spirituality cafe.

QUOTE: "The church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta." (Eduardo Galeano in Walking Words; W.W. Norton)

THE LONG VIEW: "The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work ...

"This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

"We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.

"We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, riot messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own." (Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador, killed by assassins on March 24,1980)

IN THIS SEASON March brings not only commemorations of Archbishop Romero, but is Women's History Month--a good opportunity to share this poem from a wonderful resource, Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women's Spirituality, (edited by Marilyn Sewell; Beacon Press). Here's "Nothing So Wise" by Jeanne Lohmann:

`There is nothing so wise as a circle.'

-- Rilke

   The arc of an egg
   bends hands
   to shape prayer,

   the shell unbroken,
   the heavy yolk floating

   Our fingers curving always
   inward, like a cup,
   an open bowl.

   Prayer is
   circumference
   we may not reach around,
   space for all we cannot hold,
   the rim of Love
   toward which we lean.

RECOMMENDED:

From Patrick Samway's "The Ten Best Catholic Novels You'll Ever Read" (in Why I Like Being Catholic; Doubleday, 2000): "Memento Mori by Muriel Spark. This novel, set in London in the 1950s, provides a definite reminder of a telling Ash Wednesday phrase, `Remember you are dust and unto dust you will return.' Each of Sparks' characters hear these words differently."

SUFFERING: "There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Folk consciousness always recognizes that at such a time, you must be exceedingly gentle with yourself. I love the image of the wolf spider, which never builds its web between two hard objects like two stones. If it did this, the web would be rent by the wind. Instinctively, it builds its web between two blades of grass. When the wind comes, the web lowers with the grass until the wind has passed, then it comes back up and finds its point of balance and equilibrium again.

"This is a beautiful image for a mind in rhythm with itself. When we harden our views or beliefs, we lose all the softness and flexibility that makes for real shelter, belonging, and protection. Sometimes the best way of caring for your soul is to make flexible again some of the views that harden and crystallize your mind; for these alienate you from your own depth and beauty." (John O'Donohue, excerpted from Anam Cara; HarperCollins)

IN PRACTICE "The Stations of the Cross is a powerful way to contemplate the mystery of Jesus' gift of himself to us. It takes the reflection on the Passion out of my head and makes it an imaginative exercise. It involves my senses, my experience and my emotions," explains the introduction to Creighton University's online version of the Stations of the Cross. "One of our common religious struggles is to realize that we are not alone ..." Find Creighton's version and several other online versions from

Theology Library--even one called "The Way of the Cross of a Migrant"

--by visiting the Cafe at http://www.uscatholic.org/cafe.htm.