world.

Our first hymn chosen by Sr. Susanne seems to be based on a prayer of St. Ignatius:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.

This is not an easy prayer to say but it is what Sr. Susanne is proclaiming today in the words of the first hymn:


Lord of all bounty, I give you my heart;
I praise and adore you for all you impart;
Your love to inspire me, your counsel to guide,
Your presence to cheer me, whatever betide.

Love of all being, I give you my all;

If e’er I disown you I stumble and fall;
But, sworn in glad service your word to obey,
I walk in your freedom to the end of the way.

And so today, Sr. Susanne promises to keep the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience for the next three years. Many  people see these vows as “bad news”: no freedom; no money; no sex. But as Br. Clark, a Franciscan, writes in The Vows Book (P. 36 & 37), to us these vows are “special blessings” nor burdens. They free us to serve God with our whole heart and our neighbours as ourselves. “The vows are how we, as religious, say ‘Yes’ to God. They are our ‘Yes’ to the fullness of life.”

And so, Sr. Susanne, I pray that you may find your heart’s desire as you continue on this journey with the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine.

Homily for Sr. Susanne’s First Profession — September 23, 2014 by Sr. Elizabeth SSJD

130th Anniversary of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine Sermon The Most Rev. Fred J. Hiltz, Primate

In his book “Here I am: Reflections on the Ordained Life” Richard Giles writes “Ordained life is for those who are absolutely fascinated by God and absolutely and therefore tirelessly interested in people, knowing that this fragile and funny stuff called human nature is the raw material of God’s ceaseless re-creating.”

The same could be said of Religious Life.

Giles says those who are ordained are called to be artists of community. “We have”, he writes, “the supreme privilege of shaping with our hands, our prayers, our preaching and presiding communities of faith, caravans of pilgrims who will together discover and celebrate the love, healing and transformation of life in God’s grace.”

The same could be said of Religious Life.

Giles maintains that life in ordained ministry is “not for the faint hearted, the lazy, or those constantly given to checking their allowance for time off.”

The same could be said of Religious Life.

Today this Religious Community of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine (SSJD) celebrates the 130th anniversary of its founding in 1884 by Hannah Grier Coome, “She”, writes Stephen Reynolds, “was a godly woman whose life and work was characterized by holiness practical wisdom and a sense of humour that pierced high flying pretensions of unreasonable gloom.” Of her sisters she wrote, “A gravity of seriousness ought to mark your life and quietness of deportment but also true joy, peace and brightness and these shine forth on your countenance” and indeed it does to this day.

As the Sisters give thanks for the grace of God that has grown and sustained their community through numerous life professions; for the grace of God that has supported their life and witness through the companionship of their Alongsiders Associates and Oblates, bishops and parish clergy and many friends; for the grace of God by which they are being guided into a future not yet fully known; all the rest here present are giving thanks for the many ways in which this religious community has touched our lives personally and in some cases quite profoundly, and profoundly and graced our Church from one end of the country to the other.

When we’re too busy or too tired or too disillusioned to pray, the Sisters are gathering in their chapel praying the Daily Offices and lifting the life of the Church and the world heavenward. Even for them I suspect at times this round of daily offices is what Giles describes as “not so much a dance of exuberation as a steady plod of determination”.

By day and by night this community is given to this its first work – the work of prayer. Thank you dear Sisters, for holding us in this manner.

Every day the Sisters are meeting individuals in the spirit of companionship – listening to their joys and struggles in endeavouring to follow the way of Christ and offering out of their own experience, words of wisdom and encouragement. Thank you dear Sisters, for walking with us.

Every week the Sisters are receiving men and women in their Guesthouse – people longing for a time apart to rest awhile; to simply read and walk and pray and sleep. Thank you dear Sisters, for your welcome and your hospitality.

Year in and year out, indeed for 130 years the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine has offered a ministry of wholesome pastoral care for the sick, those in rehab from major surgery, and the elderly. They have maintained a posture of solidarity with the poor and the lonely, and with all who long for that justice that flows from the heart of God. Thank you dear Sisters, for all the compassion and courage exemplified in your ministries.

Indeed how blessed we are to be invited to join you as you mark this very special anniversary.

It is the day the whole Church remembers The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In that great volume, “For All the Saints” Stephen Reynolds shares the legend of her birth to Anne and Joachim. Quoting some ancient source he writes, “At the tender age of three she was presented to the Lord. The high priest placed her on the third step of the altar and the Lord put grace upon the child and she danced for joy and the whole house of Israel loved her” - a sign in time of the great truth that the whole Church loves her. Anglicans love her in accord with the counsel of the great Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsay, who said “Let us keep the language of the early Church. … Let Mary be honoured. Let her Son be worshipped and adored.”

Moving from legend to the Canon of Scripture itself, we first meet Mary through St. Luke’s account of the Annunciation, the gospel appointed for today.

Much has been offered through the centuries by way of commentary on this moment in Mary’s life. I am personally intrigued by how Marie Azarello, a Sister of the Community of Notre Dame in Montreal speaks of the moment. “In many analysis” she writes, “it is a moment of consent. She did consent but it is important to note that she freely gave her consent. Otherwise we see her only as a passive, docile, obedient woman rather than a strong and courageous woman, prepared to live with the Holy Spirit working in and through her life, one in whom the purposes of God are fulfilled not only for her own moment in time but indeed for all time”.

In the Gospel, this moment of Annunciation is followed quickly by The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth. As they greet one another, one’s word becomes known in time as The Hail Mary and the other as The Magnificat.

Of Mary’s Song “it would be taken” writes Herbert O’Driscoll, “from her lips and be augmented into a mighty anthem echoing in basilica and cathedral. In the centuries long monastic round of daily offices it would be the song that welcomes the approach of evening, the center point around which a jewel called English Evensong would revolve. Yet it would also be a dark and terrible song of revolution quoted in societies moving through political turmoil, or continents seething with a desire for change”.

“Why this strange mingling of the personal and the political, the heart and the world? Did Mary know not with her mind, but at some level beyond her knowing, that the child she was carrying would speak not only to the human heart but to the disturbing of the world?” that his gospel – was not only about individual redemption and personal renewal, but about the renewal of society under the reign of God’s love, peace and justice for all.

Of The Song of Mary, Azarello writes, “To pray the Magnificat each day as a disciple of Jesus is to pray in union with Mary in joy, faith, and thanksgiving to God as the source of our being; it is ‘to sing of God’s everlasting love and mercy which extends from age to age and to proclaim Mary’s hope in the fulfilment of the divine promises in favour of the whole of humanity’…

To pray the Magnificat is an expression of our desire to be honest about the state of our world and shows our conviction that the kingdom of God that Jesus preached is not a vision for an end time but a vision that begins now, in this world…

To pray the Magnificat in union with Mary draws us deeper and deeper into the heart of our baptism.”
This is strong commentary and it is a challenge to live the gospel of which we sing.

It leaves me pondering to what extent The Song of Mary is truly my song; the song of my life and my work, the song of our Church and its life and work in many places.

And I wonder how this song might inspire and influence the shape of the ministries of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine for years to come?

Homily for the Funeral of Sr. Margaret Mary Watson, SSJD - 1931-2014

Feast of St. James the Apostle, July 25, 2014

• Wisdom 3:1-9 »
• Psalm 23 (sung) »
• Revelation 21:1-7 »
• John 14:1-7 »

It is fitting that we are holding Sr. Margaret Mary’s funeral on the feast day of St. James the Apostle. Like James, Margaret Mary was devoted to Jesus and shared her passion and love with other people. James did it as an evangelist who with other disciples took to the road after Jesus’ resurrection. Margaret Mary did it more quietly perhaps, through her loving care for the sisters she lived with, the patients she visited at St. John’s Rehab, the residents at Cana Place (our Home for the Aged), with the sisters she nursed in our infirmary, with the many guests who received her gracious hospitality while she was Guest Sister on Botham Road and who often sought her counsel, and with the convent staff she supervised and worked with in her role as Clerk of the Works. And then there were the people and causes she prayed for regularly, including the Council of the North and the Native Justice of the Peace program.

While she did not take to the road in the literal way that St. James did, Margaret Mary followed

her own path in the Sisterhood just as steadfastly and purposefully.

As I was reflecting on the scripture readings for this service, I was struck by a prevailing

metaphor of “the road” or “the way.” The Bible is filled with references to “the way,” to the

road or path or journey that God calls us on. The 23rd Psalm which we sang a few minutes ago

is as much about a journey as it is about sheep. God the shepherd guides us along paths of

righteousness, leads us beside still waters, finds places of rest for us along the way, provides

food and anointing for our weary bodies. And the goal of this journey? The goal is to live in the

house of the Lord forever.

The goal of our lives is always ultimately about dwelling in God’s house, whether we are

conscious of that or not. We come from God and we return to God. That is what the gospel is

about. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And he assures us that he goes ahead of us on

the path to prepare a place for us. Jesus himself is the way. And in the reading from the book

of Revelation we also hear the good news that God makes a home among us, symbolized by

the heavenly Jerusalem.

These images of the way and of home bring me back to both Sr. Margaret Mary and St. James.

When I learned that her funeral was to be on this feast day I thought immediately of the

Camino de Santiago de Compostela – the famous pilgrimage route through northwestern Spain

to the shrine of St. James (Santiago in Spanish) in Compostela. Now I have never had the

opportunity to walk the Camino, the Way of St. James, but I love hearing and reading about

peoples’ experiences. The other night some of the sisters watched the DVD of The Way with

Martin Sheen. It is a beautiful film in its scenery, in the people and culture of the Camino. But

even more wonderful is the unfolding spiritual journey of redemption and reconciliation. It is

also a story about community, and about how we discover who we truly are both in our

aloneness and also in company with those who walk the journey with us.

In the film Tom, played by Martin Sheen, has been estranged from his son and when he learns

that his son died in a storm on the Camino, he flies over to retrieve the body and then is drawn

into walking the Way himself. He carries his son’s cremains with him, and as he comes to

various stops along the 400-km Camino, he scatters some of the ashes, marking his own route

and the route his son would have taken had he lived.

Tom meets up with three other very different people. In the journey to Santiago de

Compostela they each find who they are genuinely called to be, they give up what keeps them

from doing that, and they find the sacred balance between the integrity of self and the good of

the community. Paradoxically they discover that the self can only fully flower in community

and the community can only fully grow and mature is the individuals within it do.

Let me tell you a story about Sr. Margaret Mary which is a perfect example of this paradox of

solitude and community. When the sisters were deciding, back in 2002, whether to renovate

the old convent on Botham Road or to build a new convent. Margaret Mary was one of the few

who did not want to move, and especially she did not want to move here on Cummer Avenue.

She felt strongly that the old buildings were worthy of being renovated, that we already had an

urban oasis on a beautiful mature property with gardens and shade trees, with easy access to

the subway and in a quiet cul-de-sac bordered on three sides by ravine land. She believed that

moving here, next door to St. John’s Rehab, was going to be less protected, more noisy, and

because it is on a heavily-travelled street not at all private. She also feared that we would get

swallowed up by the big institution of the hospital next door and that we would lose some of

our focus on hospitality to guests, which was a big thing to her.

What is very moving about her resistance is the way she dealt with it, the inner journey she

travelled. It was her own Camino and the end of the pilgrimage was to discover that this was

indeed a holy place, a home, and worthy of her devotion every bit as much as the shrine of St.

James is to pilgrims on the Camino.

In a reflection she wrote in 2008, on the third anniversary of our move here, she said this:

Once the decision was made to move . . . to Cummer Avenue, I had to start the long process,

the hard work of grieving and of allowing myself to move to a place where I could offer

wholehearted support. I had to . . . work out on my own how we could live closely with a big

and powerful organization [next door] and still be our own self. And how to do this in

gentleness and peace. One of the things that we did was create a calendar the year that we

were moving – each month with a picture from a different part of the Botham Road convent.

This became my icon – here I prayed, here I cried, here I met God as I made my own personal

journey from Botham Road to Cummer Avenue.”

And while this was her personal journey, it was done of course in the context of community

and with the support of her sisters – even as she supported us in the process. And I believe

this is what allowed her to appropriate that journey and to become a strong supporter of our

life and mission in this place.

Sr. Margaret Mary was the Clerk of the Works at the time of the move – responsible for the

maintenance of buildings and grounds. She was also in charge of organizing the move, and her

written reflection talked about how all the details of that got her so involved that she was able

to take ownership of the process and give herself wholeheartedly to it.

Once we had moved into the new building, she said, “I had another journey to make. This was

to be my home, and how was I going to be at home here, in a place where I still carried my

fears? . . . I made sure that I got to know every little detail of the new place. As the Clerk of

the Works and Assistant to the Rev. Mother, I decided that the first priority was to create a

home, and to make this a homey place for my sisters and those who came to us.”

Her journey was a courageous one, and it is a journey that we all go on in different ways. We

all have to face our fears and resistances. It is easier if we have a strong community or family

around us to urge us on. In the end it is a solitary journey and yet one which follows the great

shepherd. Jesus said “I go to prepare a place for you and you know the way” – and when

Thomas didn’t understand what he meant, and wondered what was the way, Jesus said I am

the way, the truth and the life.

I

n the first reading this morning, there is another wonderful image of “the way/” The writer of

the Book of Wisdom talks of the goal, the destiny of the righteous ones, the ones who follow

the way of God: “Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God

tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like

a sacrificial burnt-offering he accepted them. In the time of their visitation they will shine

forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble.”

Margaret Mary created many sparks – like the stars in the night sky of Compostela (which

means “field of stars”), she warmed the hearts of many people and started fires of love that

were shared way beyond the circle of her sisters. As Sr. Elizabeth Ann said a few days ago, we

can now picture her leaving aside her motorized scooter and her walker and running again, like

a young girl, following Jesus and setting on fire with love and passion the stubble on the path

she follows.

In 2008 when Margaret Mary wrote the reflection of her journey from Botham Road to

Cummer Avenue, she summed up her whole life journey, her pilgrimage through the religious

life to God, and her literal journey when she said “I am comfortable and glad in the place that

we are now,” and she goes on to quote Julian of Norwich: “I can see that all shall be well,

indeed all manner of thing shall be well.”

Preached by the Reverend Sister Constance Joanna Gefvert

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