Saturday, April 15, 2017

My Friends, It is 6 PM here, Holy Saturday, two hours before our Easter Vigil mass. We have dinner in 40 minutes. Our weather has been rather warm this afternoon. At 1 PM I finished with my four people who have been here this last week for their 8-day retreats and then met with two others who come for occasional spiritual guidance, each for an hour, and finally an hour of skyping with a friend back in Michigan. Whew! Quite a full day. I will be brief here with my concluding reflections on the last words of Jesus, this time on his 7th and last saying. It is" "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Luke 23:46 I have frequently given this text to retreatants to pray with along with the text from John, chapter 3, the second half of verse 34 and all of 35. The two together are like "bookend" statements about the Father and Jesus. Let me offer some reflections here, first on this statement and then on the saying of Jesus when He dies...................................................................... Early in Jesus' public ministry John the Baptist in chapter 3 of John's Gospel is said to have declared, "The Father did not spare the gift of His Spirit on His Son." In other words, the Father gave EVERYTHING to Jesus, SPARED NOTHING, giving all that He is and has to Jesus, all that His Holy Spirit of Love is. Nothing held back, all that could be given was given.............................................................................................................At the end of Jesus' life, the last thing He is said to have said is: "Father, into your hands I commend MY SPIRIT." Note that each gives to the other the Holy Spirit; the Father at the beginning of Jesus' mission; Jesus at the moment He finishes His mission. Everything Jesus had and was, He gave to the Father. At that moment His life among us was complete. He gave from His Divine depths, His Divine Spirit to the Father just as the Father gave from His Divine depths, His Divine Spirit. The mutual giving and receiving, the knowing and being known, the loving and being loved that took place between Father and Son is their relationship, is the Holy Spirit, the One who holds together the entire story and meaning of Jesus' mission, which is to bring us with Him into this same quality and dynamic of life where we are total given to each and all, giving who we are, our total selves. Like Jesus and the Father with each other, we are destined to give everything we have and are. Our everlasting joy will be characterized by this same kind and quality of exchange of total mutuality, by our knowledge of and total love for each other. It is more than we can imagine, but for those who long for God, who at times ache for this depth of relationship, they can see this possibility coming, as "through a glass darkly" and at a distance. ......................................................................So, in His final moment, with what breath He had left, Jesus made the most beautiful gesture any human can make with his or her life: loving completely to the end all that is of God, giving one's all. I think there is nothing more beautiful among us humans than being around someone who has this attitude, this way of living his or her life, and is so given, not self-centered at all, but again, so given. This was supremely so with Jesus. And the moment of His dying, the moment He says these last word are very, very beautiful to me. It seems to me we really do not become our full self unless and until we live with this kind of spiritual freedom and depth, free from all fear and self-centeredness, loving with our whole heart and mind, soul and strength............................................A very blessed and enjoyable Easter to all of you who read this. Bernie Owens

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Dear Friends, It is Thursday afternoon here, less than an hour from the time to celebrate the Passover of the Lord in today's Eucharist. The meaning of that gift, Eucharist, is so profound. When a person gives all they are and have, especially when they know they are about to die and are saying goodbye to the people who mean the most to him or here, one cannot help but be moved. I am blessed this year to lead this celebration, this sacred event for what I anticipate will be about 70-80 people. Twelve have volunteered to have their feet washed, and four of us will dry. I am the only priest among them; most of the volunteers are African nuns. Almost all of the music will be in Swahili, which I do not understand, but for this I do not need to understand. I will read the Gospel selection and give the homily. Those will be in English! Ha!....................................................................................Now to the sixth installment of reflections on the seven last words of Jesus: "It is finished." John 19:30. After saying those words he put his head forward and the Gospel writer says, "He gave up his spirit." ....................................................This cry, "It is finished" is not just a statement that all is over and that he will now die. Rather, it is a cry of triumph. It means, "It is completed". What he literally says is, "It is perfected." At the beginning of the Last Supper John, the Gospel writer, tells us that "having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to perfection." On the cross we see the perfection of love............................................................................................ I hope that all who read this can admit to having had dreams of perfect love, love that is utter and complete. When we are young especially, but also at other times of life, we can be infatuated and we may think that no one has ever been so totally in love as us. Many people who marry feel sure on their wedding day they are at the beginning of eternal bliss, but as time goes on they usually mature about this question. Experience tells them that the honeymoon ends. They soon discover that they are much the same, remaining much the same self-centered person as they were before. So too their beloved, not quite so fantastic either. He or she may be self-centered, have a terrible sense of humor, snore in bed, or have other irritating habits. Was their dream of perfect love just an illusion? Do we become cynical??.................................................................These words of Jesus quoted above invite us to carry on seeking to love perfectly. We will arrive at that fullness of love in the end and at the end. In fact each of these sayings of Jesus shows us the successive steps in the deepening expression of his love for us. "Forgive them for they know now what they do." In these words he does not even address us. He talks to his Father. "Today you will be with me in Paradise." This is a more intimate love. It is addressed to us, but from above, as a king. "Behold your mother, Behold your Son." This is a further step toward closeness, addressed to us not as a king but as our brother. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This is so deeply intimate that he has entered into our very souls and embraced our own desolation. But the perfection of love is in the words, "I thirst." The fullness of love comes when Jesus begs for something from us and accepts it with gratitude. Now his love is complete. ...................................................................................................The soldiers give Jesus what they have, some sour old vinegar. It probably tasted disgusting but it is what poor soldiers drank and so they shared it. The could not afford decent wine. Jesus accepts what they have to offer. At the feeding of the 5,000 Jesus asked the disciples what they had to give to the crowd and they reply, "Just five loaves and two fish." It is not much. It is all they had and so it was enough. Faced with our hungry world with millions who starve, we may not feel that we have much to give. If we give what we have, then it will be enough. ...................................................................The perfection of love comes when we receive the gift of the other person as he or she is. They might not be quite what we had dreamed of. They may be less intelligent, less witty than we had hoped. They will certainly one day be less beautiful. We dreamed of first-growth Merlot or Cabernet and perhaps what we got was just old vinegar. If we can accept that gift with gratitude, then our love will be on the way to perfection..............................Perfect love is possible and we see it on the cross. If we love at all, then God's perfect love can make its home in our fragile and faulted loves. If we accept to love the other person as they are, without complaint or blame, then God's perfect love will make its home in us. ................................................................................................... Bernie Owens PS. Over 100 people jammed our chapel for our Holy Thursday Eucharist this afternoon. All went well including the music, most songs in Swahili, with drums, the footwashing, and the procession of the Blessed Sacrament throughout the chapel immediately after the mass. Very moving!

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Fifth Installment: "After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, 'I thirst'." John 19:28...........................................................................................Early in John's gospel Jesus meets the woman from Samaria at Jacob's well and says to her, "Give me a drink." At the beginning and the end of this rather long story Jesus asks us to satisfy His thirst. This is how God comes to us, as a thirsty person wanting something that we have to give. God's relationship with creation is entirely that of gift. To be a creature is to receive one's being as a gift. God wants to be in friendship with us, and friendship always implies equality. And so the one who gives us everything invites us into a friendship of equality by asking for a gift back, whatever we have to give. Most of all God wants us, our unique self. Usually we think that reaching God is hard work. We must earn forgiveness; we must become good, otherwise God will disapprove of us. But this is not correct. God comes to us before we have ever turned to Him. God thirsts for our love. The same desire He had on the cross is the same He has now and shall have until the time of the last soul to be saved is in His bliss. ......................................................................There is something embarrassing about admitting that you long for someone when the other person does not fully reciprocate. You feel foolish and vulnerable admitting that you love more than you are loved. The moment you own up to your longing, then you become open to rejection and humiliation. Yet this is how it is with God. God is overwhelmed with thirst for us and for our love, and yet He must put up with the occasional rather condescending pat on the head, "Oh, it is Sunday, we had better go and visit God," as if God were a boring relative. So when we find ourselves more loving than loved, then we are in the position of God and maybe have a better sense of what God endures and risks, all for the sake of receiving what only we can give, our own self, our love........................................................................ But we too are thirsty. Maybe we do not really thirst for God as yet. Maybe we only have little thirsts: for a bit more money, for companionship, for success at work, etc. If these are our little desires, then we must start there. The Samaritan woman wanted water and so she went to the well and there met Jesus. If we are honest about our little desires, then they will lead us to Jesus too. We will learn to become thirsty for more, even to become thirsty for God who thirsts for us. Most people think of religion as about the control of desire. Desire is dangerous and can be disturbing, and so religion helps us tame it. But traditionally this has not been the teaching of the Church. We are invited to get in touch with our deeper desires, to experience the power of God in our depths, to let our deeper desires be opened up and released, as happened to the woman at the well. There is so much more of life for each of us to choose and live......................................... ....................................................Thirst is a very fundamental experience, probably because our bodies are largely water. Dehydration is the seeping away of our very being, our substance. We feel we ourselves are evaporating. So often the last desire of those who are dying is for something to drink. It also stands for that deepest thirst of our souls for the One who gives us substance and being at every moment and who promises eternal life: "Oh, God, my God, you I long for, for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you, like a dry weary land without water." Psalm 63 ...............................................................................................On the cross the dying Jesus asks you and me for the gift of water. But soon afterward He will die and His side will be opened, and out will pour living water. He will unlock our own spiritual depths and richness if we take the time and allow ourselves to be attracted to Him, lifted up on the cross. (See John 3:14; 12:32; 19:34) As He said in the temple, "If anyone thirsts, let him/her come to me and drink. Anyone who believes in me, as the scripture has said, 'Out of his/her heart (the actual word is belly) shall flow rivers of living water'." John 7:37-38 Bernie Owens

Sunday, April 9, 2017

The Fourth installment: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Mark 15:34 The first three sayings dealt with forgiveness, happiness and then the birth of community, in that order. This saying or words deal with pure desolation. It is a cry of pain and loneliness. Is it a question without an answer? Is there anything to be said at all?? This is more than the absence of someone whom one loves. Rather, it is the collapse of all meaning, as if the center of your life had been sucked out and you are left hovering over a void......................................................................................................... Few of us will ever have to endure such utter desolation, but there may have been moments when we feared being swallowed by the void, and when our lives appeared to be without sense or meaning because God had gone. In such times proofs of the existence of God are of no great help. Words are rather empty. ................................................................These words quoted above by Jesus come from Psalm 22. He very likely knew it by heart, from memory. Jesus took these words and made them his own. He embraced that experience of desolation and shared it. Even this experience of God's absence is somehow brought within God's own life by going through it. No one can say, then, to God: "you don't know what I am going through." In Jesus God says, "In Him, my son, who is your brother, I have been and am there with you through it all." ......................................................................................... Sometimes we have to be with people who are faced with a suffering that seems pointless, dumb and meaningless. We may have lived such moments ourselves. Someone we love may have faced death by cancer, that they were in the prime of their life, or we may lose a child in an accident and see a loved one early in life become disabled. We may suddenly discovered our lives are ruined physically or financially. Someone may ask us, "why? why? where is God now in all of this?" And we may be very insecure in realizing we have nothing to say to these questions. All the pious words that come to our lips sound worse than empty. All that we can do, then, is to be there, and trust that God is there as well. I have had hints of such and chosen to sit still during my morning prayer saying nothing, thinking nothing, just holding in my hands that were resting in my lap a crucifix that was given me on the day I became a Jesuit (1961) I felt a sense of identification and tried to center myself during a time of terrible, relentless pain from great hurt to my soul. In time, over some days, this helped and I calmed down and regained my emotional and spiritual balance.................................................................................................. I have been with Jesuits from Rwanda who are students at our nearby seminary in Nairobi. One of them when driving me back home from a class shared with me that he had lost all of his family in the 1994 genocide. This pretty well stopped any further conversation between us during that ride back home. This moment in hearing of such a loss for this young priest-to-be reminded of my visiting El Salvador 19 years ago and seeing photos of six Jesuit confreres having their skulls blown wide open after being surprised by soldiers coming to their residence at the University of Central America at 5 in the morning and making them lie face down on the grass of their backyard and take a bullet in the back of their heads. The photos I saw made me hyperventilate and quickly leave the room; I had never before witnessed anything like that nor since. I said later that TV shows that re-enact murders make everything look so anticeptic, so clinical compared to these pictures of horror. They were horrifying and shocked me so suddenly. This is the closest I have gotten to mass killings and monstrous evil. I have heard of others being unable to talk for quite a time after witnessing something like this, and then weep and sob at the stories they heard and the things they saw..................................................... I wonder whether anyone at the cross on the day Jesus died had any similar reaction, either in that moment or in their memories that welled up later and haunted them. To be exposed to something like this makes me be all the more awed by what Jesus embraced in his experience on the cross. In Him God chose to be there for each and all of us when our moment of terrible pain comes and a sense of loneliness overwhelms us and we feel forsaken. What Jesus went through embraced the worst any human can go through, so it seems to me. If one has faith in this kind of God, then one has the assurance of never being forsaken, no matter the suffering, even if one feels forsaken. Bernie Owens

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Dear Friends, Here is "installment" #3 regarding the last seven words of Jesus. I hope my efforts are worth it!! This is taking some time, yet I find great meaning in this and hope it enriches your experience of Holy Week andEaster........................................................................................... The third set of words of Jesus is spoken to His mother and closest friend and youngest disciple, John. He says to His mother standing at the cross, "Woman, behold your Son." And then to John,, "Behold your mother." There is so, so much meaning in these words and they say a lot about who we are to Jesus and to His mother. .....Let us look at this. Good Friday saw almost everyone of Jesus' friends go into hiding. Judas sold him out; Peter denied him three times, and most others ran for fear for their lives. All of Jesus' efforts to build this special community seemed to fall apart. But in these words to his mother and to John we see this community coming into being at the foot of the cross. His mother is given a son in his closest friend, and the beloved disciple is given a mother. .....................................................................This is not just any community. Rather, it is our community; it is the birth of the Church, our spiritual home. Note that Jesus does not call Mary "Mother" but instead "Woman. This is because for Jesus in that moment she is the new Eve. The old Eve was the mother of all living beings. This is the new Eve who is the mother of all who live by faith. So this is our family, the place where we realize that Mary is our mother and John is our brother. Why is our new family born at the foot of a cross? Because what breaks up human community is hostility and accusation. We are hostile to others because they are not like us: black or white, Russian, Chinese or Syrian, Jewish or Muslim. They are people of homosexual orientation, political liberals or conservatives. Too different! We want to deport them or force them out of our neighborhood. Societies are too often built upon exclusion. We seek scapegoats who can bear away on their backs our fears and rivalries............................................................................At the cross Jesus takes upon himself all our hostilities, all the accusations which we make against each other. He is the "stone which the builders rejected but has become the cornerstone (of this new family)." (Psalm 119) So yes, Jesus is among us as one who is cast out, expelled. We have to be willing, then, to look at who in today's society do we want to accuse and expel, deport and exclude--in the nation, among our relatives or siblings, in our parish? Whom do we blame for the ills of our society or nation or family, for our own pain? To be a Christian, to take seriously being a follower of Jesus, is to recognize that at the foot of the cross our family is born and no one can be excluded from it . . . no one. We are brothers and sisters of each other. Do we really believe that? These are not just honorary titles. In Christ we share the same blood, the blood of the cross. Has this hit home yet for us?? To call someone your brother or sister is not just to state a relationship; it is the proclamation of reconciliation. When Joseph who was sold by his brothers into slavery but later ended up in Egypt as an important governmental figure and revealed himself to his brothers when they were desperate for food and protection for their families, he says to them, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt (Genesis 45:4) It is a statement of a healing truth............................................................................ In our world today, especially in the West, our Church, our family that is, is quite divided and polarized and needs people who will be courageous as Joseph was toward those who failed to love him. ................... Mary and the beloved disciple (he represents you and me) are brought to the cross by their love of Jesus. But their loves are different, that of a mother and that of a closest friend. Yet they have become one family in which there is no competition nor rivalry. The Church welcomes, embraces all kinds of very different ways of articulating the Christian faith life. Each of us is brought to Christ by a different sort of love. And often we miss recognizing our God in the love of another person. We can dismiss their faith as traditional or progressive, as romantic and too mystical, to intellectual or abstract. We may see it as a threat which we must deal with by expulsion. But at the foot of the cross we find each other as family. We are challenged to reach across all the boundaries, hostilities and suspicions that divide human beings and say, "Behold my brother, behold my sister." ........................................What about our ordinary families, then, the parents who gave us life, the people we marry, the children we beget, the fellow religious we live with in community? A family or community that is genuinely Christian goes beyond its natural boundaries and discovers other brothers and sisters in those who are not their relatives or kind. A family is supposed to form us to belong to humanity and more and more to see as Christ saw when hanging on the cross for us all.................................................................................................. Goodnight, and a very blessed Holy Week to you all. Bernie Owens

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Good evening, dear friends. ............................................................................................................ I promised another "installment" on the seven last words of Jesus. Here are some reflections on his second statement, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." Luke 23:34.............................................. This pitiful thief in his dying moments recognizes Jesus as a King, humiliated and powerless though he be. What this implies is that Jesus promises us that we will attain happiness, that it is going to happen. Every human being as a child of God is destined for such and all the powers that threaten this ending of our journey will not prevail. Happiness is not an emotion that we may or may not have. It is being alive. We will attain this as our destiny and nothing can stop that because of who Jesus is. There is no power anywhere that is able to contradict or prevent that, not even our physical, earthly death, whether it be peaceful or tragic and violent. We live in a society that is so preoccupied by the search for happiness. We live in dread of all that might threaten that happening: loneliness, the collapse of relationships, failure, poverty, disgrace. This statement of Jesus allows us to rejoice because of who Jesus is and because of his reassurance to the thief and, by implication, to any of us who trust Jesus. We simply need to receive this gift when our time comes to receive it................................................................. The Gospel text actually does not say Thief when describing the two on either side of Jesus, only that they were "wrong-doers." I suppose that makes it easier for us to identify with this wretched man. Still, it makes much sense to refer to him and the other as thieves since at least this one of them knew how to get hold of what is not his. He pulls off the most amazing theft in history. He gets Paradise without paying for it. As do we all. We just have to learn how to accept gifts.......................................... God is throwing happiness at us all the time We have to learn to keep our eyes open and our hands too so that we can catch it when it comes, like a ball thrown to us in a game. In a true sense, we are being bombarded with God tossing happiness at us, if only we can be quick-eyed enough to spot and catch it......................................................................................................... Let us look a little deeper at what is this happiness. Some people have a really poor, shallow sense of what constitutes happiness. So let us look deeper. The Gospel's description of the baptism Jesus underwent at the hands of John the Baptist is described as a profound soul-stirring moment for Jesus. He "heard" God saying, You are my beloved in whom I am well pleased. This very human moment for Jesus, encountering His heavenly Father loving him so much, reflects the heart of the life of the Triune God, the Father's delight in the Son and in turn the Son's delight in the Father; that ongoing life of complete mutuality is the Holy Spirit. A 14th century Dominican mystic, Meister Eckart describes the joy of God in this holy exchange among the persons of the Trinity to be like the exuberance of a horse that gallops around the field, kicking up its heels in great delight. He says the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs at the Father, and their laughter brings forth pleasure and that pleasure brings forth joy, and that joy brings forth love. Wow!! All of what Jesus is about, according to all four Gospels, is that we are invited to find our home and joy in that happiness of God. God says to each one of us: I am so glad you are. My plans for the world would not be complete without you. I want you to be part of my joy, of my life." This frees us to be in God's unconditional acceptance with all of our unfinished business, with our weaknesses and failures. So, in a real sense, we are no different than that good thief, with the opportunity to "steal" heaven, so to speak, yet really it being offered to us freely and without cost, before we would even think of stealing it.....................................................So God takes pleasure in all we are. This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ. He eats and drinks with tax collectors and the prostitutes of his day, those considered the scum of his society. Until we know this first and most important truth, then nothing else can be understood. We will never be really happy until we know this in the depths of our being. Do you wonder why so many people do not seem to be happy???................................................................................................... This happiness we are talking about is compatible with sorrow. All the most joyful saints also had their times of sorrow. Francis of Assisi was a man filled with this joy, yet he bore in his body for the last two years of his life the stigmata, i.e., the five wounds of Jesus. What a profound mystery. I cannot help but think many women who have born children know what I am talking about when they see in their own bodies the price they have paid to have children and raise them.................................................................................................... So happiness means that we share God's delight in humanity. Like God, we choose to be invested in life, not in a narrow focus of seeking our own personal welfare and the false sense of happiness it gives us after promising what only God can give. This means we have to share in God's sorrow as well at the sufferings of his sons and daughters. We cannot have one without the other. Sorrow hollows out our hearts so that there is space in which God's happiness and joy can dwell. The opposite of happiness is not sadness but being stony hearted, refusing to let ourselves be touched by other people. It is putting on armor that protects us from being involved and moved, being too busy to notice. To be happy, we have to be vulnerable, to be willing like God to get involved in what often is life in all of its messiness and problems and feeling overwhelmed at times. Happiness and sorrow free us from getting trapped in our own little, ultimately boring world, our self-made hell. The good thief chose in his finest moment to trust the person of Jesus and now lives forever in the resurrection. I truly look forward to meeting him someday on the other side and hear the details of his story leading up to that amazing final moment of his life. The meaning of our lives is something else, isn't it!!..................................................................................................... Bernie Owens

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Dear Friends, I write on Sunday evening, April 2, two weeks to the day before Easter. I want to tell you briefly about a funny incident that happened to me earlier this past week, and then pass on to you a summary of some very meaningful reflections on the first of Jesus' seven last words spoken in his last hour or two of his earthly life. It is my hope to give similar summaries of the other six words on this blogsite over the next two weeks................................................................................................................................. First, the funny incident. Last Wednesday, late morning, I was sitting in my high-back chair at my desk and looking intently at the screen of my laptop computer. There was the usual pleasant weather outside, so as I always do, unless it is raining, I had my windows open, and so too the door to my room on the opposite side of the room. Doing this gives me good cross ventilation. The open door leads out to a long grassy area and flowers that separate our Jesuit living quarters into two wings. The windows in my room are almost full length windows that reach nearly to the ceiling and then down to a lower counter cut in a shape to match the bay window arrangement. So the windows start around three feet above ground level. While I was reading intently what was on my computer, suddenly I noticed from the corner of my right eye a shadow. I first thought it was one of the cats that roams our grounds. Two or three times one of the cats has come into my room, slowly, carefully. But this shadow darted in and behind my chair. I then quickly looked left and noticed scampering out my door a lengthy slender monkey, with light brown hair and graced with a very long tail. As quickly as it had entered, it was gone, out into our court yard and probably looking for other members of its family of monkeys visiting our mango grove and glutting themselves on the many ripened mangos. (Don't worry, we have been getting our share of very tasty mangos. They are so very good eating!) I think he (or was it a she?) saw from outside my windows a quick way to get to the courtyard and used my room as a quick passageway. ................................................................................................................ OK. Now to something more seasonal, the first of Jesus' last words spoken from the cross. I have to say ahead of time that what I am writing is inspired by what I have been reading from Fr. Timothy Radcliffe's little book, "Seven Last Words." He is a British Dominican priest and a very gifted writer. I have found much of what he writes to be quite meaningful. I pass along these gems to you in hopes you too will find them meaningful and conducive to prayer in these last two weeks of Lent......................................................................................................The first word of Jesus from the cross is: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do." Luke 23:34 Just amazing, before the crucifixion, before all the insults, forgiveness is offered. And so too in our own lives, before we sin, forgiveness is offered. How shocking! How easy to abuse by presuming such from God! At the same time how embarrassing!!! God's mercy does not trivialize our lives and actions. God takes seriously what we do and how we choose. How could He not?? His beloved Son was crucified! Sin does such things! But loving mercy is infinitely stronger and more lasting than sin. That is why Easter Sunday follows Good Friday, why forgiveness overcomes our evil following from our self-centered choices and petty selfishness. It makes the dead live and the ugly beautiful. Forgiveness enables us to dare to face what we have done. We dare to do this not to feel awful but to open our lives to this re-creative love of God. It makes all that was sterile and barren to be meaningful because in forgiveness God brings what was cut off by selfishness back into His Heart and thereby redeems it, reconnects it to Himself. ................................................................................................. Jesus asks for forgiveness not just for those who murdered him but also for those who were being crucified with Him. The two thieves stand for the millions of people throughout history who have been crucified in such a variety of ways. We have to ask ourselves: who are the people we are now crucifying by the way we structure the world economy, called globalization, and the poverty it is producing? Who are we crucifying through our violence and war? Whom do we wound even within our homes? Because we know that forgiveness comes firs, then we can dare to open our eyes to all of this. Forgiveness means that our sins can find their place in our path to God. No failure, then, need be a dead end. Instead, it can be, if we accept forgiveness, something about which we will be able to say: "O happy fault." because paradoxically it opened us to coming closer to Christ. .............................................................................................................. There is told the story of a Japanese artist painting a vase with a beautiful picture of a glorious mountain on it. Then one day someone dropped the vase and it shattered into many pieces. Slowly the artist glued all the pieces back together. And to acknowledge what had happened to this vase, its broken history, he lined each joint with a thread of gold paint. The vase turned out to be even more beautiful and admired than it was before.