Dear Friends, It is early Easter evening here. We have had power outages much of today and yesterday. Hence the delay in sending to you this last of the Holy Week/Easter messages that have touched me and I wanted to pass to you. This is a sermon from the late 5th century by a Greek bishop named John Chrysostom. It was given at Easter during one of the years of his leadership. I like it so much that I included it in the last chapter of the book I wrote, whose first anniversary of sales is next Sunday, April 3. (1,500 copies have been sold in one year. I am now in the beginning stages of arranging for its translation into Spanish and hopefully publishing it by a Jesuit press in Mexico City.) The sermon goes this way: "Whoever you are, come, celebrate this shining happening, this festival of light. You, the devout, God's unshakable lover, and you, the servant brimming with thanks. Come, walk into the joy of your Lord. And you the impoverished faster, come for your wages. You who began before sunrise, come for your stipend. You who waited till nine in the morning: the feast is for you. And you, the not-till-noonday starter, do not hesitate: you shall not lose a thing. You who began at only three in the afternoon, have no scruples, come. And you who arrived just before sunset, forget you were late. Do not be bashful. Our master is magnanimous and welcomes the very latest with the very first. He will not entertain you less, you of the eleventh hour, than you the dawn toiler. No, not at all. To this one he gives, and on that one he showers rewards. Whether you were a success or whether you only tried, he will greet you, make much of your effort, extol your intention. Let everyone, therefore, crowd into the exhilaration of our Savior. You the first and you the last: equally heaped with blessings. You the rich and you the poor: celebrate together. You the careful and you the careless: enjoy this day of days! You that have kept the fast, and you that have broken it: be happy today. The table is loaded. Feast on it like princes. The milkfed veal is fat. Let no one go hungry. And drink, all of you, drink the cup. The vintage is faith. Feed sumptuously all: feed on his goodness, his sheer abundance. No one need think you are poor, for the universal empire is emblazoned, wide open for all. No one need mourn uncountable falls, be they over and over, for Forgiveness itself has reared from the tomb. No one need fear death: for our Savior himself has died and set us free. He confronted death in his own person and blasted it to nothing. He made it defunct by the very taste of his flesh. This is exactly what Isaiah foretold when he declared: 'Hell is harrowed by encounter with him.' Of course it is harrowed. For now hell is a joke, finished, done with, Harrowed because now taken prisoner it snatched at a body and--incredible--lit upon God. It gulped down the earth and gagged on heaven. It seized what it saw and was crushed by what it failed to see. Poor death, where is your sting? Poor hell, where is your triumph? Christ steps out of the tomb and you are reduced to nothing. Christ rises and the angels are wild with delight. Christ rises and life is set free. Christ rises and the graves are emptied of the dead. Oh yes, for he broke from the tomb like a flower, a beautiful fruit: the first fruit of those already gone. All glory be his, all success and power . . . forever and ever!" Isn't this lovely??"!! I read it as the conclusion of my homily at mass this morning for about 60-70 retreatants and staff. I know of no better way than this statement for declaring something of the exuberance of Christians when they experience the power of what the Father did in Jesus and the hope, the blessed assurance that this offers to us who sometimes wonder about the meaning and direction of our life. May this Easter season be full of Easter joy and peace for you and deeper assurance of the great Love that is already in your life (and mine too)! Bernie Owens

Good Friday morning to you, my friends. On this day of solemn quiet, I wish you peace and the sense of a hope for each other and for our world thanks to the 'yes' Jesus gave to the Father and to us on that day He passed from this world. I am well aware of an incident going on in Yemen sometime today, a place where four nuns were martyred three weeks ago and the only Catholic priest there, a Salesian, was kidnapped. The report now is that Al Quaida will crucify him sometime today, on this Good Friday, yes, crucify him! May God give him every strength!! And so I pass on to you a statement I found recently. It truly impresses me and seems so fitting for this day, Good Friday. It goes this way: If you would like to know God, look at the crucifix. If you would like to love God, look to the crucifix If you want to serve God, look at the crucifix. If you hope for eternal happiness, then look at the crucifix. If you wonder how much God loves you, look at the crucifix. If you wonder how much He wants you in heaven, look at the crucifix. If you wonder how much you should forgive others, look at the crucifix. If you want to know what unselfishness and generosity are, look at the crucifix. If you want to understand the need for self-denial, look at the crucifix. If you want to live well, look at the crucifix. And if you want to die well, then look at the crucifix. I want to finish here by passing on to you, for your consideration, an essay by Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI, a very popular write of Catholic spirituality. It is perfect for reading and pondering on this Good Friday. He says: It is one thing to love when you feel love around you, when others understand you and are grateful for your person and gifts; it is quite another when everything around you speaks of misunderstanding, jealousy, coldness, and hatred. It is one thing to maintain your ideals when they are shared by others, when the gospel works for you, when principle works out in practice; it is quite another when it seems you are alone in some ideal and when the gospel appears to be delivering more death than life. It is one thing to keep your balance when the rhythms of life support it, when there is a healthy give and take to things, when life is fair; it is quite another when things are unfair, when you are unjustly criticized, when everyone else seems to have lost balance, when, like on Good Friday, it gets dark in the middle of the day. It is one thing to be gracious when those around you are respectful, warm, and fair. It is quite another when everyone seems bitter, disrespectful, jealous and cold. It is one thing to bless others when they want to receive that blessing, when they hang on to your every word, when they want to be in your company; it is quite another when their very glance speaks of loathing and when they avoid you when you come into a room. It is one thing to forgive others when that forgiveness seems fair, when it isn't impossible to swallow the hurt, when the wound dealt you is not mortal; it is quite another to forgive someone when it isn't fair, when the wound dealt you is mortal, when the life being murdered is your own. It is one thing to give your life over to family, church, community and God when you feel loved and supported by them, when they seem worth the sacrifice, when you get a good feeling by doing it; it is quite another thing when you do not feel support, when it doesn't seem worthwhile, and when you feel no other reason for doing it except truth and principle. These contrasts capture, in essence, what Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemani and on the cross. His passion was a drama of the heart, not an endurance test for His body. What made the sacrifice of Jesus, His handing Himself over, so special? We have, I think, focused too much on the physical aspects of the crucifixion to the detriment of what was happening more deeply, underneath. Why do I say that? Because none of the Gospels emphasizes the physical sufferings, nor indeed, in the fears He expressed in conversations before His death, does Jesus. What the Gospels and Jesus emphasize is His moral loneliness, the fact that He was alone, betrayed, humiliated, misunderstood, the object of jealousy and crowd hysteria, that He was a stone's throw away from everyone, that those who loved Him were asleep to what was really happening, that He was unanimity-minus-one. And this moral loneliness, mocked by those outside of it, tempted Him against everything He had preached and stood for during His life and ministry. What made His sacrifice so special was not that He died a victim of violence (millions die as victims of violence and their deaths are not necessarily special.) nor that He refused to use divine power to stop His death (as He Himself taught, that would have proved nothing). What made His death so special is that, inside of all the aloneness, darkness, jealousy, misunderstanding, sick crowd hysteria, coldness, and murder, He held out, He gave Himself over, without bitterness, without losing His balance, His meaning, or His message. This is the ultimate test and we face it daily in many areas of our lives. Some years ago, I was participating in a forum debating a book on chastity. The book, written by a woman still in her early twenties, was a very idealistic one and it urged young people to not have sex before marriage, but to keep their virginity as a special gift for their partners in marriage. One of the panelists, a very sincere woman, had this reaction: "I like what this young woman says, and when my daughters are in their teens I'll have them read this book, but what she says makes a lot more sense when you are 20 years old and know what you are waiting for than when you are 39 years old and no longer know what you are waiting for." The sacrifice of Jesus was so special because, long after the clock had run out on everything and there seemed no reason left to wait for anything, He still held on, to His ideals, His balance, His graciousness, His forgiveness, and His love. The struggle to do that, to remain faithful, is the real drama inside the death of Jesus, and in the end it is a struggle of the heart, not of the body. I plan to post one more Easter-related article, tomorrow sometime. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, It is hot today in Nairobi, as it has been the last few days. More importantly, we are in the middle of Holy Week and just to begin its most solemn part. I always stand in amazement at what it is like when a person is free enough, ready in spirit, to give their entire self to someone else. When a great Love comes into a person's life, it begins to bring forth from their depths a desire to pour out their entire self, to give their heart, mind, soul and even body, if appropriate, to some other, whether it is to God or to another wonderful human being who has come into their life as really special. This is what I see Jesus doing when He approaches the last hours of His life, what we commemorate today. He knows He will be saying 'goodbye' very soon. He has little time or a opportunity left to speak what is most important to Him, what He so wants to say. Have you ever had a hint of this in your own life? I have, to some degree. I have had the experience of really wanting to give everything, to give "it" all to God. This is why what happened to the four nuns in Yemen about three weeks ago so captures my attention and awe. When someone knows he or she will die soon, they get to "the bottom line" in their values, what matters most in the center of their soul and they speak it however they can. Jesus was in this situation at the Last Supper, a time for Him to say a final 'goodbye' to His closest followers/friends of the past three years. And how did He express Himself? What He said is so profound, so moving, so unique that many people could not and still do not believe Him, or they interpret it to have a lesser meaning, a meaning that would fit what they think is "reasonable" and "realistic." I refer to what Jesus did with the meal He inherited from His Jewish tradition: the Seder meal. He hosted that meal and took specifically the bread and wine and gave these parts of the meal a whole new and infinitely deeper meaning: This is my Body, my whole self. (That is, this is Me that I am giving to you.) This is my Blood, my LIFE poured out for you. I want you to do the same for your sisters and brothers." It is like He was saying, "I am going to leave you very soon, yet I will not leave you. I am going to die as a young man but I will remain with you as your food and drink for the journey you are making home to our Father. I will not abandon you. In fact, I give you my entire self to be with you forever, so much do you, my sisters and brothers, mean to me." I cannot get over this gesture of love in the midst of such vulnerability, and He did it when all hell was breaking loose around Him, when certain people wanted Him dead. To still want to give your all in the face of hatred and violence coming at you is overwhelming. What strength of soul one must have not to run in fear but still be faithful to who you are and still give the best of who you are to anyone willing to receive this gift of yourself! I simply cannot get over this! I end by copying for all of you part of an article a former student of mine submitted for a reflection paper some twenty years ago at Manresa. It still impresses me to no end, still! It is best read today, Holy Thursday, in anticipation of this evening's foot-washing and Eucharist. Here is the article. I hope you enjoy it. When the Bible is seen in its Jewish context, it comes alive in many new ways. There are additional nuances of meaning that can be found when looking at its setting. The following is a good example of this point. In first century Israel, marriage customs were distinctive, particularly the manner of a man proposing marriage to a woman. A young man reaching marriageable age would go with his father to the house of a godly family which had a daughter that would be an appropriate wife. They had never met the girl but they would go to her house to sit and negotiate the "bride price" with her family, because the loss of a daughter meant an enormous loss for her family. When the two visitors and the family had agreed upon the price for this 14, 15, or 16 year old daughter (cows, goats, etc) the young man would then ask her to marry him, but do it in a very Jewish way. The young man's father would take a flask of wine, pour out a cup of wine, and then hand it to his son. The son would then turn to the young woman and, with all the solemnity of an oath before God, would say to her: "This cup is a new covenant in my blood, which I offer to you." In other words, "I love you. I will be your faithful husband. Will you be my bride?" How can anyone, when reflecting on this, not recognize Jesus and what He said at the Last Supper (Luke 22:20) to his Jewish followers who knew so well the Passover liturgy and the significance of the cup offering during this ritual so sacred for Jews? And who will not recognize the personal significance of our drinking from the chalice anytime we participate in the communion ritual of the mass? How could anyone miss the depth of what Jesus is saying to us and what we are agreeing to with Him when we drink from the chalice? And then another striking parallel: When a young man was to marry, he and his father would build a room onto the family's house or a separate house somewhere on the father's land. It was there that the son and his future family would live. After asking a girl to marry him, the young man would say to her: "I am going to prepare a place for you and then I will return for you." Again, who would not recognize the parallel with what Jesus says at the Last Supper: "In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be." (John 14:2) May our "Amen" to such a gift get deeper and deeper!! I am so taken by the kind of relationship God wants with us, but, sadly, for many it is too good to believe, to "extreme." Someday we will all see, and what a day that will be! I will post a short saying tomorrow, on Good Friday. God bless! Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, I am two days early with what I had promised during my last post. It makes more sense to state this today, Tuesday of Holy Week, rather than wait till Thursday. It is an excerpt of notes from the retreat diary of a popular writer named Fr. Henri Nouwen. I have found it to be most meaningful when reflecting on the deeper meaning of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. Nouwen writes this: "Jesus, sitting at table with His disciples, said, "One of you will betray me." (John 13:21) As I look more closely at Jesus' words as they are written in Greek, a better translation would be, "One of you will hand me over." The Greek word "paradidomi" means "to give over, to hand over, to give into the hands of." It is an important term not only to express what Judas did but also what God did. Paul writes, " . . . He did not spare His own Son, but 'handed Him over' for the sake of all of us" (Romans 8: 32). This moment when Jesus is handed over to those who do with Him as they please is a turning point in Jesus' ministry. It is turning from action to passion. After year of teaching, preaching, healing, and moving to wherever He wanted to go, Jesus is handed over to the caprices of His enemies. Things are now no longer done by Him but to Him. He is flagellated, crowned with thorns, spat at, laughed at, stripped, and nailed to a cross. He is a passive victim, subject to other people's actions. From the moment Jesus is handed over, His passion begins, and through this passion He fulfills His vocation. It is important for me to realize that Jesus fulfills His mission not by what He does, but by what is done to Him. Just as with everyone else, most of my life is determined by what is done to me and thus is passion. And because most of my life is passion, things being done to me, only small parts of my life are determined by what I think, say, or do. I am inclined to protest against this and to want all to be action, originated by me. But the truth is that my passion is a much greater part of my life than my action. Not to recognize this is self-deception and not to embrace my passion with love is self-rejection. It is good news to know that Jesus is handed over to passion, and through His passion accomplishes His divine task on earth. It is good news for a world passionately searching for wholeness. Jesus' words to Peter remind me that Jesus' transition from action to passion must also be ours if we want to follow His way. He says, "When you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands and somebody else will put a belt around you and take you where you would rather not go." (John 21:18) I, too, have to let myself be "handed over" and thus fulfill my vocation." I have always been very impressed with this reflection of Nouwen, especially the conclusion of it. It carries with it the challenge of surrendering each moment of my life to God, especially the circumstances of aging, failing health, unpleasant things that happen to me, losses, etc. As upsetting or frightening as these events can be, so often the biggest blessings of life come not in spite of but precisely in and through these events. As Jesus' final hours were so personally disastrous for Him in many ways but issued forth in His greatest gifts to us, I hope I have the longer view, God's viewpoint, and can trust and allow God to "hand me over" to these great blessings of life. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, Yesterday (the 19th) was the feast day of an often overlooked saint: Joseph, the husband of Mary and the guardian of Jesus. I had occasion to lead a mass twice yesterday, a rather rare occurrence for me. In preparing for the mass it so struck me that Joseph by the manner and circumstances of his life reminds us of how everyone of us is, in a certain way, very ordinary and even insignificant. Like him we did not have to be. The world would hardly be different, if at all, if we had not been born. Yet we were born, and here we are, everyone of us. Like Joseph we become what we are with any value because of a great Love that gave us and continues to give us our life. So often this Love is not noticed or acknowledged. But at sometime in our life, by the Mercy of this great Love, we wake up to it. Often time it is a suffering that is the providential means for us noticing, or it is a loss, a living reminder that we are not in control of our life nor with most of what goes on in it. Sometimes it can be the discovery of a wonderful friend or experience something really beautiful in nature or in the arts. But when we do wake up to the One who gave us our life, to the One who is Love itself, and we start to respond and grow into a living friendship with this Other, then our life takes off. Our life takes on a depth and meaning, a peace, joy and often a happiness that was not there before. This gentle, loving Presence enables us to trust in any situation, to be guided in our truth. This is what is shown in yesterday's Gospel reading from St. Matthew. Mary is pregnant, but not by Joseph. Heartbroken and feeling betrayed, Joseph is ready to divorce her when IN A DREAM he is encouraged to trust his situation. How seemingly implausible what he was asked to trust. Yet he did, and we are all blessed by his choice. It is in situations like this that the greatness of Joseph, a man of very humble circumstances, shines through. It is what makes the people we have known and admire, be anything but just ordinary or insignificant. Joseph, then, for me is the patron of us countless ordinary folks, those who are rarely noticed but on certain occasions, often when they have died or graduate or retire or move away, are finally seen for the extraordinary people Love enabled them to become. I emphasize that is a great Love that brings us beyond our ordinary ordinariness and empowers us to become extraordinarily ordinary; still humble and often unappreciated but filled with a sense of purpose and inner joy in finding what has been called "the pearl of great price." In my previous letter I reflected briefly on the four nuns who earlier this month were executed in Yemen with their hands tied behind their backs and made to lie down on their stomachs and face while their brains were blown out. What thoughts and feelings must have rushed through them in their final moments; to think they were be chosen to love Him in serving the elderly poor, all of them Muslims, but also by the shedding of their blood, to give over their youth and all their dreams and trust Him utterly; just as Jesus did when with tears and bloody sweats begged His Abba to remove the cup He was so dreading to drink. All of them young women who were taken with the ideal of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to serve Him who is this great Love, their greatest Love, which I have referred to by tending to the very elderly and sick. This was their "crime" according to Al Quaida: to be a follower of Christ, to serve Him alive in the elderly poor at a nursing home. Truly, I envy them . . . a lot. We get one life, we walk through this world just once, and what we can choose, a meaning and Love that is there present for us to embrace, is so amazing! This Reality is what makes the great difference in what our lives become. Joseph chose it. Abraham, when he was willing to trust God and give back to God his precious Isaac, chose it. Mary, the teenager, chose to trust the Reality when the angel Gabriel invited her into a much different life than what she was anticipating. I am convinced each of us gets this opportunity, and that it comes to visit us, to invite us more than once until we choose it, finally. I wish each of you the great blessings of Holy Week and of the Easter season. It is my intent to post a letter on this blog next Thursday and another one on Good Friday and still another one on Sunday. Till then . . . Bernie Owens

Good evening, Friends, We have had today in Nairobi a beautiful day for weather, a fine sky, and lovely sunset. It started not so well for me this morning after I was trying to recover and feel normal again after drinking some champagne yesterday at a luncheon birthday celebration and this after I had taken at breakfast a pill for calming down my itching skin. There are lots of flowers here and the pollens often make my nose run and sometimes make my skin go crazy. I never thought at lunch about the pill I had taken at breakfast. (I also had seconds on ice creme and seconds on cake, something we rarely get here. I am about 12-14 pounds under what my usual weight is when in the States. I need to fatten up! Really!) So I went overboard, yes, I confess to such!) For the rest of the day I was sleepy, even though I led a mass at 5:15 PM and thought I did rather well for that! I collapsed into bed at 8:45 PM , about an hour and a half before I usually retire, and was gone almost immediately. Anyway, I slept for 12 hours last evening, yes, 12 hours and woke 4 or 5 times to drink water! It is easy to get dehydrated here, much more so than in the more humid Great Lakes area of the USA. However I never get the sinus infections here that I would get during the volatile weather of the midwest USA. There are some definite gains. So . . . no more champagne or anything alcoholic when taking medicine of that kind for controlling allergic reactions! The primaries in the USA are much discussed at mealtimes here, even by the non-Americans in our community. All cannot believe a person like D. Trump could become president, so shocked are they by his behavior toward people whom he does not like or disagrees with. Anyway, there is lots of discussion around this topic. They see a brokered convention coming in July and a blocking of Trump by the party powers with a compromise candidate being chosen. We shall see! One cultural phenomenon that continues to amaze me here is how the having of a child is so critical in the minds of people in this part of the world for having a sense of your being a man or a woman. Not to have a child as your own is to be an incomplete person, to be so out of the cultural norm, to somehow not belong. This came to my attention recently when I was informed that a young man I had been "coaching" during his journey to being ordained a priest was urged by his married brother, a father of a few children, to have a child, to "pass on the family name." And this conversation took place during the week that his family had gathered to witness his ordination to the priesthood! This priest-to-be was able to deflect what his brother was counseling, but did find it painful to be urged to take such actions completely contrary to what he had promised God. And I had heard a little over a year ago that a priest friend of another priest had been approached by his blood sister to have a child and that she or someone else in the family would keep the child as an adopted child, while he could keep the secret with them that he does, after all, have a son, that he is a father. I suspect this mindset is so ingrained in rural societies where having numerous children is very important in order to have as many hands as possible to run a farm and care for livestock. Consecrated celibacy does not sell well, especially in Africa. Actually, I don't think it "sells well' anywhere. So many project their own human needs and desires on to others who choose to live their lives this way and see their choice to be utterly senseless and stupid, barren, a great waste. And it will be all of that unless the person choosing such a way has found a great love in their life that makes it meaningful and is anything but barren and senseless but, instead, fruitful and life-giving. Much of the talk these last two days around here has been about the four nuns of Mother Teresa of Calcutta's Missionaries of Charity in Yemen being martyred, being bound with hands behind their backs, made to prostrate themselves face down on the floor, and then having their heads blown off. One Kenyan, one from Rwanda, and two from India were shot to death by religious fanatics last Friday. This is another incident where our natural instincts get challenged and are made to ponder what would make a person expose themselves to such violence, to risk their lives and lose them in this case. Again, it is only a great love in our life that would make such risks worthwhile and meaningful. Love is stronger than death, and reaches deep into the soul of a person who is open in the least way. Whether it is a mother having to lay down her life for her children, a doctor for a patient, or a missionary to go to a dangerous area to witness to Christ, it is only a great love in one's life that can overcome the natural instinct of self-preservation and risk the loss of our life. I have met numerous members of the Missionaries of Charity since coming here to Africa. They are very impressive people, and their love for Jesus is so attractive. So much does He mean to them that they take great risks for His sake. To understand such people and what motivates them, one has to get inside their world and experience something of what this great love is that motivates them so. I think love that is other-centered will do this for anyone who is quite other-centered in the ways they think, speak, and choose. Of course, many people are too self-focused and so could never understand this attitude of mind and heart. They are so into assuring their own safety and future. It would seem just absurd to them. But that is because they have not yet opened to real love, love willing to lay down one's life for them,a love that takes them out of themselves and their own world of consuming and being entertained and safe. I will leave you for now. I hope to post one or two more letters before Easter comes upon us. God bless, and a happy St. Paddy's day to all of you who read this. Bernie Owens P.S. Five years ago tomorrow, 3/7/11, my mother died, two months shy of her 95th birthday. How time has flown for me since then!