What do we do or give up for Lent when our country and world are in the middle of the worst financial problems that most of us can remember?

Giving up candy, movies, TV, or sirloin steak just doesn’t seem to fit with the headlines about unemployment, the pictures of sick children who don’t have insurance, or the stories of women who have been made into slaves. In Psalm 50, God speaks: “It is not with your sacrifices that I find fault. . . I will not accept any bulls from your homes, nor a single goat from your folds, for all the forest creatures are mine already . . . . If I am hungry I shall not tell you, since the world and all it holds are mine.”

But we have a need for Lent. It is our time to make a new personal covenant with our God. It’s our spiritual spring cleaning, a healthy thing.

Looking over the possibilities that are built into the Judaeo-Christian tradition, we have what Jesus did when things got rough—and we have Moses and Esther. They went to their God, a God who was not in the whirlwind, not in the earthquake or the fire; but after the fire “a still, small voice,” and God spoke to Elijah (I Kings. 19: 12-14.

The other major insight of our tradition is that our way to our God is in our relationship with one another, especially with those among us who are hurting, who are hungry or wounded. God works and heals through us.

This is a year of pain and need. If we ourselves are not among the walking wounded, we certainly know others who are. Or, if we are so far removed from the scenes of pain that we are not seeing them, then we need to find ways to experience these realities close up.

If decisions about curing the economy are beyond my power—and, to be truthful, they are also beyond my intellectual powers—giving a try to respond to what is within my reach is possible.

My first thought is about compassion for the people who suffer. What can I do to relieve it?

My second one is about my own anger and bitterness. I think anger is appropriate. I don’t understand why anyone can feel free to accumulate millions while others lose jobs and health care and homes. There is little limit to what I would like to say and do to the people with the golden parachutes.

But for Lent to be healthy, healing, and honest, and a return to the Lord my God, it needs to be a freeing from bitterness and self-righteousness. (How do I know that, given a chance, I might not have reached for a bit of that gold? I would like a villa in the Caribbean.) It’s easier to free oneself from bitterness, of course, if I haven’t found myself out in the cold, unable to feed my children, and on the unemployment line.

How do we get on course, nationally and individually? We believe in the Gospel and in the God of justice and of loving mercy. If, in Lent, we are to move toward becoming holy as God is holy, can Lent be a time of struggling toward becoming people who are earnestly working toward justice, and at the same time being people of mercy and compassion—not only toward the needy and hungry, but also toward the people of the golden parachute?

Jeanne Hamilton, O.S.U.

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Bringing the long traditions of Lenten practices into the contemporary environment enables us to sustain our Lenten desires to enter into the spirit of Jesus’ saving acts.

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Rune of Hospitality

I saw a stranger yestereen;
I put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place;
And in the blessed name of the Triune
He blessed myself and my house,
My cattle and my dear ones.
And the lark said in her song
Often, often, often,
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise,
Often, often, often,
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.

The Celts who first prayed this ancient rune realized that the presence of God was not just for mystics, but was made available to ordinary folk: in home, in bread and wine, in the gift of hospitality accompanied with music. God was present in the stranger who appeared unexpectedly at their humble dwelling.

At Christmas of 1984, an American composer, Alf Houkom, while relaxing in his easy chair, happened upon this old Gaelic rune. “It simply grabbed me. This text struck me with its openness, with the possibility for the Christ to come in any place.” The music that he composed for the rune “just unfolded, purposefully simple.”

I saw a stranger yestereen . . . In our world the stranger bears the face of the poor, the homeless, the immigrant, and refugee. Migration has become a structural phenomenon of society. In 2006 the Bishop’s pastoral letter estimated that 2.9 percent of the world’s population were wayfarers living outside their country of origin. They cry out for a radical response to the gospel values of community hospitality and social justice.

In their pastoral letter “Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope,” the Catholic bishops of Mexico and the United States address all men and women of good will to use their resources to truly welcome the strangers among them. “We . . . seek to awaken our peoples to the mysterious presence of the crucified and risen Lord in the person of the migrant and to renew in them the value of the kingdom of God that he proclaimed.”

Scripture also instructs the believer concerning the responsibility for extending hospitality toward the stranger and those in need. “I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matt. 25:35). “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by that means some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb. 13:2).

The birth of Jesus invites us to focus on our own sense of exile and to look to God to fulfill our needs. “You too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Eph. 2: 19-20).

And in the blessed name of the Triune
He blessed myself and my house,
My cattle and my dear ones.

Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, fully lived the human condition, and humankind is forever blessed. He is the icon of God’s gracious hospitality. At his birth with the song of the angels, he welcomes outcast shepherds, and with a star as guide, he invites strangers from the East to offer their gifts. The years of his ministry find him sharing meals with sinners and tax collectors. He touches the blind, and they see. The lame jump with joy in his presence. He feeds the multitude in the desert. In his final moments of life, he offers words of welcome to a criminal: “This day you will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43).

A rune at times is prophetic, and here the lark who welcomes the dawn is an image of rebirth and renewal. It is the lark that proclaims the prophecy:

Often, often, often goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise
Often, often, often goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.

Jesus also walked as a stranger in our midst. He is the itinerant preacher who acknowledges that he has no permanent home and nowhere to lay his head. “He came unto his own and his own did not accept him” (Jn 1:11).

During the Advent/Christmas seasons our liturgies celebrate the coming of God as an infant in Bethlehem and point us forward to God’s second coming in glory. What does this mean for us who live in the in-between time. “The truth is that Christ comes again and again and again—that God has placed no limitations on coming to the world but is always on the way to us here and now. The only thing we are required to do is to notice—to watch, to keep our eyes peeled” (Barbara Brown Taylor, The Seeds of Heaven).

Stephanie Nolan, O.S.U.

If you wish to respond to this reflection, please email eastprov@atgnet.com

If you wish to view the previous reflection, you may click here.

The Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation of the Ursulines committee (JPICOSU), with regional representation from around the world, agreed on human trafficking as the unifying primary social issue for Roman Union Ursulines to focus their resources. At a meeting in Rome in March 2009, this committee will develop plans for ongoing collaboration and action throughout the provinces.

JPIC, both at the international level and in the province, continues to partner with other groups in action to Stop Human Trafficking. Previously highlighted on this Web site, the issue is updated here regarding efforts to collaborate to end this injustice.

Some good news is that in December, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), enhancing criminal status for traffickers and asserting important rights for victims. More recently, January 11 marked the second annual Awareness Day for Human Trafficking. Among other activities involved , a prayer service was widely distributed through the Internet.

These developments may provide an important moment in national awareness. Moreover, this modern form of slavery seems to be receiving increased media attention, evoking hopes that the subject will be part of foreign policy. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times put it this way: “Barack Obama’s presidency marks a triumph over the legacy of slavery, so it would be particularly meaningful if he led a new abolitionist movement against 21st century slavery—like the trafficking of girls into brothels.”

Kristof has engaged this issue, traveling—most recently to Cambodia—and recounting the human stories behind the slavery. His columns of January 1, 4, and 11 told the stories of three women caught in slavery situations of coercion and torture. Their stories were actually linked, as one escaped, then helped another, who helped the third. All three now work, at some real risk to themselves, to save others. Their stories are available in the New York Times archives. See also, Kristof’s blog on the subject, www.nytimes.com/ontheground.

Ursulines will continue to support the work of UNANIMA International, an organization made up of 16 Religious Congregations, with offices at the UN and membership from all over the world. Currently, UNANIMA is directing its resources toward the demand side of trafficking: Stop the demand and thereby take away the market, with the potential to put an end to the big business of human trafficking.

The UNANIMA Web site provides excellent resources for understanding and action at www.unanima-international.org.

In New York, the Coalition of Religious Congregations to Stop Human Trafficking, in addition to continuing work in legal, educational, and safe-housing committees, gathered in November for a day with Dorchen Leidholdt, from Sanctuary for Families, NYC, www.sanctuaryforfamilies.org. Dorchen works closely with another international group, the Coalition against Trafficking in Women, www.CATWInternational.org. She too used stories in her presentation to illustrate the enormity of the crimes.

The issue of human trafficking is global in its reach across continents and in the power and profit that keep it going. For a steady “feed” on current developments, a resource is the Stop Trafficking Newsletter, an Internet monthly sponsored by the Sisters of the Divine Savior.

Join us in your prayers, your concern, and your advocacy on this critical issue of our time.

Sister Dorothy Ann Kelly, provincial superior of the Ursulines of the Eastern Province of the United States and former president of the College of New Rochelle, NY, died on March 27, 2009. The death was unexpected, since she had been actively engaged in the work of the province beforehand.

Dorothy Ann brought honed leadership knowledge and skills to the office of Ursuline provincial in 2003 as the province adapted religious life to changing demographics, new ministries, and involvement in civic life. On May 31, 2009, she would have completed her second three-year term as provincial.

She had the saving grace of a rich sense of humor. Her outstanding commitment to the common good, particularly the local civic and interreligious community, was matched by a willingness to serve those organizations in the tasks needed. Her twenty-five-year tenure as president of the College of New Rochelle saw her taking initiatives that broadened the mission and the student body of the college to include three new schools—New Resources, Graduate School, Nursing School—and a population of adult undergraduates, racially diverse, men and women.

Over the years, her many memberships as board member, included Georgetown University, the Catholic University of America, St. Aloysius School in Harlem; she was a commissioner on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Schools and Colleges; on the Board of Directors of the American Council on Education. She was part of the U.S. delegation to the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, member of Bridges to Peace (formerly Northern Ireland peace People), and a member of the National Museum for Women in the Arts. A member of the Board of the Interreligious Council of New Rochelle, she was also on the board of Sound Shore Hospital Medical Center.

Born in New York in 1929 to Sarah and Walter Kelly, she graduated from the College of New Rochelle in 1951. She entered the Order of St. Ursula in 1952, making her first vows in 1954 and her final vows in 1957. She earned a master’s degree in American Church History at the Catholic University of America in 1958, and a doctorate in American Intellectual History at the University of Notre Dame in 1970.

The sisters of the province, her family and friends, her colleagues and alumnae of the College of New Rochelle, those who shared in her service memberships, as well as Ursulines throughout the world, both mourn her untimely passing and celebrate the life of service she represented to so many.

Click here to view Sr. Dorothy Ann’s obituary.