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PAGE 5 — January 4,1973
Wonder
BY SISTER JANAAN MONTERNACH, OSF
Only a -few days before writing this article, I was caught
emotionally in the untimely deaths of two people I knew well -
a 44-year-old father of six children who had a fatal fall and a
37-year-old nun who was in a bus accident. Why did this
happen?
I allowed myself time to play with the question because
“death” for me, is a constant source of the deepest kind of
wondering. It’s a mystery shared by everyone, rich and poor,
yet hardly penetrated in the practical order. It’s an ambiguous
experience that, if pondered enough, has the power to deepen
one’s faith and hope in God’s presence and his plan. Somehow
death is both the culmination and the beginning of the
WONDER-ful.
Almost simultaneously with the deaths of Dick and Sister
Shirley Marie, one of my favorite six-year-olds was receiving
blood transfusions. Her health is such that the unexpected has
always been much more normal than the expected for this
lovable freckle-faced red-head. The kind of wondering her
parents do is closely related to hope and is exercised in a
complete ACCEPTANCE of whatever develops and whatever
happens. The reality of God is enlivened in my experience each
time I hear Amy’s mother say with utter confidence, “We can
handle it! We’ll manage.”
It is normal to wonder as we come face-to-face with both the
ordinary and the extraordinary. Yet wonder is rather difficult to
measure or describe. Sometimes its a feeling of anxiety
searching for a solution. Sometimes it’s a flight of the
imagination provoked by an idea. Sometimes it’s sheer curiosity.
To wonder is to be really alive. A migraine headache, a
display of hostility, the unexpected bloom or new shoot on a
plant, a manifestation of thoughtfulness, the outcome of an
exam, problems at work or at home frequently create a kind of
response, a kind of conscious acceptance, questioning, or
wrestling with the facts and the ambiguity that could well be
labeled “wondering.” It is a power of the imagination that frees
the wonderer to enjoy, to understand, to change, and to cope.
The Wonder
Of Life
BY FATHER CARL J. PFEIFER, S.J.
One day I was walking down the street as three young people
approached from the opposite direction. Just before we were
about to meet, one of the young men stopped. His eyes were
fixed on the brick wall of a house. I stopped and looked at the
wall, too.
His two friends, a young man and a young woman, joined
him. “Have you every really appreciated a wall?” he asked
them. Quietly they gazed at the red bricks, ran their hands over
the smooth surface felt the rough mortar. They seemed filled
with wonder at how extraordinary an ordinary wall really was.
My first reaction was to smile. It was easy to consider them
sort of odd. Their display of appreciation for bricks and mortar
was certainly unusual. I sensed too that they were overly
self-conscious about their new discovery of the wonder of a
wall. Maybe they were self-consciously playing out a role
expected of them. In any case they went on their way down the
street as I continued my walk in the opposite direction.
As I walked I could not help but reflect on the deep insight
behind their activity, no matter how curious or pretentious their
behavior. There is no doubt that most of us, caught up in the
business and routine of daily life, take for granted the most
marvelous things. We live life as if it were a series of problems to
be solved, hurdles to be passed.
We too readily fail to sense the mystery of it all. We stifle the
innate sense of wonder we exhibited as children.
G.K. Chesterton wrote a marvelous chapter called the “Ethics
of Elfland” in his great book, ORTHODOXY. In it he describes
God as so taken with the wonder of the first sunrise that he
repeats it every morning. Chesterton wrote that perhaps we
would better appreciate the marvel of water in rivers and
streams if all at once it turned to wine and we had no more
water. The marvel of green trees might seem wonderful if for a
time they were changed to red. Perhaps the problem of
pollution is having the same effect as Chesterton’s images.
One of the gifts shared by children, poets and artists is the
capacity to wonder, to recognize the moments of beauty that
fill the world. The capacity to be caught up with wonder at how
extraordinary the ordinary really is allows one to open heart
and mind to the creative presence of God in life. In many ways
wonder is the rich soil in which the seed of faith can mature - a
faith that recognizes and responds to signs of God’s presence in
he world of things and people.
The Bible is filled with expressions of wonder at the beauty
of the stars at night, the power and gentleness of the wind, the
tenderness and strength of human love. The great heroes of
Jewish and Christian scriptures - mostly hardheaded business
people and effective military leaders - were remarkable for their
sensitivity and openness to the wonder of life’s mystery. They
were able to recognize signs of God’s presence and activity in
natural phenomena, and even more in the personal relationships
that filled their lives.
It seems to me that one of the major tasks of religious
education is to enable people - children, adolescents and adults
- to grow in their capacity to wonder. We hold as a doctrine of
our faith that God’s creative activity continues in every
dimension of existence. As Christians we believe that the
Incarnation implies that by becoming man, God's Son somehow
touched and transformed all reality. Our Christian tradition is
filled with the example of great men and women, who sank
their mystical roots in the soil of wonder at the marvel of life.
While parents and teachers need not go about dramatically
staring at brick walls as did the three young people I met on the
street, they can provide a great service as religious educators by
similar but less demonstrative means. Honest, probing questions
can lead people to wonder at the mystery of what so often is
taken for granted.
A camera can be used to increase sensitivity to the beauty
and awesomeness of what we thoughtlessly glance over every
day. Sensitively exploring things with the senses as well as with
the mind, creatively probing and expressing the meaning of
things with paint, crayon, or words, becoming still before the
mystery of birth or death, enjoying good music, literature, art -
all these and other approaches can help open people to wonder
at life’s mystery. Such wonder can open a person to recognize
and respond to God’s presence with faith, hope and love.
To view the process in its most spontaneous sense, a child
provides the perfect model. They wonder about anything and
everything from donuts to daffodils, magically transforming the
commonplace to the extraordinary - every inch worthy of
investigation. A child’s world may truly be a marvelous mystery.
However, for some, it may not be a marvelous mystery at all
-- just a fact of life, a drab or anxious existence which changes
the color of wonder from rosy pink to dark grey. The questions
they ask may consistently lead to misery rather than marvel.
Situations may actually stifle their normal ability to wonder.
Wondering is needed to penetrate life’s mystery. Yet, what
has happened to it in hungry, frightened, tired, unwanted and
sad little faces? And what about its glow in big faces burdened
with insurmountable cares? To look closely at these faces is to
see what might be called, for lack of a better title,
“RHETORICAL WONDERING” - a wondering no longer full
of expectancy - a wondering that has arisen out of the agony of
rejection and disillusionment and which expresses itself in an
attitude of apathy: “This is the way life is” or That’s the way
the cookie crumbles.”
Each of us has a responsibility to make our environment
sufficiently peaceful and healing so that creative wondering is
possible and hope is sustained. Each of us has a call to
sufficiently probe and take hold of what’s right in front of us so
that we can look beyond and help not only ourselves, but also
others to know that God is present and that he is for us. Each of
us needs to practice the art of wondering until we can do it well.
It requires trust and it takes time!
Perhaps the time it takes and the value of taking the time is
best suggested by a poet, W.H. Davies:
What is this life, if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare,
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
“THEY WONDER ABOUT ANYTHING and child is fascinated with a flower in a Wisconsin field,
everything from doughnuts to daffodils, magically (NC Photo by George R. Cassidy)
transforming the commonplace to the extraordinary.” A
Parent and Child: Worship and Wonder
BY FATHER JOSEPH M. CHAMPLIN
Audiences do not usually interrupt my lectures with
applause. Neither the manner in which I speak nor the content
of what I say seems to elicit that type of response. It was, then,
something of a surprise at the Newark Archdiocese’s 1972
Religious Education Convention to witness a significant number
of the sizeable crowd clap enthusiastically when I made this
suggestion: Catholic parents should be firm, tough, definite
about insisting that teenage children living at home worship
each Sunday at Mass.
Throughout my priesthood I have been working with and
writing about young people. In those efforts I did and do stress
that adolescence is a time for cutting away from childish
dependence and becoming a mature, self-reliant adult. It is a
time for parents to let go, to give their boys and girls an
ever-expanding freedom. It is a time for reasoned and
responsible decision-making more than parental command.
However, while all those principles are true, I still believe that
pre-graduation high school students need strong direction in
these days with regard to attendance at the weekly liturgy.
we meet Christ in faith at the Eucharist and celebrate with faith
Jesus’ Easter victory over sin, suffering and death. Sometimes
our faith overflows into our feelings, but not always and not
necessarily. A feeling-less worship may be very, very faith-filled.
Moreover, we give to the Lord because he has so generously
given to us. We may not always appear to “get” something out
of the weekly worship; the issue is: have we put something into
it. Liturgy is for giving, not getting, although God always
returns more than he receives.
“Don’t go to Mass unless you really feel like it.” Words like
these over the past 5-10 years from teachers seeking
understandably to underscore the necessity of personal
willingness on the part of worshipers, may have in truth
undercut the authority of parents and crippled home efforts to
teach teenagers. Struggling to convince a son or daughter about
church on Sunday is hard enough; fighting religion class
instructors over the matter makes the task doubly difficult.
If this sounds terribly outdated and hopelessly reactionary,
the following quote from the December 17. 1971, issue of
Commonweal should prove interesting: The mandatory Sunday
Mass idea, a conservative proposition by virtually all modern
definitions, received some surprising support recently in New
York - from liberal Swiss theologian Father Hans Rung. Rung
commented at Woodstock and later at a press luncheon that if
Rotarians could require of its membership attendance at a
weekly assembly, why not also a church?”
It seems to me that parents who, with hopeless sighs and
wringing hands, allow high schoolers to sleep in and skip Mass
communicate in a non-verbal way these attitudes. They are
saying either we sadly no longer are in charge, or we really don’t
place Sunday worship that high on the priority list, or both.
A few qualifications to these seemingly rigid remarks: First,
unless the parents themselves participate each week, their
strong, insistent words will have a false, phoney ring to them.
Secondly, this imposes an added burden upon the parish and
presumes serious attempts are being made to offer well-planned
and carefully executed liturgies. Thirdly, in severe cases where
more harm would be done than good by such firmness, parents
obviously must act accordingly.
“God gives us gifts without limit (a truth that even reluctant,
skeptical teenagers normally continue to admit) and we expect
you to give back to him at least one hour a week. We don’t
insist that you go to confession or Communion, that you sing
the songs or say the responses. We can’t force you to listen
during the homily. But we care and want you there.
Later, after graduation, it will be a different matter. We hope
then you will want to worship as we do, and will on your own
see the beauty and value of the Eucharist. If you don’t, we will
feel sad about it, but we must and will respect your right and
need to decide for yourself about these things. Now, however,
in high school, we say you must go.”
Isn’t that a dictatorial manner for parents to speak and act?
Perhaps. Doesn’t it take away the wonder and spontaneity of
worship? Maybe. How can someone celebrate the liturgy when
forced to attend? That is possibly the real question.
In some ways this problem of permissiveness about children’s
Sunday Mass attendance stems from an over-humanizing of the
celebration notion in worship. We do in fact celebrate the
liturgy. It is a stepping aside from daily life and solemnly,
joyfully reflecting upon the realities of past, present, future.
Happy enthusiasm and elated feelings are good and have their
function in a liturgical service.
But we come to Mass essentially for an experience in faith;
BY FATHER QUENTIN QUESNELL, S.J.
Jesus told Nicodemus: “The wind blows where it will. You
hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes
from or where it goes.” As a matter of fact, none of us knows
more than Nicodemus about where the wind comes from or
where it goes. Nor do most of us stop to wonder about it, any
more than he did.
The interesting thing is that Jesus wondered. And he
suggested that if we wondered a little more ourselves, we might
understand more than we do about God’s spiritual blowing on
the souls of men. “So it is with everyone that is born of the
Spirit.”
Jesus said: “Look at the birds in the sky.” Do we look? He
did, and he suggests that if we looked too, we might come to a
better sense of how to live witli the gifts God gives us, and to a
new appreciation of how abundant God’s gifts to us really are.
When we look at a flower, are we impressed and overawed as
if we entered a throne-room or a sanctuary? Jesus could look at
a flower that way, and he took the trouble to call it to our
attention: “Not Solomon is all his glory was arrayed as one of
these.”
It takes a fresh and alive mind to live in wonder in this
wonderful world. That’s the kind of mind our Lord had, and the
kind he invites us to cultivate. The parables of Jesus are not just
stories that dropped from heaven. They are stories we all live in
the midst of.
We ourselves are characters in those stories. If we learn from
Jesus to open our eyes to the wonders of the world we have, the
things we handle every day turn into sacraments that keep us in
touch with God. The world is full of windows into heaven, and
we can form the habit of looking through those windows and
marveling at the beauty and the power they display before our
eyes.
Jesus watched a woman ~ perhaps his mother - prepare the
family’s daily bread. The yeast went onto the heavy lump of
flour and water, and a miracle occurred. Jesus was surprised - as
any child would be.
Years later he told us what he saw, and the kitchen baking
became a story of the kingdom of God. A little yeast turns a
dead, sticky mass of flour and water into an active, living batch
of dough, moving, swelling, rising. A little faith works its way
through a man and through a great passive mass of waiting men
and transforms them into a living, rising, growing people of
God. “The kingdom of God is like the yeast which a woman
tock to knead into tree measures of flour until the whole should
rise.”
Who ever marveled that the sun comes up? Who is filled with
wonder that the rain still falls? Only someone to whom it is very
real that these daily “natural” events are the gifts of a loving
Father, like Jesus, for instance. He could tell us to watch the
miracle and be grateful for the gift.
God gives it without reserve and gives it to all of us. He
doesn’t have to. “Your Father in heaven makes his sun shine on
good and bad alike; his rain falls on the just and unjust.” Learn,
then, Jesus teaches us, from the things that happen every day,
the goodness of God and the Father’s will for how we should
treat one another.
“STRUGGLING TO CONVINCE A SON OR
DAUGHTER about church on Sunday is hard
enough. . .” A mother talks to her child during
Sunday Mass in Columbia, Md. (NC Photo).
Look at the world around you, says our Lord. Learn to
wonder at it. Appreciate it for the gift it is. Listen to it speak to
you of God.
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