Ecumenism: Bridges instead of barriers

Ecumenism is one of the focal points of the first part of our pilgrimage.  Ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue have certainly been major areas of focus for the religious community since 9/11 and it’s necessary for us to understand the areas where Christian and non-Christian faiths agree and disagree.  One of the things our course on ecumenism has made very clear is that, while intellectual and theological disagreements exist between Christian religions, these differences are not insurmountable and that, as ministers, we can make headway on these questions by taking seriously Pope Francis’ instructions to go out and engage with people of different faiths and to meet people where they are at.

Speaking of the differences between Christian faiths, one of the things we experienced was the Armenian Christmas Eve, which the Armenians and the leader of their church celebrated at the Church of the Nativity yesterday.  It was a very moving experience to be part of a Christmas celebration in the city of Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.  However, one of the things that struck me while observing these ceremonies was a desire to really get at an understanding of the roots of the differences between Latin and Armenian Christianity, to use this example, and to really reaffirm my desire to follow the teaching of St. Ignatius of Loyola, namely that one needs to go and encounter and understand different cultures and groups from their perspective.

We were given an almost immediate opportunity to follow the Pope and Ignatius’ instructions when we went to visit the Latin Patriarchate Seminary in the afternoon.  This seminary forms men to serve as priests in Israel, Palestine and Jordan, with the majority of those in the seminary coming from Jordan.  We were given a tour of the seminary, which was founded in 1854 and has a very beautiful view of the city of Bethlehem by a seminarian that had lived in the United States for some time.  However, something one cannot ignore about this seminary is that it is located in the Palestinian territory and enrolls a number of seminarians who are from that territory.  This presented us with an excellent opportunity to dialogue with people there about ongoing situation between Israel and Palestine and to make progress in developing a fuller understanding of what is certainly an enormously complex issue.  All in all, it was a very interesting and enjoyable day and we are all very grateful to those who have made this experience possible.

Going Out with Haste to the Hill Country of Judea

 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. - Luke 1:39-40

Today we took our first “field trip” away from our new home. We hopped on the bus and enjoyed the beautiful views of the Israeli hills, valleys, and countryside on our way to a few holy sites. 

 Our first stop was at St. John of the Wilderness, a Franciscan monastery which commemorates the time John the Baptist spent in the desert before publicly preaching as the precursor to Jesus Christ. The visit included a few moments of prayer in the intimate setting of a small cave believed to have been inhabited by John. It was here that the Lord prepared John through many years of silence and sacrifice to preach to Israel and reveal the glory of the Lamb of God, our Savior Jesus Christ. 

Next, we traveled to Ein Karem, the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth, and therefore, the site of both the Visitation and the Birth of John the Baptist. St. Luke’s portrayal of these scenes gave us the ancient hymns which seminarians and priests prayer every single day in the canticles for Morning and Evening Prayer. Mary’s outpouring of joyful praise during the Visitation is called the Magnificat, and Zechariah’s song of thanksgiving for the fulfillment of the promise of the Messiah is called the Benedictus. 

Outside of the two churches which memorialize each event was a wall full of the respective hymn in over thirty languages. During our visit, we witnessed groups from across the world reciting these hymns in many different languages, and we even took the chance to sing the Magnificat together in the very spot where Mary first proclaimed those words over two thousand years ago. 

This experience is one I will never forget, because it gave me a totally new sense of the unity of the prayer of the universal Church. Every time I pray Morning or Evening Prayer, I am joining the grant multitude of faithful Christians throughout the centuries who have echoed the beautiful words of Mary and Zechariah that occurred right there. We are never alone in our prayers. As members of the Body of Christ, every prayerful word and movement of the heart is intimately joined with billions of faithful souls from history. All of us truly and mysteriously unite with each other and with those initial and most pure songs of praise sung by Mary and Zechariah.

Our God is so good to invite us into this beautiful communion with him in his Mystical Body. May he be praised in the song of our hearts now and always.

To Give God Gifts

And on entering the house [the magi] saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

-Matthew 2:11

Today was our first day of classes here during our pilgrimage. For the beginning part of the pilgrimage, most of our classes will be about ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue. This is a fitting class for the environment in which we’re staying for these nine weeks. We learn about the many people from many different faiths and religious traditions who live in close proximity to each other. For many of these people, regardless of what religion they follow, they simply want to give God gifts.

A Christmas Tree stands in contrast with a Muslim Mosque
in Manger Square outside the Church of the Nativity

The overwhelming and consistent feeling I’ve had since arriving here in the Holy Land has been gratitude. Gratitude for the sites, for sure, but also for the people here. To a large extent, the Holy Land can feel very “other-worldly,” very different from my own. However, at the same time there are many similarities, just like the one mentioned above about the people simply wanting to give God gifts in response to the many blessings He has bestowed upon them.

One such encounter was getting the chance to visit a local parish to pray the Mass. At this parish, Mass was celebrated similarly to how I was used to back home, but it was entirely in a different language. However, not only were the gestures the same, with similar places for the responses, and the same Jesus in the Eucharist, but the people were in some way the same. It turns out kids cry and play a lot during Mass, here too. Some people sing and some don’t. There are struggles within family environments. People coming to thank God for the many blessings of their lives. Etcetera, etcetera.

I’m grateful for this experience, because it grounds me in the beauty on earth that I would normally miss focusing on the grand things of our faith – especially here in the Holy Land. When the magi came to give the Christ child gifts, He wasn’t the only one who received that Epiphany day: they did too. But they found it in the ordinariness of a Child and His mother, because, as St. John Paul II said: “Heroism must become daily and daily must become heroic.” I think there exists such a gratefulness here, because the ordinary and extraordinary have been made manifest in such an interconnected way, and from that gratitude comes a desire to give back to God, eventually with one’s entire life.

Right o'er the place where Jesus lay

Looking back on our second visit to Bethlehem, I experienced a number of surprises.

Our group attended the 11 a.m. Mass at the Church of St. Catherine today, which is the Roman Catholic Church connected to the northern side of the famous Church of the Nativity.  The Church of the Nativity is the church built over the birthplace of Jesus.  There has been a church over this location since Constantine issued a commission for one in the year 327.  

Currently, the church is simultaneously run by four different Christian denominations: the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, the Armenian Apostolic, and the Syrian Orthodox Churches.   Though it was an ordinary Catholic mass celebrated in the Roman Rite, mass was said entirely in Arabic!  Even though none of us understood any of it, the overwhelming reaction guys had to the liturgy was positive.  Many of us commented on how beautiful the music was as well as the fact that, though mass was said in a foreign language, all of the mass parts were the same which made us feel united with the Palestinian Christians we worshiped with.  For me, I was struck by the universality of the Catholic faith.  Yes, it has universal norms and doctrines, but it is ultimately practiced and manifested in a particular time and place.  Jesus was actually born at a specific time in human history, in a specific place, into a particular culture.  That has never been so clear as today, encountering the very place where it all began!  In just the same way, the Catholic faith is lived out and practiced in a particular time, place, and culture.  Whether we are from the United States, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, or any other region of the world, we may all come from different cultures, but in the end, we are all united by the same Catholic faith.

The second surprise of the day for me occurred after having walked the streets of Bethlehem for the first time.  Bethlehem is far larger, busier, and nosier than I could have ever expected.  The streets were filled with vendors and all kinds of different shops with people walking in all directions.  It was not until I found some time to find a quiet place and look out at the hillside that it dawned on me that the state of things in Bethlehem probably was not very different two thousand years earlier.  

I began to think about how busy and chaotic Bethlehem must have been when Mary and Joseph arrived, a bit smaller of course, but perhaps not all that different.  Who were the first to encounter the infant Jesus?  It was the shepherds out in the fields, those who were away from all of the noise and busyness; those who found themselves surrounded by silence.  First they encountered the angels and then they encountered the Holy Family, secluded in a nearby cave, all in silence.  It then struck me; we encounter the Divine in silence.  

Life can get so busy, hectic, and chaotic at times, even when it is full of really good things.  However, it seems that we need silence if we are going to be able to encounter God and be open to the mysterious ways he directly intervenes and speaks to us in our own lives.  If you ask any of the seminarians when we started to hear God’s call more clearly to pursue the priesthood, I think most of us would say when we started to pray, which requires silence.  

It is certainly difficult at times, but reflecting on this after our visit to Bethlehem was a reminder for me that silence is a good thing and predisposes us to be able to encounter the God who loves us and wants to surprise us. 

O “Little” Town of Bethlehem

Well, we made it to Bethlehem! As far the travelling goes, “all’s well that ends well.”

In the seminary, it’s common for family and close friends to stop by. When you meet a seminarian’s family and the people closest to him, whose presence and example have significantly formed them in from the earliest of days, suddenly he makes a lot more sense. It’s also pretty normal for the guys from nearby dioceses to invite other seminarians to their own homes for a meal or a weekend away. Seeing the place where a brother seminarian “came of age” is an incredible opportunity; these are the places and faces that silently formed him. Some of the most exciting and meaningful time spent with brother seminarians is having one drive me around his hometown and point out his high school and his first girlfriend’s house, the restaurant where he worked to save the money to by his first car and the little league ball field where he learned that he wasn’t very good at baseball. The best part is the joy – there is so much joy in being able to share ourselves and the meaningful places and people with the men, the brothers, who have themselves become part of that meaningful crowd.

Of course, Jesus’ time in Bethlehem was fairly short. After his birth, he was quickly taken to Egypt to avoid being killed by Herod and when his family returned to the Holy Land, they went back to Mary’s hometown of Nazareth. But this place is where it all began, it is the place where the light of God first shone on his people in a new and radical way. Here, the savior of the world was born; he is Christ the Lord.

It is this Jesus who has lived among us from the earliest days in Somewheresville, USA; it is this Jesus who has walked with us on our often winding and tumultuous road into the seminary; it is this Jesus who sustains us and calls us ever onward to become new and more and truly alive. Indeed, it is this Jesus who has called us out of Mundelein and onto this pilgrimage and to this not-so-little town of Bethlehem.

I’ve shown my hometown to plenty of seminarians over the last six years. It does, in fact, bring me much joy to show off this little place that I love. But now it’s my turn to be on Pilgrimage, and to rest. It is His turn to show me, with the greatest joy, His life in the towns and hills where it was –and still is – being lived. Jesus isn’t just guiding us through nine weeks of travel and prayer (and study, I guess), but through it all and through the rest, all the way to himself in that new eternal city of golden peace.

On this pilgrimage, I pray that we all might find The Light which shines in the darkness and silently guides us from the lands of little league ballfields and soft-serve ice cream shops to the one place where we’ll at last be truly home.

The things we carry

Six shirts, four pairs of pants, a Bible, two volumes of the Breviary and enough optical wipes to last the apocalypse. It’s a common roster you’ll find in our suitcases, at least among the bespectacled. Some of the suitcases have been neatly packed for days. Some were still being filled shortly before the bus pulled out of Principal Avenue at 4:15 a.m. And while you’ll find many similarities in what we packed, there are great differences in the things we’re carrying.

Some of these things are not material. Some carry the thoughts of upcoming ordination, as discernment has moved to preparation. They also  carry the joys of parish experiences, of seeing what spiritual fatherhood looks like, as well as the firmness in their call to serve God through His people, the Church.

Others still carry doubts. Yet, there’s a willingness to walk in the steps of a Savior who loves us, a willingness to listen to the Lord, to notice the movements in one’s heart. There’s a desire for clarity, and a resolve to avail oneself to receive it.

We carry different clothes and thoughts, but we all carry one two things in common. The simple medallion given to each of us before we left campus as a reminder that we’re all pilgrims. And the resolve to be on a journey to a sacred place, to encounter Christ in a new way.

Although it might sound that we carry a big load, we are blessed to have help. In this journey, we count on our God. We count on each other. We count on you.

So, welcome to this journey. We’re glad you’re with us.