Fifth Sunday of Easter May 6, 2012 FIRST READING Acts 8:26-40 Tradition holds that the Ethiopian eunuch was the first gentile to be baptized. The tradition is true only if one does not consider the Samaritans to be gentiles, for numerous Samaritans were already baptized because of Philip’s teaching (8:12). The Samaritans were a splinter Judaism, and the Torah (Pentateuch) was their holy book. At that time, main-line Jews welcomed to their synagogues gentiles who came to worship Yahweh but would not convert because circumcision was dangerous and painful. When these “God-fearers” learned that Christians worshiped the same God, but …
Bill Conover's Eulogy at Memorial Service for Edwin Beers
Not long after Ed became my spiritual director, in the late 1990s, we both attended a clergy meeting here on these very grounds. The late William Sloane Coffin, one of the Church’s lions for justice and nonviolence, was speaking of wealth. “There are two ways you can be rich,” said Bill Coffin, “Have a lot of money, or have few needs.” Ed understood this insight implicitly; he’d long before chosen the latter path of simplicity, a sturdy, gentle, God-trusting, Benedictine way of being in the world. But there was so much more to Ed’s vast wealth. His treasure was a …
Joe Wiesenfarth's Homily from the Memorial Service for Edwin Beers on May 4, 2012
Romans 14:7-9, Hebrews 11:8-16, Luke 24:13-35 Memorial Service for Edwin E. Beers Ed Beers and I had for some years given each other copies of our homilies when we asked for them. In sorting through his that I have on file, I found one dated 25 October 1987. Some other few were not dated, but I think that 25 years suggest our long friendship. It takes Ed back to the time that he surprised me by telling me that he had been shooting hoops on a UW Natatorium basketball court with friends who regularly gathered there, and it takes me …
United in Christ
An enormous controversy currently surrounds US Catholic women religious. A recent doctrinal investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) concluded with the appointing of an archbishop to review, guide and approve the work of LCWR. LCWR is an association of the leaders of communities and congregations of Catholic women religious in the US, representing more than 80 percent of the 57,000 women religious in the US today. The actions of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) have stirred deep emotions throughout the US and beyond and made LCWR a familiar acronym to those who …
Joe Wiesenfarth's Homily from April 29, 2012
April 29, 2012 Acts 4:5-12, 1 John 3:16-24, John 10:11-18 Of the years of my life, I have lived all but one in cities: New York, Washington, D. C., Detroit, London, Freiburg, Bologna, and Madison, of course, longest of all. Consequently, I am unqualified to talk about shepherds and sheep. All that I know about both I learned from reading Thomas Hardy’s novel Far from the Madding Crowd. But in the crunch, I find that novels are better on donkeys than on sheep. I know because I met a donkey once when driving through the English countryside. He was not …
Volunteers in Community
In 2006, Sister Mary David Walgenbach and former coworker, Jerrianne Bland began the summer Volunteer in Community program at Holy Wisdom Monastery. Since then thirty-five women from the United States, Canada and New Zealand have participated in the program. The women live at the monastery and experience prayer, meals and community life with the sisters. They work on the monastery grounds and participate in spirituality discussions and leisure activities. Spiritual guidance is an option. The Benedictine rhythm of prayer, work, study and leisure defines the experience. Prayer is central to Benedictine life. The regularity of prayer calls us back to …
Welcoming a New Oblate Class
I had the opportunity to visit with Sandy Adams, a member of the oblate community at Holy Wisdom Monastery. In her role as Oblate Formation Circle Facilitator, Sandy interviewed this year’s incoming class of candidates, which is now at 13. She shared some of her experiences of journeying with the candidates during their discernment process. The Oblates of Holy Wisdom Monastery is an intentional community of women and men who find a practical spirituality in the Rule of Benedict. Oblates embark on a spiritual journey with believers of diverse backgrounds and faith practices. Drawing inspiration from the Rule of Benedict, oblates lead …
Libby and Dave Caes' Homily from April 15, 2012
April 15, first Sunday in Easter Acts 4:32-35 I should probably begin with an apology to those of you who were hoping to hear Libby this morning. You may have noticed that she is not here. On Thursday she was diagnosed with labyrinthitis. I know it sounds like one of those diseases that only spiritual giants get—something like tripping in a moment of spiritual ecstasy while navigating a labyrinth—but really it is a swelling in the labyrinth of small channels in your inner ear. It wrecks havoc with someone’s equilibrium. Anyway, I agreed to read her homily, although there are …
Sister Lynne Smith's Easter Vigil Homily from April 7, 2012
Easter Vigil, April 7, 2012 Mark 16:1-8 Scholars believe that this reading from Mark’s Gospel is the original ending of the gospel. It seems an unlikely ending for the good news of Jesus Christ. Since the women remained at the cross we might think they would grasp the resurrection when it is announced to them. However, their fear, terror and amazement get the better of them and they too flee. Not an auspicious ending to the good news, but it does reflect our common human response to suffering, uncertainty and the unknown. We can sympathize with the women. Our own …
Joe Wiesenfarth's Palm Sunday Homily from April 1, 2012
April 1, 2012 – Palm Sunday Mark 14:1 – 15:47 The relentless development of the gospel story from Gethsemani to Golgotha is shaped by two constant motifs: inevitability: what is shown as happening must happen; and brutality: man is to man a wolf—homo homini lupus, as Plautus said some three centuries before the brutal events the gospel relates took place. Jesus himself announces the motif of inevitability. He knows that his disciples will deny and betray him. And Peter and Judas dramatically prove him right. Brutality then quickly becomes reality. The characters who enact these motifs are revealed as inevitably craven, avaricious, …