Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Watching Them Go

Graduations are unique and common. The unique aspect is that, whether they are graduating from grade school, high school, or college, the graduates are particular people with particular histories of achievement or lack of achievement, successes or failures, dreams realized or not. So, no two graduation ceremonies are exactly alike, because no two groups of graduates are exactly alike.

But graduations do have this in common: they are leave-takings. After the speeches and picture-taking are over, the graduates go on to the next thing in their lives; and the administrators, faculty, and staff of their institutions watch them go. And if the school, high school, or college is one consciousness of its mission, it is sending them out to bring to the world what they have learned, to learn new things that would not have been accessible to them before, and to do things that they couldn’t have imagined themselves doing a few years prior.

There are moments, or course, when those who leave and those who watch them leave might wish that the separation could be delayed, if just for a little while. But, as the Scriptures say, everything under heaven has its own time — there is a time to stay and a time to move on; a time to time to embrace and a time to let go. The time for letting go — the time for graduating — is also a time for those who stay to bless the graduates with the prayer that they may walk with God and God with them.

Still Here

It’s May 22 and the world’s still here. It seems no one has been snatched up to heaven by the Rapture (when, some fundamentalist Christians believe, the true believers in Jesus will disappear from the earth, leaving only sinners behind to face God’s wrath). It was all supposed to happen yesterday. But it didn’t, despite one preacher’s calculations.

Why is it foolish to put credence in such predictions? For starters, there have been a lot of them over the years and they all have a perfect record of being wrong. Not only that, Jesus explicitly taught that no one but God knows when the end will come (Mark 13). It is simply not for us to know the day or the hour.

But, in my opinion, their main failing is that they make escape from the world the whole point of point of following Christ. But Jesus explicitly asked his Father not to take his followers out of the world, but to protect them from evil (John 17).

To top it off, Christ is here, laboring to make our world the place God created it to be, and we’re meant to labor with him to that end. That’s why we belong here still, and that’s why I look forward to many more months and, I hope, years of living here in this world, where I believe Christ wants us to stay.

Signs of Spring in the Neighborhood

Hard to Believe

When the gospels report the events of Easter, one thing may surprise us: the apostles didn’t believe it. They simply weren’t expecting it, despite the fact that a number of women followers of Jesus said they’d not only seen Jesus, they’d spoken with him and knew he had risen. They must have been frustrated at the way the apostles dismissed their testimony.

These men needed to see the Risen Lord before they could believe. And even when they did, some of them apparently weren’t completely sure that what they were seeing was real. It didn’t sink in right away. Luke said they needed forty days to accept and understand something of what it meant. They had to learn that Jesus was truly alive, that he wouldn’t desert them, and that they needed to share the news with others.

It took time for them. It will probably be the same for most of us, too. But that’s all right. We’re in good company.

Another Voice: Marge

So I have this Christening blanket I am crocheting for Bebe. The pattern has been a bit of a stretch for me as I am a self-taught novice. I decided from the beginning that I would pray as I crocheted. One of my favorite ways to work on this “prayer blanket” this Lent has been to listen to an online Jesuit retreat.

As I listened this morning to Father G speak about the value of spending time in prayer that was just listening and feeling rather than “speaking” and doing, I was challenged. All who know me would understand how challenging silence is to me.

But as I was listening, I was also trying to get a very nasty knot out of my crochet thread for my little blanket. How did this knot get here in the first place? What did I do wrong to cause it? Why does it seem that all my efforts….efforts filled with prayer….seem to make the knot tighter-more obstinate?

How many times in my life have I been faced with the thread of my life tied up in knots? When have I dealt with those knots with prayer and patience? When have I impatiently clipped out the knot and then created a new knot so I could move on with the project at hand? When has God ~my loving Parent~ patiently, prayerfully, carefully helped me unknot my life? Much to ponder as pick up my coffee cup and prepare to start my day….or should I say re-start…recharge my day?

Thanks to Marge C. for sharing this and letting me post it. I’m open to posting other pieces from time to time. If you have similar writing, send it to me at frank.majka@gmail.com.