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

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

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

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.

Dear Friends, Greetings! It is Friday evening, the 24th. For me this date brings to mind the death, the assassination of a man I have admired immensely: Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador from 1977-1980. 37 years ago this evening, while he was praying mass for a young man shot to death by the army, he was himself killed. I had read his biography and traveled with 12 others to El Salvador in March of 1998 to visit his gravesite and see the places where he rose to the challenge of his ministry to speak out for the people of the nation, mainly humble farmers, who were de facto slaves/farm workers for the few very well-to-do families who owned 60% of the land of the nation and needed the hands of these poor people to cut their sugar cane, pick the coffee berries and tend their animals. The economic structure was very similar to what prevailed in the southern states of the USA before the Civil War. That situation led to a civil war in El Salvador because the farmers were being squeezed with so much work and so little pay that they could not afford their own homes nor send their children to school much beyond the 4th, 5th or 6th grades because the children were needed in the fields. The people were desperate; they were "suffocating" socially and economically. Romero heard their cry and he voiced it over national radio each Sunday afternoon to give them courage and call the leaders of the nation to repentance, a change of heart. But this ended up as an assurance that someone from the government or hired by the government would kill him. He knew he was taking a huge risk but he could not live with his conscience if he did not speak up. How could he be the chief shepherd of the church and sit quietly, safely in his home when his people were so oppressed? And so, the fate of the people, so many of them already executed and dumped in the city's garbage dump, became his fate. He saw it coming: sharing in the crucifixion of his people. What was so moving for me during the one week visit to El Salvador was to see his residence, a humble chaplain's quarters at a nursing care center for terminally ill cancer patients. His bedroom was small but enough, and the hallway had a set of closets with glass doors. One could easily see what was inside. What the caretakers of the place had done is to put up front on a hanger the alb or white garment Romero wore under another garment when praying mass. There was one small hole in the alb just above the heart, and that side of the garment was completely covered with dried blood. Quite sobering! I will never forget that. It made it so real for me what a martyr does, witnessing courageously to Christ and the Gospel values. Everyone was in silence as our group walked very slowly through this small house. Then we walked over to the chapel, a two minute walk and again quietly took in the ambiance. I was taken by how small the chapel is. It might hold 200 people if jammed in. Our group had a photo of us all taken in front of the altar. Before we dispersed I took the opportunity to go behind the altar for just a moment and stand on the spot where Romero stood when he was shot. How awesome, and then to look out on the chapel and see how short was the distance from front to back. I then walked to the back and just outside to get a sense of how the assassin was driven up in a Volkswagen, got out, took out his rifle from a case that looked like a musical instrument case, assembled what was a two piece rifle, and walked into the back of the chapel, fired one shot that killed Romero instantly, and quickly got back into the car which someone else drove away. There were maybe 10-15 people at that mass, mostly nuns who worked at the home of the cancer patients. It was just shy of 7 PM in the evening with the evening shadows already settling in. Mr. Delgado is the name of the assassin and he was never brought to justice. I have often wondered whether the memory of this awful incident ever caught up with him and his conscience. A person has to be hardened to a lot of violence not to feel something like this in his or her memory and sleep. Still . . . People who survive combat still experience shock, flashbacks. The truth of our soul wells up from our depths sooner or later!! What I find so amazing about this man is how he met the challenge of his being archbishop in such a conflicted nation and among fellow bishops who were polarized among themselves and thought Romero could be easily co-opted to their side of their conflicts. Romero had been a seminary professor for many years before being named a bishop. He was a man of books as he described himself. He admits in his retreat journals to struggles with his own sinfulness. He was quite ordinary in many respects. But the situation made him become what it forced him to face and speak out about. In less than three years he was a changed man and became a martyr for Christ. His prayer greatly deepened. He suffered horrendously, especially in the last three weeks of his life. He could hardly sleep, thanks to nightmares of his being hounded and eventually murdered. He knew it was coming. He could not run away any more than Jesus could run out of the Garden of Gethsemane before the soldiers came to arrest him. To run away, to keep silent would be to betray his deepest truth, his true self. What an experience to be thrust into such a choice. Jesus sweat blood out of such great fear. Romero had nightmares and trembled with fear. Both felt abandoned by God, the Father. What moves anyone of us to choose death over betraying our soul, to trust God even when we cannot feel his presence? It has to be God. What else is left? There has to be a love for the One you have trusted all your life to be able, even if it involves terrible fear, to choose the relationship with God rather than betray God, your first love, and one's own self. Tomorrow is perhaps, along with Easter, the most awesome feast-day in the Christian calendar. I refer to the feast of Mary conceiving Jesus. That is, what is most amazing is that God became human. Eternity stepped into time and space, and if you really understand the essence of this mystery, God is still doing this inside us all who believe and trust and open the door to Him to come into our lives, to become human again in our lives. Humans don't expect God to do such. The gap between divinity and humanity is infinite. God would never lower himself to such, so we think. Yet, we Christians profess our faith in a God who does such, who is so humble to become one of us and share our lot, the joys and the pains of it all. So, I wish all you who read this a blessed Lent for what is left of it and a happy Easter. I am doing reasonably well at the same time sharing with the locals here in their exasperation over a drought that seems to never end. God help us and the farmers!! I am blessed with the stories and experiences of the retreatants who come here and I get to guide. God is very real. If only more would seek to get that close, to take the time to pray in a concentrated way and develop a close friendship with Jesus and the Father. I guess it is a call and a great gift for those who do respond and thirst for that deeper life. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, I am writing on Monday evening, the 27th of February, a day and a half before Ash Wednesday. I don't have time to write a lot but want to pass on something that happened to me this morning that is so meaningful, and I hope it encourages you in your own faith walk. After breakfast each day I spend 45 minutes quietly in my room sitting in a chair while closing my eyes and trying to be quiet and attentive to the Lord in my depths. Some days I spend a fair amount of energy fending off distractions, some days a lot of distractions, but for most days my attention is in and out with my awareness of God, but on some rare occasions the attention is so steady and so rewarding. And that happened this morning. Why some days are one way and others the other way, I do not know. It is like in any long term relationship: some days are winners and many days are rather ordinary, and then some, thankfully few, are unpleasant or even bad. But this morning's was a winner. And I sensed the push of God to share something of it with you in hopes that this would encourage you in your own journey and search for a deeper, closer life with God. How fitting as we approach Lent.. . ............................................................................................................. So what happened? All I can say is that as I sat this morning in the quiet, having finished breakfast and smelling the cool air of the morning, I went down inside myself but then was taken deeper, very much inside myself to a great stillness and focus, and in this stillness I became oblivious of my body, of my room, totally unaware of everything around me except this very loving Presence deep inside. Is this what is meant by "tunnel vision" or tunnel awareness"? I witnessed no image, no picture, but at the same time I was quite aware of a Presence that was so real and attractive, so "sweet" to my spirit, so utterly beautiful and "right there," completely present to me. I knew it was very important not to speak but to be still, to be attentive, receptive, and to gaze steadily with all the love inside me at what was beyond words. The closeness with this loving Presence was beyond describing, so engaging, so capturing. I trust it was a brief taste of heaven. ......................................................................................................... As I came out of this, I had the sense that underneath all the pain that is going on now in our very polarized, conflicted world today, there is this loving Reality that is most reassuring, telling us that He is with us through it all; that deep down all is well. We are loved beyond our wildest hopes and expectations, and we only have to turn to this loving, completely welcoming Presence to gain perspective, balance, and hope, and claim this gift of His Peace and not let ourselves become afraid and then stumble into speaking with the same kind of contempt and disrespect that characterizes much of the public discourse going on today, especially in the political scene and, I notice, in some sports also (with what is called 'trash talk' that gets really demeaning and violent................................................................................................... So, that is all I have time for now. A blessed Lent to all of you. Please remember in your prayers the many poor people of this young nation who suffer so from a seemingly endless drought. So many animals, so many people are dying. These are some of those now nailed to the Cross of Christ and must feel like He did in his final hours, abandoned without any sense of the presence of His Father, our Father. Bernie Owens

Dear Friends, Friday night again, three weeks since my last post. We are having really summer-like weather here, but the drought continues except for one evening last week we had a four hour rain; it was glorious but too little. We could have non-stop rain for two weeks and then we would be back to normal. So many people in the desert-like northern part of this nation, cattle herders especially, are dying, their animals, the water sources drying up. It is quite serious and sad. In the meantime the government of Kenya is failing badly to provide basic services to its citizens (about 45 million people in this nation). The doctors' strike is still going on, two months now. The private hospitals are overwhelmed with many people rushing there to get some kind of help. Then teachers too are demanding pay when the last agreement between the teachers and government was defaulted on by the government. The government has borrowed so much money and has put the nation into tremendous debt. Tourism brings in a lot of money, but it gets siphoned off by people very high in the government. While many accusations are made, no convictions are made, no one "important" goes to prison. Until this stops, this nation will not be turned around. I am told this disaster is not unusual in most African nations. No wonder it is so difficult to build a middle class, to get basic services going and jobs being widespread. So many people are without work. It is really tough, and national elections are coming up in Kenya in early August. Much of the nation is getting desperate. There is some fear that there could be a lot of violence and some killings like 10 years ago during the national election of 2007 and the days following it. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... One of my retreatants from two weeks ago, an Irish laywoman volunteer for the last 19 years in a rural Kenyan hospital, told me the story of a 9 year old girl who stumbled into their emergency ward during a recent drought. She was scrawny, even starving and muttering, "give me bread, give me bread." The staff did so immediately, and for two days she kept saying this even after being fed bread and other food. But still she died. I am told that when parents from these very poor bush country parts of this section of the world are unable to get food for their children, they abandon them to fend on their own. Life is terribly brutal for some. I am stunned that this little girl was given one life, was born into a very poor family in the dry parts of rural Kenya, and ended her life in this very sad, painful way. How God must deeply love and show pity to children of His like these. I am sure she was given the warmest welcome and is in a joy that she could not find in this world. ............................................................................................................ Tomorrow is the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes. Lourdes is a small village (15,000 people outside of high season of tourists) in the southern part of France, in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains shared by France and Spain. This day has come to mean very much to me. First, it became something of world significance when in 1858 Mother Mary appeared to a 14 year old girl who could hardly read: Bernadette Soubirous by name. On Feb. 11 of that year she, her sister and a girl friend of her age were walking around a pig sty, a cave area not far from a very good size river called the Gave (pronounced Gahv), looking to gather wood sticks for cooking purposes. In a moment in a crevice some 50 feet up, there appeared a beautiful woman in sparkling white with a bright blue band around her waist and a yellow rose on each of her feet. She was thumbing a rosary that was also yellow in color. After Bernadette came to and realized this was not an illusion, she got the courage to make the sign of the cross with the crucifix of her own rosary and started "Hail Mary." With that the Lady disappeared but reappeared some days later. The Lady asked Bernadette to ask the priests of the area to have a chapel built on that site. Over seven month the Lady appeared to Bernadette, 18 times in all she came. Not until the 16th appearance, on March 25, did the Lady say what her name is. Yo soy Immaculad Concepciou" she said, in a dialect mixing Spanish and French, the Lady said, "I am the Immaculate Conception." Bernadette had no idea what that meant. She walked more than a mile to the local pastor's parish house to report what had happened weeks before Mother Mary told her what her name/title is. Th pastor, gruff and abrupt, dismissed Bernadette as some impressionable religious wacko until one day she was able to repeat to the pastor what Mother Mary said who she is. Until then Her mother too thought she was making this up to get attention. The police too were threatening to lock her up. the local mayor, a professed atheist mocked her until he saw with his own eyes, while in a crowd of many citizens surrounding Bernadette, her kneeling in ecstatic prayer and someone holding her hand and passing one of her fingers through the flame of a candle. she was unharmed, completely, and the mayor was shaken to his soul and months later became a believer and one of the strongest apostles of Mary's message and visitation. ........................................................................................................... For many weeks Bernadette did not know the name of this Lady but kept returning at the request of Mother Mary to be present to whatever Mary asked of her. Besides the request to build a chapel there (later numerous churches, basilicas even have been built there) Mother Mary requested a number of times that Bernadette pray for and do penance for the conversion of sinners. In the meantime at Mary's direction Bernadette discovered in the mud of the cave a spring; it began to flow from the rocky cave site, this pig sty, a symbol of the human condition without God. The water is so abundant today and pure. So many bring home Lourdes water to bless themselves each day. From that water over 65 medically verified miracles of physical healings have happened to pilgrims there, Hundreds of other miraculous physical healings have also taken place since 1858. Each year over 5 million people come there. I have been so blessed to be there four times in my life, twice for a day and a half as part of pilgrimages I was leading. Two other times in 2005 and 2009, I went there to spend two weeks and help to hear confessions of pilgrims who could speak English and wanted the healing of that sacrament. ........................................................................................................... ON my last day there I was hearing the confession of a Gypsy, a mother of four children (she told me she had six children but two had died from miscarriages; I loved it that she still was conscious of those two children who did not make it but are so real and present to her and are with God!) Her youngest, a blond beautiful daughter of about 3.5 to 4 years old, wanted to come into the room to be with her mother when her mother was making her confession. The mother asked me whether I had a problem with the girl being in the confessional. I said 'no' and said as long as she was quiet and didn't disturb her mother, we would be fine. We were face to face. The mother assured me her little one would be just fine and quiet. So when we finished celebrating the sacrament I ask the mother, "Why did you and your husband with all your children come here?" She pointed to the little one standing between her legs, speaking no word. I said, "Tell me about it, please." She said, "a year ago we drove from England, took the boat across the Channel, and drove down here to Lourdes for this little one" (pointing to her daughter) She said her little one had been for more than a year wearing braces on both legs and had some crutches. (I am not sure whether her problem was polio or something else.) The mother said, "My husband and I took her to the grotto (where Mother Mary had appeared to Bernadette and where the never-ending spring of water flows.) She said we prayed and offered anew this precious child of ours to God through our Lady of Lourdes. Then we returned home to England and a few days later we took off the crutches (apparently at the child's request) and she walked free. (Of course I am not breathing as I listened to this.) Then she added, "We had to come back here this summer to return to the grotto and speak our deep thanks, to Mary and to God for this extraordinary gift." My friends, how does anyone forget a story like that??!! It is one of my prayers that before I die I may have one more opportunity to return to that very beautiful place and be part of the team of priests hearing confessions there. That place is so profound. The procession of the thousands of sick everyday at 5 PM, the Benediction following prayers and singing in most of the languages of the world, and then the rosary procession each evening once the sun goes down and hearing decades of the rosary in various languages of the world is so moving. Again, over 5 million people come there every year. ................................................................................................................... I need to add that on Feb 11 in 1981, 36 years ago, when my father was full of cancer and had nine more weeks to live, he was praying the rosary by himself. At 4 PM that afternoon he stunned my mother who was in another room but within hearing distance. He said with excitement, "Chum, Chum, come here. Come here quickly!" My mother came right away, and my father, a church going man but certainly not one to espouse the glories of Mary at all, said, "She was right here, right here!" It turned out that he was so comforted from her presence (no words at all) and from that day was able to die in peace over the remaining weeks. He had fought and was so restless about his cancer and discomfort up to then. He had often complained that too much attention is given to Mother Mary at the expense of Jesus. He said after this, apologetically, "I was wrong. Not enough attention is given to her." ................................................................................................................................................................. the message of Lourdes comes down to this: First, it is the gift of poverty--reflecting the manner of how God came to us in Jesus and keeps coming in the poor of our day and to our own self, not in spite of but precisely in and through our own experiences of human poverty, our own needs and powerlessness, our inability to control and with it a call to let go and let God. We are called to let go and let God provide, to lead and guide, to empower, to love us as we are, if only we will accept ourselves according to this truth and learn to receive. Lourdes is also the story of Bernadette and tens of thousands of cripples and sick who come there every year--a very special providence of God, showing what is involved in letting go and letting God. This day is a special day in the Church honoring the gift the sick are to us if we will look and receive them as gift. Their lives remind us on the Man-God who hangs on the Cross for us and blessed us beyond all blessings when He was so helpless and vulnerable. ............................................................................................................Second, we discover true, authentic prayer through the message of Lourdes. Bernadette's experience reveals a God of love and tenderness, a God searching to embrace and converse with us in a heart-to-heart encounter. True prayer is to go beyond the mere recitation of words and to discover the smile of God who loves us, to discover ourselves in loving company with a God of tenderness.................................................................................................. Third, Lourdes means the call to conversion, to realize the true nature of sin and the ugliness of evil and courageously seek a true conversion of heart and be more compassionate toward each other as we realize our common spiritual misery, our need for God, and that we are all loved sinners........................................................................................................ Last, Lourdes means we all together are a very human Church and each of us has a role to play in it, simply, bravely, and lovingly. We are never meant to be just spectators. And it was Mary as the Immaculate Conception who came to Lourdes to remind us all of the Gospel and of a new humanity being established through her Son, a new creation in the making that has already begun with the woman blessed among all others. ............................................................................................................ I close wishing you all a happy Valentine's Day and a strong sense of the gift and love of those you call friends and beloved in your life. May she who is the Immaculate Conception, the patroness of the USA to whom we were as a nation dedicated many years ago and placed under her protection, bless us with her prayers and friendship during this time when when we as a nation are very conflicted and troubled with a spirit of violence and disrespect coming from both the highest levels of government and from many members of the press and other media who cannot, who do not seem to want, to rise above such shameful, demeaning behavior. Bernie Owens