Read The Spirit

Passover, by Debra Darvick from This Jewish Life

2013-03-21T18:54:00Z

Click the book cover to visit its webpage.DEBRA DARVICK is a nationally known columnist (you may have seen her stories in Good Housekeeping and other magazines) as well as an author who has just released This Jewish Life: Stories of Discovery, Connection & Joy. That book contains dozens of true stories about Jewish families as they move through a typical year. The following overview of Passover is from the introduction to that section of her book. (Learn more about Debra’s book by clicking here or on the book cover at right.)

Passover

Passover affirms the great truth that liberty is the inalienable right of every human being.
M. Joseph

By Debra Darvick

Pesach, Passover, follows Purim by a month and a day and commemorates the liberation of the People of Israel from Egyptian slavery. Outside of the High Holidays, Passover is likely the most widely observed holiday of the Jewish calendar. Celebrated for eight days—seven in Israel and by Reform Jews—Passover begins with a ritual meal called a Seder, an hours-long celebration filled with food, discussion and singing that enables Jews to fulfill the commandment to retell the story of our going out from Egypt.

The most distinguishing feature of Passover is matzah, a flat cracker that substitutes for bread during the holiday. When the People of Israel fled Egypt, there was no time to allow their dough to rise. The flattened cakes they ate come down to us as matzah. The laws of Passover dictate that prior to the beginning of the holiday, the home must be cleaned of all chametz, that is, any food that might have any leavening in it whatsoever. No bread, no noodles, no cereal or cookies. The night before the holiday begins, some families conduct a chametz search. By candlelight, children se tout with a wooden spoon and feather to collect bits of chametz that their parents have set out around the house for them to find. These last bits of chametz are set aside to be burned the following morning. Those who observe the law in the strictest sense will have in their homes only those foods that ahve been certified kosher for Passover.

On the Seder table are other foods symbolic of the Passover story—saltwater simulates the tears of the Hebrew slaves; horseradish represents the bitterness of their lives. An egg symbolizes the cycle of life; charoset, a savory mixture of wine, cinnamon, apples and walnuts, symbolizes the mortar used in construction of the Egyptian cities. Greens, called karpas, symbolize spring; a shank bone, zeroah, symbolizes the sacrifice of the Pascal lamb. Four glasses of wine are drunk, at prescribed times during the meal.

To entertain the children during the long meal, a tradition developed to hide a small piece of matzah called the afrikomen during the early part of the meal. Toward the close of the evening, all children present are invited to search for the afrikomen and then ransom it back to the head of the household.

The Passover story is told in a book called a Haggadah. Haggadot, the plural form of the word, may be simple or ornately illustrated. They have long been an art form in and of themselves; there are hundreds of Haggadot to choose from.

Lenten Journey 6: 'Look into it.' And, 'Wonder.'

2013-03-18T04:10:00Z

FOR LENT 2013, ReadTheSpirit has two offerings for you:

1.) DAVID CRUMM’S ‘Our Lent’ Thousands of readers have enjoyed the day-by-day book of inspiring stories, Our Lent: Things We Carry.

2.) LENTEN JOURNEY The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt, author of Ian Fleming’s Seven Deadlier Sins & Guide for Caregivers is publishing a new Lenten series:
Part 1: Introduction and ‘Deep Calls to Deep’
Part 2: ‘Rituals & Practices (and Flowing Water)’
Part 3: Surprised? Or, is this an invitation to a blessing?
Part 4: Legacy of imperfection and grace.
Part 5: In death … is life.

6: Intimate Departures—
‘Look into it.’ And, ‘Wonder.’

“When Pilate learned from the centurion that Jesus was dead, he granted the body to Joseph (of Arimathea). Then Joseph brought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.”
Mark 15: 45-6

By the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt

Photograph by David Crumm.I HELPED TO DRESS my father and mother—and place them in their caskets. It was an intimate and sacred way to express my gratitude to them for their gift of life and their care of me. It was also an aide in my grief journey with each parent.

My mother died at age 63 in 1980 from a stroke following hip surgery. My last act while she was conscious was feeding her. The funeral director was more resistant to my request to participate in the burial preparation than my brother. When we arrived to assist in the process, her body was in a private viewing parlor resting on a gurney. She was respectfully clad in undergarments and a full-length slip. Our task was to assist in dressing her in a skirt, blouse and jewelry. It was a tender and emotional time for me as I thought about how she had nurtured me into life, fed, clothed and bathed me; laughed with and cried with me. Numerous memories, painful and joyful, filtered through my mind and heart. My brother and I worked quietly, sharing brief images, and then lifted her gently into her casket.

A similar process was repeated five years later with my father. Again, one of my last memories was feeding him before he slipped away. At the funeral home it was different. The director said that he had honored many requests to assist in the preparation of a body for a funeral, especially among parents who had lost children and infants. They knew how important the intimacy of departure can be when saying goodbye.

For my father, the deed was not done in the fancy parlor. We were escorted directly to the staff’s preparation workroom. Our father, wearing only boxer shorts, was laid out on a stainless steel worktable. As we dressed him my mind flashed through a kaleidoscope of scenes from life with him. Again, my brother and I worked quietly and carefully we placed him in his casket.

What led me to risk this behavior was observing some Roman Catholic brothers prepare the body of one of their own to bury him. It felt so right, so respectful, and so sacred. I wanted to extend the same to my beloved. Dying and death are part of our lives. To extend our caregiving to our deceased by participating more intimately in their departure is a sacred gift that walks with our beloved on their journey to eternity.

Most of us have moved away from the intimacy of our grief and turned the process of care and burial over to professionals. Perhaps we need to reconsider the emotional and spiritual price we pay for that exchange. Robert Frost exposes the painful aloneness of parents who bury a child in “Home Burial.” The father who had dug his child’s grave pleads with his wife: “Let me into your grief.”

Once again, some people are initiating home funerals as a way of assisting their grief process and making the life/death experience more intimate. Conversations are beginning to take place in Death Cafés, perhaps an off-putting name but certainly an idea that has enticed many to engage in conversations about end of life issues across our nation. These venues date to 2004, when sociologist Bernard Crettaz began hosting such cafés in Switzerland. Generally coordinated by hospice workers, these cafés have been spawned from California to Maine.

Not long ago, I was deeply moved when I attended a showing of the tender, respectful Japanese film, Departures, which tells the story of a cellist who loses his job when an orchestra disbands. He retreats to his hometown and winds up taking a job as an undertaker, performing the elaborate preparations of bodies after death. At first, his family is horrified. Later—well, watch the film unfold and you will appreciate the stirring conclusion.

Many cultures around the world follow such intimate traditions to this day. In American Muslim communities, among the men and women who attend prayers at each mosque there often are a handful trained in the sacred preparation of the dead for the simplicity of Muslim burial. This places an extra reminder in the gathering of a Muslim community: Someone praying next to you, shoulder to shoulder, may be the person who one day will bathe and wrap your lifeless body.

These are wonderments—profound, ancient stirrings of our faith—that we have tried so hard to hermetically seal away. America’s most famous undertaker, poet and essayist Thomas Lynch, won the American Book Award for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade. He argues that our desire for up-beat memorial services, often with the loved one invisibly reduced to an attractive little container of ashes, rob us of one of life’s deepest spiritual truths.

In the final pages of his book, Lynch writes: “You should see it till the very end. Avoid the temptation of tidy leavetaking in a room, a cemetery chapel, at the foot of the altar. None of that. Don’t dodge it because of the weather. We’ve fished and watched football in worse conditions. It won’t take long. Go to the hole in the ground. Stand over it. Look into it. Wonder. And be cold. But stay until it’s over. Until it is done.”

Originally published at www.ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

This column also has been published at the website for the Day1 radio network.

The Tom Block Interview: Breaking 'A Fatal Addiction'

2013-03-18T04:05:00Z

A Tom Block studio installation.

CLICK THE BOOK COVER to visit its Amazon page.ARTIST, WRITER and peace activist Tom Block keeps surprising the world. From eye-opening paintings of great spiritual leaders to unusual theatrical works to historical analysis to activist manifestos, Tom is hammering away at a core flaw in civilization: the intersection of religion and violence. Drawing on centuries of spiritual prophets—including Maimonidies and St. Francis—Tom speaks to audiences worldwide through many forms of media.

TODAY, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with Tom Block about his ongoing peacemaking efforts—and his newest book, A Fatal Addiction: War in the Name of God:

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR
INTERVIEW WITH TOM BLOCK
ON ‘A FATAL ADDICTION:
WAR IN THE NAME OF GOD’

DAVID: This new book draws hard conclusions for people of faith. For example, you write: “There are many painful truths that we might have a difficult time understanding and internalizing. This book is about one of them: our fatal attraction to violence and war. And even more confusing, the manner in which war and God are intertwined in most religions and throughout all human time, even into our own.” Compared with your earlier work, which inspired readers with fascinating connections between early Jewish and Muslim mystics—this book about religion and violence is tough stuff.

TOM: This book is the starkest thing I have done, without a doubt. It’s stark because I believe our activism has to start with honesty. This book is Step 1 for me as an activist. I can’t offer a response to the intertwining of religion and violence in the world if I don’t, first, stop and look at this problem in a clear light.

DAVID: So, you’ve written a book that you find helpful to true peace activists—a vocation you have pursued through your art and your work as a playwright and a scholar writing nonfiction books like this one. What do you hope general readers will find in this volume?

Artist Tom Block.TOM: I hope people will take the time to read this book, because it opens the doorway to admitting that we all share this fatal addiction to violence. As I travel and work with people in so many places, I hear them saying: Mine is a religion of peace—but their religion? Their religion is violent. This new book is a response to all of the religious people who say: We are for peace—but they are not. The truth is that this addiction to violence unifies all of us.

DAVID: Do you consider yourself religious? I know that you identify as Jewish, right?

TOM: I put myself into a category that no religious person seems to want to accept these days: I’m spiritual but not religious. I am Jewish. That’s a moniker I accept, but spiritually I don’t see myself as the follower of a specific creed.

DAVID: Our regular readers will have just met the Irish philosopher and theologian Peter Rollins in last week’s author interview. When I consider the way that you carefully use words like “Jewish” and “spiritual-but-not-religious”—I see parallels in the way Peter describes himself as “Christian”—then says “but obviously in a different way than a lot of other people call themselves Christian.” Peter argues that what passes for religion today has become one more product for sale in our cultural vending machine. He argues that what is sold as “God” in most congregations today is nothing short of an idol. There are huge differences between your work and Peter’s work, obviously—but I also see strong parallels. In fact, I would recommend that readers who bought Peter’s book last week strongly consider buying yours as well. One thing Peter has discovered is: Some people love his message; some flat out reject it.

TOM: Some people reject what I’m saying. People within religious traditions tell me that you have to have a religious structure, tradition, liturgy and prayers to reach into spirit. I don’t believe that. I frame my whole life through a deeply spiritual understanding, born through my work as an artist, a writer, a historian. In fact, this new book grew out of a profound frustration with religion’s ability to take people out of the political system and put them into the spiritual realm. Too often, religion becomes just another political arm.

DAVID: Again, strong parallels here with Peter’s work. He aims his harshest criticism at the global economic system that thrives on preaching to people that they need the God-product religions are selling. But God is far bigger than that, he argues. Tom, you’re arguing that global political powers and religious authorities are joined at the hip in justifying self-serving violence. You’re speaking especially to readers concerned about world peace, right?

TOM: Yes, but as I have traveled, I have come to the conclusion that as pacifism is constituted these days, it’s irrelevant. It’s meaningless in the larger world. The people who consider themselves pacifists tend to be active mainly in church basements, meeting in discussion groups that say: Why can’t we all just get along? We can’t be relevant if we spend most of our time drinking coffee, sitting with our same friends and refusing to confront the larger issue. Very few people are willing to say that the entire system is ill.

DAVID: The once vigorous anti-war movement certainly has faded.

TOM: We are too tempted to talk about war, now, in ways that find honor and glory and truth and a positive ability to shape reality.

I’m calling for muscular pacifists like Gandhi to arise again. In my work, I don’t want to be a weak, irrelevant person simply saying: Oh, can’t we just get along? These times call for muscular pacifism like Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi and activists like them. These are people raising their ideals above their own safety and above their own personal interest. They are people willing to die for their beliefs.

MYSTICS AND PROPHETS LIKE ST. FRANCIS, MAIMONIDES

DAVID: As this interview with you is published, the world suddenly is refocused on the example of St. Francis of Assisi. He’s widely known in America as an animal lover. But in his day, he was a hugely controversial advocate for the poor. He also was one of the first major Christian leaders to hold a peaceful dialogue with Muslim leaders—in the midst of the Crusades, no less! (Here is an analysis by Thomas Reese SJ of Pope Francis I’s choice of St. Francis’s name.)

Moses Maimonides by Tom Block.I think this connects with your own ongoing work, Tom. You’ve often held up St. Francis as a model for religious activists. Here’s a passage you wrote in an international journal about this issue: “Mystics of the 13th century developed a conception of prophecy that moved beyond simply acting as society’s conscience. Medieval prophets such as Moses Maimonides, a Jew, Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, a Muslim, and St. Francis of Assisi, a Christian, all believed in an activist prophecy, in which a socio-political role was demanded of the prophet, instead of their simply providing societal oversight. It was no longer enough for a seer to simply point out the ills of society, understood through their own personal relationship with God. The new paradigm demanded that he or she propose concrete steps to help remake the society in the moral, caring image of a spiritually conscious world.”

(You can read Tom’s entire article on Prophetic Activist Art as it appeared in the International Journal of the Arts in Society, as posted within Tom Block’s website.)

TOM: Yes, I believe that prophetic activist art connects with medieval concepts of prophecy. I’ve studied a lot about past mystical thinkers. In the 12^th and 13^th centuries, Jewish and Muslim mystical thinkers developed ideas about prophecy that went into something called prophetic activism. They considered it their prophetic job to translate these ineffable messages they received into tangible action. And I am pointing toward people like Maimonides and Francis.

That’s what I’m talking about when I use a phrase like “spiritual but not religious.” These mystics and prophets showed how we can raise the gaze of humanity to the ineffable and focus people again on matters of the spirit. As an artist, I also connect with the tradition that says we can do this through art. Of course, over the past 150 years, art has lost this role. We can talk about why that happened—and, for that discussion I refer people to some of the articles on my website—but the point is not to go back and spend all our time arguing about the past. I want people to reclaim the purpose of art and to wed it with this kind of prophetic action we need to revive today.

TOM BLOCK: MUCH MORE ART AND WISDOM ONLINE

DAVID: We’re going to include links to your website, which really is a treasure trove. So, please, tell readers a little more about what they’ll find.

TOM: My website has a lot of materials that will help to introduce readers to my overall body of work. On my homepage, you’ll find an introduction to my painting and writing and, then, down the right side there are current events in which I’m involved. If you click on some of the topics on my home page, you’ll find much, much more. Under Visual Art, you’ll find a series of art I’ve done dating back to the early 1990s. There are maybe 15 different series of art shown here. And, each series includes 10-15 images. There are more than 200 images to look at on my website. Plus, all of my published writing in magazines, journals and websites is posted in its entirety. Understanding the philosophical basis of my art and writing takes a while and I have provided lots of material to explore.

DAVID: I appreciate discovering rich, deep websites like your collection, Tom. At ReadTheSpirit, we also maintain our entire archive of stories, which readers can access through our Search box or other links. This area in which we jointly work is not something people can pick up at a glance.

TOM: We live in a culture where, if you can’t say it in 140 characters, it isn’t worth listening to. There are other parts of the world where that isn’t the case. I have worked in Scotland.

DAVID: In fact, let’s also provide a link to the Center for Human Ecology in Glasgow. Later this year, they plan to publish your manifesto: Prophetic Activist Art: A Handbook for a Spiritual Revolution. At ReadTheSpirit, we’ve done a lot of coverage and cooperative sharing with the Iona Community and the creative folks at Wild Goose publishing in Glasgow. All spiritual roads seem to lead to Scotland these days, hmmm?

TOM: I find people in places like Scotland to be distinctively caring and politically mature in ways that leave them open to the kinds of things I talk and write about. This is true in a number of other countries. I was over in Barcelona working in a residency program when another artist told me: “Man, you were born in the wrong culture.” When I talk about America being the most warlike nation since Rome, this is difficult for a lot of Americans to accept. No country can get a clear vision of itself. We need distance. But let me stress something right here: I am not trying to bash America in this new book. That’s not the point.

TOM BLOCK: ‘AN ETHICAL FULCRUM’ TO NURTURE EQUITY, JUSTICE

DAVID: I don’t want to leave readers with the impression that you’re a fringe figure way out there on your own. I’ve known you for years and, while you’re not a household name, you’re certainly active around the world as a guest artist, writer and speaker for many organizations and institutions. One of the people endorsing your work is retired Air Force General Charles Tucker, who has spearheaded a number of nonprofit groups concerned with human rights and global security. He wrote this: “Tom Block is a visionary at the intersection of art and conscience. His vivid representations and sagacious convictions merge to form a coherent, cogent and compelling world-view. Written with style and conviction, his new work is a ‘must read’ for those searching for an ethical fulcrum from which to nurture equity, justice and human security.”

High praise, indeed, from a significant figure!

TOM: He is a fascinating man and I appreciate his very positive words. We do not always see eye to eye on every issue, but I appreciate his work. He hosted a conference of activist artists in Chicago and I met him there. Then, he also had me come out and run an art festival around some work he was coordinating on Iraq. We were part of a whole week of events—a mini art festival, discussion groups, films, and panels. He and I are coming at this, we might say, from opposite ends and meeting somewhere in the middle. His support is important because I do believe we need far more than artistic actors in the world buying into these ideas.

DAVID: There are very dark conclusions that you draw throughout your work about the fundamental ills within religion and world culture. Yet, the very fact that you pursue this activism with such passion and creativity, I think, is a hopeful sign.

TOM: This is difficult work. I am calling for people to confront the world in a new way. I’m frustrated with people expressing general hopes, but not acting. I can see a profound ecological disaster in my children’s lifetime—changing life around the planet—and I see no tangible hope that this can be avoided. Meanwhile, look at what we’re arguing about in our country: Whether we should raise taxes a couple of percent. What an absolutely irrelevant issue in terms of the major dangers ahead of us in the world! So, I can’t see the mature choices taking place that will help us make the leaps we need.

Humanity has a responsibility that we have not accepted. There’s a wonderful line from Nelson Mandela, who says: “If God isn’t going to come along and save the world soon—then we have to do it ourselves.” That’s my point. Unless you’re a Quaker or Amish today, you can’t claim your religion is a religion of peace. We need to dig deep into what is wrong at the core of our civilization and culture.

Originally published at www.ReadTheSpirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Pope Francis, the Jesuits & the Dirty War in Argentina

2013-03-18T02:02:40Z

On March 18, 2013, the New York Times also published an analysis of the Dirty War controversy.

President Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina keeps this photograph of her meeting with then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio on her public website. Photo now in public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

By THOMAS REESE SJ

RUMORS AND QUESTIONS are circulating about Pope Francis and the time when he was the Jesuit provincial of Argentina and his relationship to two imprisoned Jesuits and the Argentine military dictatorship.

The Society of Jesus is filled with intelligent men who are passionate about their ideas and work, so of course there are arguments and disagreements just as there are in any family. I have had debates with other Jesuits over dinner where voices were raised, but that does not mean I don’t love them and would not be willing to die for them. We are a family.

Father Bergoglio, like Pope John Paul, had serious reservations about liberation theology, which was embraced by many other Latin American Jesuits. As a North American I have trouble understanding these disputes since John Paul and Bergoglio obviously wanted justice for the poor while the liberation theologians were not in favor of violent revolution as their detractors claimed. But clearly this was an issue that divided the church in Latin America.

Part of the problem was the use of the term “Marxist analysis” by some liberation theologians, when they sought to show how the wealthy used their economic and political power to keep the masses down. The word “Marxist,” of course, drove John Paul crazy. Meanwhile, the Latin American establishment labeled as Communist anyone who wanted economic justice and political power for workers. Even many decent but cautious people feared that strikes and demonstrations would lead to violence. What is “prudent” can divide people of good will.

There were also disagreements about how to respond to the military junta in Argentina. As provincial, Father Bergoglio was responsible for the safety of his men. He feared that Orlando Yorio, S.J., and Franz Jalics, S.J., were at risk and wanted to pull them out of their ministry. They, naturally, did not want to leave their work with the poor.

Yorio and Jalics were arrested when a former lay colleague, who had joined the rebels and then been arrested, gave up their names under torture as people he had worked with in the past. This was normal practice for the military. The junta did not get information from Bergoglio. Contrary to rumor, he did not throw them out of the society and therefore remove them from the protection of the Society of Jesus. They were Jesuits when they were arrested. Yorio later left the Society but Jalics is still a Jesuit today, living in a Jesuit retreat house in Germany.

The Jesuit historian Father Jeff Klaiber interviewed Juan Luis Moyano, S.J., who had also been imprisoned and deported by the military. Moyano told Klaiber that Bergoglio did go to bat for imprisoned Jesuits. There are disagreements over whether he did as much as he should have for them, but such debates always occur in these circumstances.

Adolfo Esquivel, the Argentine who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, says Bergoglio was not involved with the military and did try to help the two Jesuits. He himself was imprisoned by the military and his son is married to Mercedes Moyano, the sister of Juan Luis Moyano.

Other rumors circulating say that as archbishop, Bergoglio allowed the military to hide prisoners in an archdiocesan retreat house so that they would not be seen by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights visiting the ESMA prison. Fact: Bergoglio was not archbishop when this took place. Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist, says that Bergoglio helped him investigate the case.

It is also said that there is written evidence in the Argentine foreign ministry files that Bergoglio gave information on the Jesuits to the military. The alleged conversation took place when Bergoglio was trying to get the passport of one of the Jesuits extended. Not only did this take place after they were arrested and after they were released, it was after they were safely out of the country. Nothing he could say would endanger them, nor was he telling the government anything it did not already know. He was simply trying to convince a bureaucrat that it was a good idea to extend the passport of this man so he could stay in Germany and not have to return to Argentina.

More recently, Cardinal Bergoglio was involved in getting the Argentine bishops to ask forgiveness for not having done enough during the dirty war, as it was called in Argentina.

In the face of tyranny, there are those who take a prophetic stance and die martyrs. There are those who collaborate with the regime. And there are others who do what they can while keeping their heads low. When admirers tried to claim that John Paul worked in the underground against Nazism, he set them straight and said he was no hero.

Those who have not lived under a dictatorship should not be quick to judge those who have, whether the dictatorship was in ancient Rome, Latin America, Africa, Nazi Germany, Communist Eastern Europe, or today’s China. We should revere martyrs, but not demand every Christian be one.

MORE FROM FATHER THOMAS J. REESE, S.J.

A LEADING EXPERT ON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Father Thomas Reese SJ posts his columns on many major newspaper and magazine websites, including The Washington Post and the National Catholic Reporter. This column was originally published by the National Catholic Reporter. His most important book, right now, is Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church,published by Harvard University Press. For decades, Father Reese has been one of the leading American experts on the Catholic church, quoted in newspaper, magazines and TV news stories. Father Reese also has organized an extensive index to Papal Transition stories, hosted by America magazine online.

Francis: Poverty, rebuilding, animals & Interfaith Hero

2013-03-14T14:01:35Z

THE STORY of St. Francis and the Sultan of Egypt is retold in the book Interfaith Heroes. Click the book cover to learn more about that book.By THOMAS J. REESE, SJ

In picking the name Francis, the new pope sent his first message to the world, but what is that message? Four possibilities come to mind, and perhaps they are all true.

FIRST—A LIFE OF POVERTY: St Francis of Assisi was known for his life of poverty. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was also known and respected for refusing to live in the archbishop’s palace in Buenos Aires. Rather, he lived in a simple apartment where he cooked his own meals. He also put aside the chauffeur driven limousine and rode the bus to work. Will Pope Francis try to bring a simpler life style to the papal court? Is this a man who will be comfortable in silks and furs?

Here is a quote from him that should worry the papal court:

The cardinalate is a service is, it is not an award to be bragged about. Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the Church…. An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth… Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.

SECOND—‘REBUILD MY CHURCH’: Early in his career, St. Francis heard a message from God: “Rebuild my church.” At first he thought God meant the building in the forest near where he was living. Only later did he realize that it was the institutional church, which was in disrepair, that he was to rebuild. With all the problems facing the church—sexual abuse crisis, declining membership in Europe and the Americas, and a Vatican Curia in need of reform—this name may point toward an ecclesial agenda.

THIRD—LOVE OF ANIMALS: Francis was also famous for his love of animals and nature. With the environmental catastrophe of climate change facing the world, his choice of name could point to an aggressive and prophetic stance on environmental issues. This is certainly one of the greatest challenges of the 21st Century, and it would be great to have the pope be a real leader on environmental issues.

FOURTH—INTERFAITH HERO: Francis was known for his peaceful and positive attitude toward Islam. He was no crusader when his time was marked by war between Christendom and Islam. Rather he walked through the battlefield unarmed to meet with the Sultan, who was so impressed that he listened to him and sent him back unharmed. At a time when peaceful relations between Muslims and Christians are again necessary for the good of the world, he could be sending a message not only to Christians, but also to Muslims.

There is another Francis that the new pope is connected to because of his Jesuit roots: St. Francis Xavier. This Francis was known for his missionary zeal. There is much talk in the church about evangelization because of the church’s losses in Europe and the Americas. Xavier was a man who did it. And he died on an island off the coast of China, which today is seen as a field ripe for the harvest.

MORE FROM FATHER THOMAS J. REESE, S.J.

This column is used by permission from Father Thomas Reese, the author of several essential books about the structure and influence of the Roman Catholic Church. His most important book, right now, is Inside the Vatican: The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church,published by Harvard University Press. For decades, Father Reese has been one of the leading American experts on the Catholic church, quoted in newspaper, magazines and TV news stories. Father Reese also has organized an extensive index to Papal Transition stories, hosted by America magazine online.

Read The Spirit

Passover, by Debra Darvick from This Jewish Life

Passover

By Debra Darvick

Lenten Journey 6: 'Look into it.' And, 'Wonder.'

6: Intimate Departures—‘Look into it.’ And, ‘Wonder.’

By the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt

The Tom Block Interview: Breaking 'A Fatal Addiction'

HIGHLIGHTS OF OURINTERVIEW WITH TOM BLOCKON ‘A FATAL ADDICTION:WAR IN THE NAME OF GOD’

MYSTICS AND PROPHETS LIKE ST. FRANCIS, MAIMONIDES

TOM BLOCK: MUCH MORE ART AND WISDOM ONLINE

TOM BLOCK: ‘AN ETHICAL FULCRUM’ TO NURTURE EQUITY, JUSTICE

Pope Francis, the Jesuits & the Dirty War in Argentina

President Cristina Elisabet Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina keeps this photograph of her meeting with then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio on her public website. Photo now in public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

By THOMAS REESE SJ

MORE FROM FATHER THOMAS J. REESE, S.J.

Francis: Poverty, rebuilding, animals & Interfaith Hero

THE STORY of St. Francis and the Sultan of Egypt is retold in the book Interfaith Heroes. Click the book cover to learn more about that book.By THOMAS J. REESE, SJ

MORE FROM FATHER THOMAS J. REESE, S.J.

6: Intimate Departures—
‘Look into it.’ And, ‘Wonder.’

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR
INTERVIEW WITH TOM BLOCK
ON ‘A FATAL ADDICTION:
WAR IN THE NAME OF GOD’