In an article published in the latest issue of Today’s Marist magazine, Fr. John Bolduc, s.m., a Marist priest who taught at Notre Dame High School in the '60s and '70s, discusses change and how we as a society, a church and a religious order can look to Mary for solace. Bolduc currently serves in campus ministry at Marist School in Atlanta, Georgia.
Somehow in God’s creativity, Mary’s Spirit will always be incarnate
On change and our being there
By Fr. John Bolduc, s.m.
Change is a fact of life. Cemeteries generally are static places. As Heraclitus is supposed to have said, we are not able to step into the same river twice. The water of the second time has changed. Change is a fact of life.
This is mightily resisted by every fiber of our being; by self-interested forces in society. We want permanence. How hard it is to realize our footprints are always only short-lived marks of sand.
So we plan the future. We are anxious about disappearance. We study actuarial charts. Will the next sixty years in the Church bring as much change as the past? Of course, not all resist change; many want to understand it, prepare for it and accommodate to it. Might not “preparing” for the future be our way of denying it, controlling it, resisting it?
The Marist vocation is to imitate Mary; not in accidentals but in Spirit. A high understanding gave her knowledge of the future, freedom from death. The experience of death casts a shadow over all human consciousness. Everything comes to an end. Those who are comfortable with such an all-knowing, deathless woman intend to do her honor, but sap her of her humanity. The unknown is the juice of creativity, and death’s long shadow makes every moment urgent and more precious.
Was Mary not the woman who did not understand a thing? The angel left her, precisely when most needed. She was alone. Later, when she went to take her boy away because he seemed out of his mind, heading toward catastrophe, she heard him disorient her whole existence. She was a Hebrew girl with a special covenantal, chosen relationship with God. Jesus pointed to those who do the will of his Father, called them brother and mother and sister. His was not a tribal, blood-related, ethnic, racial communion. His family was the whole human race without prejudice or bigotry. In Jesus’ life he spoke with women and let them touch his feet; he created an oxymoron: Good Samaritan. Why do we shy away from calling racism racism? It is the brush with which we paint our history. Us and Them. Those who do the will of my Father are my family now.
Can we envisage a world without racism? Can we even admit the tribalism, prejudice, bigotry, racism in our own? The Christ of Mark, occasioned by his mother’s intervention, swapped Cain and Abel’s fratricide and the tower of Babel for the possibility of a new communion of humanity.
How do we address the future with this woman? Our monuments to ourselves will crumble. Our institutions, edifices, plans and grand schemes will crumble. Where was this woman? She never brought attention to herself: she pointed to another, the Other. She was with. She was truly a woman, but this was not a woman’s thing – it is a believer’s. To accompany, to be present to, to be with, a companion.
Where is God in our history of slavery, the Inquisition, the Holocaust? Where is God today in the world of greed, unequal distribution of power, systems that guarantee that the poor will never rise, where hunger persists while people throw tons of food away? Where is this woman? The same place she was when her son was killed; when she did not know why or how. She was there, she accompanied, she was with.
The absence of God may be the only path to the presence of God. The God of our ambition, of our imagination, of our gaps must die. The comfort of a God who will guarantee the success of our endeavors does not exist. Where we think God is may only be an illusion; where we think God is not may be the mystical presence. We have no right to think of the future without remembering Nagasaki and Dachau, the Church’s sanctioned slave trade. So where was the Church in this? Where is the Church? Where will the Church be? We cannot think of the Society of Mary without thinking of the Church; we cannot think of the Church without thinking of the world. We begin with humbleness. There never is, there never was, a place for arrogance, triumphalism, or divisive superiority. She did not know why or how. She was there.
Only a fool would pretend to understand where the Church will be in 20 years. Will there be more vocations? Will there be a cyclical return to the past?
What will we do if women become priests? What will we do if conservatives roll back the vision of Vatican II or Pope Francis? What will consecrated life be like if celibacy is not required for priesthood? What will we do if Latinos in the United States abandon the Catholic Church and flock to non-Anglo sects? What will the Society of Mary look like then?
Somehow these anxious questions seem so much about “me” when Mary seemed so little about herself. There may even be a touch of fear in our anxious questions. But where love is and faith is, is there fear? Is it for us to know? It seems arrogant to presume to think we have a right to know.
Mary accompanied the beloved disciple (us). Her new family. Accompaniment is a hidden adventure. It means sharing, listening. It refrains from comparisons which imply inferiority/superiority. When our lens is focused on our way, culture, language, we never see the other. Ministry is not self-conscious, self-referencing, self-promoting.
A business model may project self-promotion as a value. That surely is not her Spirit. Visiting a mission in Nicaragua, run by Amigos for Christ, students dug a ditch bringing water to a village. The students worked alongside villagers. There was no sign saying, “This is a project of Amigos for Christ.” Why? Because when completed it would be owned by the community/village, not Amigos for Christ. It was not a condescending giving-away of materials from the North – it was a sharing in the laughter of village children. Big, beautiful churches built by foreigners, unable to be maintained by locals who never owned them, are crumbling monuments to builders. Poor folks humble themselves for a bag of rice on Sunday, donated by well-meaning dependency-creating givers. When Jesus asked the woman at the well for water, he put himself in a subordinate role. The receiver is lower than the giver. Jesus was receiving; this is respect. Amigos does not give. It is companion. Ministry receives, does not give.
We cannot step into the same river twice. The future is in the Creator’s imagination, not in triumphs from the past.
It is the spirit of His Mother we try to imitate, not the accidentals of her style; her being, not her doing, sprung from a fountain of trust. It was deeply rooted in peace. She occasioned a nontribal view of the covenant, something new then, new today if seriously considered. She lived with uncertainty, but gave no proof of anxiety. She remained present to the son given her from the cross (us), at the very moment when her Son/God’s Son died. As long as the News of the resurrection is preached, her way will be good and new. Somehow in God’s creativity her Spirit will always be incarnate. It may be that Marists have nothing more to give, other than by being there – what someone called Dasein … human existence.
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About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. The school's upper division enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower divisions enroll students in jr. kindergarten through grade eight. All three divisions are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school's home page at www.ndpma.org.