Christine Sunderland

The Family on Pilgrimage: God Leads Through Dead Ends (St. Louis, MO: En Route Books and Media, 2018) by Francis Etheredge

Reviewed by Christine Sunderland

The Family on Pilgrimage is a many-layered collection of poetry and prose with its own family of contributors, enriching the reader’s pilgrimage through these pages. Indeed, this book is a pilgrimage into pilgrimages, and while it is said that in a pilgrimage one prays with one’s feet, I prayed with my mind, heart, and soul, as images followed one after the other, signposts along the way.

In this sense we travel with the author to many places – Francis Etheredge’s own suffering past, his redemptive present, and by inference his glorious future:

“Indeed, that the whole of humanity is on a vast passage through the vortex of time to eternity; and, if it is possible, I hope that passing from this life involves passing through the utter reaches of the universe to marvel, once more, at the magnificent splendour of creation before, finally, meeting the Creator.” (17)

Francis Etheredge welcomes us into his family, to pray alongside, our feet stepping in time. Thus, the book is a family of pilgrimages, each with its own tenor and tone. This is not to say that there are no real accounts of the Etheredge family on pilgrimage – to Milan, Cracow, Loreto – as well as accounts from his children – Grace, Teresa, and Peter. In these journeys, we experience the challenges of this family of ten, as they trust God for their needs.

Indeed, we trust God to meet our needs along the way too. We ask Him to meet us where we are, and this prayer focuses us on Him. And so, as “God Leads Through Dead Ends,” He transforms the apparent dead ends into living ends that glorify our Creator and fill us with joy. As we seek God, searching for answers and healing, we see that each day is a pilgrimage from dawn to dusk, listening for His voice in His Word. We see more clearly friends and relations and hear their voices. We are drawn into creation, into life, to breathe in and out the Holy Spirit in our own time.

And yet as Christians our starting point goes back to the Old Testament and, “taking a new beginning in Jesus Christ, continues into the present.” (9) We seek big answers to large questions: the who, what, and why of life. What are my talents? What is my vocation, my purpose? What is the meaning of life, my life? We “journey into the mystery of God and His Word” (18), “into the Lord’s presence,” “breaking and sharing the Word and the Word of the Eucharist.” (19)

I have often reflected that in the parish church, we journey from Baptism at the entry font to Confirmation and Eucharist at the altar. At the end of our journey in time, we cross into Eternity, our coffin carried from outside to inside, up the aisle to the Real Presence of Christ in the tabernacle. In this pilgrim requiem, the earthly pilgrimage ends and the heavenly one begins.

Such a pilgrimage reflects the love of God, for “we are part of a great exodus: a passing of people from slavery to freedom: from being estranged from others to being fit for friendship: from an unwillingness to live forgiveness to love’s possibility of the gift of eternal life.” (25)

Thus God recreates us, using the experiences in our pilgrimage on earth in time. Francis Etheredge describes how he searched for his vocation, his marriage and family, but he is not “lamenting what did not happen but, rather… reflecting on what does happen: what the Lord in His wisdom is even now permitting to be possible.” (26) Without these decades of searching he would have been a different person and writer.

The Family on Pilgrimage sanctifies the ordinary with the extra-ordinary, our lives with sanctity. We see this in marriage:

“The reality of conversion is not magic… and moves in a mysterious way amidst the warp and weave of actual lives… there is no doubt that the constant help of word, liturgy and community throw light on the ‘everyday’ nature of the Christian Faith and its being lived; and… exposes the truth that Christ is present in marriage in a way that can only be described as constantly turning water into wine.” (cf. Jn 2:5-1) (163)

In this sense our Christian path becomes an ongoing miracle of turning the water of our lives into the wine of sanctity. We are blind but now we see, for Christ tells us, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) What do we see? The truth of our sin, of our need to change course with His help: “God finds us where we are and takes where we cannot go.”

We are embodied words of God, a part of the history of salvation, from the Creation to the end of time. This is the great mystery of being human, a human being, the mystery of being open to life and thus to marriage and children. We are a part of this history, its past, present, and future, the family of God.

And yet radical reformation is sometimes needed. Like the Prodigal Son, extreme measures wake the sinner to his sin and recreate him, giving him hope in this Creator God who recreates from nothing. For God is ever-patient, ever-returning, and just when we are “beneath the waves and time… suddenly His help is understood…” (63) and we learn we are “sinner[s] in need of a saviour.” (86) 

Etheredge speaks of pilgrimages as a time when God commands our full attention, for we are away from the day-to-day distractions of life. I have found this to be true, not only in trips that remove me from my daily life but on a Sunday morning, going to Mass with a pilgrim’s heart, waiting to hear the Word from Him, through the Scripture, through the sermon, through the singing and chants, to hear with my heart what He desires of me, and with this, a further glimpse of who I am meant to be. Just so, a pilgrim may set an hour apart in the evening to pray and listen to God’s voice. It is in the setting apart, the use of our time and attention, that we become pilgrims.

And so in our pilgrimage through life God uses our challenges to complete and recreate each one of us, to become our true selves. It is as if our sufferings are ingredients recreated in glory. We are pilgrims, being drawn through time to eternity, recreated with each step. Every beginning and ending can become bookends for a pilgrim’s prayer, an ongoing invitation to God to be present, to enlighten, to partake in our lives.

Such enlightenment is part of the “vocation of the writer” to speak to today’s culture. As Christ multiplied loaves to feed thousands, He gives writers words to feed thousands, words multiplying when shared. May Etheredge’s words multiply and enlighten our dark, for today our greatest sin is that we are “radically incapable of recognizing the quality of all human beings in the gift of human personhood…”, the right of unborn persons to live.

Pilgrim writers embody words. Just as every life is a growing creation from the moment of conception, with many parts forming the whole, Etheredge cautions that to see ourselves as the potter and not the clay may be a tempting illusion: “What looks to us as a mess and a – wandering all over the place may, in reality, be the indications that our life is being shaped rather more than we are the shaper.” (234) Writers embark on their own pilgrimage, looking to reflect the Maker in their creations, sculpting yet being sculpted.

Yet, Francis Etheredge adds, God gives everyone this creativity through the work they are called to do, and thus writers must ground the truths of God in reality, in the activities of men and women on earth. In this way the family expands into the family of God, the human family in the present day as we step through our lives from conception to death on this earth, and each of us provide the “constant opportunity for God to act in whatever way will bring the good we need.” (243)

And what about the words we choose to use, in writing, in speech? What kind of language will lead us to the true Word? Francis Etheredge closes with this prescient poem:

Bruised or Well-used Words? 

When the heart spikes and the tongue spits 
words through the bashing impact of pain, 
bruised words which disfigure the still discolouring wound, 
– bearing the blunt hurt 
they bludgeon understanding and aggravate grief. 

Left for a while, these prayed, 
aggravated insights evict the venom within, 
becoming middling words, 
like an arrow pulled from the wound, 
too fresh to be anything but singularly painful; 
and yet, the point pulled, 
they start drawing the unforgiving infection: 

the rebellion; the protest; and the vengeful bite. 

Fiction or fact, there is “within and between” 
the truth told in different ways, an exploration, 

now in human history, 

now in an account that goes to places where the heart, 

perhaps too painfully pierced, 

is visited more easily by a stranger to the original experience. 

But well used words, softly saying what hurts but helps, 
alight like butterflies, almost too gently to be noticed, 
trailing evidence of passing into thought the word which 
opens the heart to the Word within the word, 
which knows the words we need 
to hear the truth that heals. (245-6)

Deo Gratias.

Francis Etheredge, Catholic husband, father of 11, 3 of whom are in heaven, is author of 13 books on Amazon. Visit him at LinkedIn and En Route Books and Media

Christine Sunderland is author of seven award-winning literary novels about faith, family, and freedom. Her most recent novel is Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020) about a Christian hermit living in sandstone caves east of San Francisco.

Trinity Sunday, the week after Pentecost in the Anglican calendar, merges life and death and life again into God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This past year we have padded along a pilgrimage path, beginning with Advent and ending with the Trinity season. We followed the birth, life, death, and life again of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as he revealed himself to us, in ways we could better understand God’s threefold nature.

The Holy Trinity, we are told, is all about love, love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit coming at Pentecost, is the Spirit of the Father and the Son, the Spirit of love. He came upon us and continues to come upon us, to dwell within us, to inspire us. He is life itself, and so, from conception to grave, Christians celebrate the life they are given.

The husband of a friend died suddenly last week, and we gathered at St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Oakland yesterday to both mourn and celebrate him with a Requiem Mass. The shock of the sudden death lingers with us, a reminder that every minute, hour, day, is precious. Somehow, the Requiem, with its words of sadness and joy intermingled, helped our grief. For life is like that, both glorious and sober. We live on earth a span of time and then enter the next great adventure, that is, if we have been reborn of Spirit.

The Gospel this morning spoke Our Lord’s words about this rebirthing, this being reborn:

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

We call this Baptism, being born of water and the spirit.

Are we ready? Have we been reborn of the Spirit in Baptism? Has love entered our hearts to take root and produce good fruit? While we do not know the number of our days, or the time of Christ’s return, we do know that our days are numbered and Christ will return. And so we watch and wait, our lanterns lit.

And as we wait and watch, we are cradled by the Church. We sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! /Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee: /Holy, Holy, Holy! merciful and mighty,/ God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.” (266, Reginald Heber 1827) This glorious hymn is based on today’s lesson from Revelation, describing St. John’s vision of Heaven and the throne of God (Revelation 4:1+). 

And so we are rooted in this life, with this vision of God. The Holy Spirit gives us eyes to see beyond this world, for we will travel to Heaven one day, whether we are warned of our death or whether death comes suddenly. We need not be afraid. We need only embrace and celebrate the good news of life and love eternal.

And like John, we are called to share this hope, to encourage this being born again, this “walk in the Spirit.” We are called to gather at the Holy Table each week, to share the Eucharistic meal of life, the Real Presence of Christ. For in this gathering, we know the Spirit flies among us like a dove, like a rushing wind, like the rainbow light that falls through the clerestory windows high above. We sing together, we pray together, and as we do, we are united in the love of the Holy Trinity, this Spirit weaving among us. As we gather, we celebrate life here and life eternal, bathed in the love of God.

The ABCQ of Conceiving Conception, One of the Greatest Transformations in the Whole of Nature by Francis Etheredge (St. Louis, MO: En Route Books and Media, 2022, 199 pp.)

Reviewed by Christine Sunderland

I have often reflected on mankind’s tendency to rationalize thought and behavior, to give reasons – excuses – for the manner in which life is lived, both individually and as a society. We are all people “in relationship” to one another, Francis Etheredge explains, and we must construct ways of living in community.

For this reason, this need to respect one another’s common humanity throughout the world, we seek to forge law and custom that theoretically support human life as lived together.

C.S. Lewis called this moral law the Tau, a deep, indwelling sense of right and wrong that, when we feel others might question our behavior or beliefs, urges us to provide reasons, rationalizations for our actions. We want our conscience to approve or at least look away.

In The ABCQ of Conceiving Conception, One of the Greatest Transformations in the Whole of Nature, Francis Etheredge, Catholic theologian and bioethicist, goes to the heart of this desire as he gives us the ABC’s as well as answers to the Q’s, the questions.

In the ABC’s, he considers the scientific definition of conception, the moment new life is formed, when the egg accepts the sperm, closing upon it. This is the moment of fertilization as well as the moment when God ensouls this new creation, this new life. This is the moment when the person is given the genetic mapping that will propel him or her forward through life, through birth, growth, maturity, old age, and finally, death of the body and release of the soul. The genetic code is set at this moment of fertilization, of conception, the beginning of both being and becoming.

Why, one wonders, is this simple and clear argument met with counter-arguments? Why are there questions, the “Q” of this title? The questions come from the desire to have our way, to trample on others to get our way, to choose our own path regardless of others.

Francis Etheredge challenges the rationalizations given for abortion to be a legal right. One of these rationalizations is viability, the ability for the embryo-child to live independently outside the mother’s womb. Does viability occur at 15 weeks? 20 weeks? Full term? And yet, he answers, the newborn baby wouldn’t meet this standard. Many adults do not meet this standard. Individuals stricken ill or handicapped would not meet this standard of independence.

How has this legalization of abortion affected the human community? Abortion, at full term and on-demand in some States, has become the seedbed of other dark and unstable social ills, causing, I believe, the collapse of the family and leading to mass shootings, criminality, and disorder. For when we turn our back on other living human beings, we turn our back on all humanity, the human community. When we legalize the taking of innocent life, we live for our own pleasure and will.

We live in a world of materialism that reasons we have a duty to ourselves to act in any way that expresses our feelings. Materialism says there are no other values than our own perceived values. Materialism says there is no truth outside our opinions. There is your truth and there is my truth. There is no objective “Tau,” no moral law that mankind is subject to. Materialism says we are only body without soul, only flesh without spirit. We are animals, creations of instinct. We are mere matter, so we don’t matter. Anything goes.

And yet deep down we do not believe this. We make excuses to explain bad behavior, the murder of an innocent life that gets in our way, a child we choose to die.  We believe we must have an excuse for this legalized genocide. We know it was wrong to kill in the past, is wrong to kill in the present, and will be wrong to kill in the future. We make excuses.

I am deeply grateful for Francis Etheredge’s contribution to the debate of when human life begins, particularly in light of the upcoming decision of the Supreme Court regarding Roe v. Wade. Modern science tells us clearly that life begins with fertilization. In this book the science is explained, and we are given the philosophical and theological arguments that complement this knowledge. With great care and conviction, Etheredge leads us through the reasoning to the truth of the moral law and what it means to be human.

We are persons in relationship to one another, Francis Etheredge explains. The family is our first experience of this – mother, father, relatives. We are also the greater human family, and how we treat any one person affects how all persons are treated. We must protect human identity and dignity throughout the world, and we begin by honoring those nearest us.

We begin, Etheredge argues, by allowing human beings, upon conception, the full rights of the human race, the right to “completing human development.” As members of the human race, we do not have the right to treat “the human person as if he or she is a product to be manipulated.” (38)

For science has learned that from the first contact between sperm and egg a new entity is created, the dynamic embryo. This is a “dynamism that unfolds the uninterrupted presence of the person from conception… the first and irreversible moment of fertilization; and, therefore,” Etheredge adds profoundly, “this constitutes a nature sacrament: an outward sign of the inward action of God bringing the whole person to exist from the very first moment of fertilization.” (75, 95)

Thank you, Francis Etheredge, for showing us who we are and who we are meant to be, for reminding us that we are, after all, more than matter for we truly matter:

“As we emerge, then, from our national identities and increasingly recognize that abstract truths about human personhood, that to be a human person is to be a human being-in-relation, need  ‘returning’ as it were to the concrete reality from which they came – we will appreciate more and more that parent and child, brother and sister, aunt and uncle communicate the profoundly interpersonal structure of human identity.” (167)

And lastly, because the human being is formed at the moment of conception, he or she has full right to legal representation from that moment of conception, just as any human being would have such a right. It is “the court’s role to protect all innocent human life.” (181)

Francis Etheredge has made a vital contribution to the human community, for we are the family of mankind and the family of God. We are brothers and sisters accountable to one another, in relationship, a true sacrament of human dignity. We are not alone.

Francis Etheredge, Catholic husband, father of 11, 3 of whom are in heaven, is author of 13 books on Amazon. Visit him at LinkedIn and En Route Books and Media.  

Christine Sunderland is author of seven award-winning literary novels about faith, family, and freedom. Her most recent novel is Angel Mountain (Wipf and Stock, 2020).

I have long loved the Festival of Pentecost, for it is the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, the breath of God, like cloven tongues of fire. This coming of the Spirit of God is the creative force of life itself manifesting at this moment in history.

And thus the Church is born, born of this promised Spirit, promised at the Ascension by Christ, to give these men and women strength to do the work of God on Earth, through the Church, the Bride of Christ. 

The Creator of the world, and of you and I at the moment of conception in the womb, continues to recreate his creation through his Holy Spirit. And so we sang this morning, “Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire,/And lighten with celestial fire…” (217). We desire to be re-created, made anew, given the fresh breath, his breathing, the wind of God blowing upon us, among us, stirring us up.

St. Luke describes the scene, this birthday of the Church, in Jerusalem:

“WHEN the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilæans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judæa, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” (Acts 2:1+, BCP 180)

The Jewish festival of Pentecost (fifty days from Passover) had brought pilgrims from afar, speaking other languages. It was perfect timing for the Church to be born, for God the Holy Spirit to descend upon the apostles. The sound was like a mighty rushing wind; they saw cloven tongues like fire descend upon each one of them. They were given the ability to speak in other languages.

This was a mighty event, to be sure, a moment in human history that would change the world forever. This was a moment that gave mankind the creative force of God the Creator. And with this Holy Spirit we are filled with God, when we pray, when we worship, when we call upon him. 

This creative Holy Spirit continues to recreate each of us and our world. Each breath we take, each day we live, is spurred by God’s life within us. We are in-spired, breathed upon, by God. We need only ask.

When we were baptized this new life came upon us, recreated us. Other sacraments bring the Holy Spirit to us as well, just as the cloven tongues of fire came upon the disciples. We too, experience this transforming recreation of our souls and bodies, not only in Baptism, but in the Eucharist, in Confirmation, in Penance, in Anointing of the Sick, in Matrimony, and in Holy Orders. These are moments in our lives when God recreates us, makes us whole, makes us holy as we were meant to be. (The English Church sometimes calls Pentecost the Festival of Whitsunday, for Confirmations became a tradition on this day, and the wearing of white.)

It has been said that we are People of the Book, along with Abraham’s other descendants, Jews and Muslims. We bring God among us through our stories, many true history, many parables. And it is in this greater story of man, of humanity, that we learn who we are as God’s children.

For he loves us. He shows us ways of knowing him and of loving him back. He shows us ways that he can enter our lives and our hearts. He shows us ways we can find the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He reaches out to touch us as we reach out for him.

This is good news. And we remind ourselves of this good news as we celebrate the drama of salvation throughout the year in ritual and song. We celebrate creation and recreation, the jeweled moments we experience in our span of life in this time, until we arrive at the Heavenly gates and see him face to face.  

I have been memorizing a prayer, and this week I learned the third verse:

“May thy Holy Spirit cover and protect us daily, with mighty angels an prayers of the saints.”

Amen. Come Holy Spirit, come.

Pilgrimage, a Novel, by Christine Sunderland (Waterford, VA 20197: OakTara Publishers, 2007, 176 pages and additional notes.)

Reviewed by Francis Etheredge

“Ask, and it will be given you” (Mt 7: 7)

Historically, pilgrimage was to a place where heaven and earth met; and, indeed, a number of saints travelled in the hope of the will of God becoming clearer as to whether or not to enter a religious order or to found one. There are a variety of pilgrimages in our own time, whether from a single parish to a particular shrine or place of priestly formation. Or, as with the case with St. John Paul II, he began with the youth and families of the world what he had been doing as a Bishop in Krakow, Poland. Thus the youth of the world being called to meet St. John Paul II at a specific venue, as at Denver, Colorado, or families travelling to a destination to be together with other members of the Church in the presence of the universal shepherd, as at Milan or Dublin. Many people go on these pilgrimages to experience the providence of God and to have, as it were, a meeting with Jesus Christ in His word and His sacraments; and, hopefully, to come to a clearer understanding of a vocation, such as marriage, the priesthood, the religious life or some form of the single life.

The book, then, raises a number of questions about the value of a pilgrimage for married couples, whether as part of a large group or not, but certainly with the impulse of spiritual direction inspiring it; and, at the same time, there can be many unexpected signposts illuminating an answer to prayer that is perhaps more of a zigzag than we would like but, as St. Teresa of Avila is reputed to have said,

“The Lord writes straight with crooked lines”.

Thus pilgrimage can be a more specific journey, a priestly prescription of an itinerary for a hoped-for remedy for an unabating crisis, assisted more by a chain of contacts with people who knew the priest who set the wife and mother in motion, as it were, because of a specific need to resolve what has hitherto been unresolved.

Thus it is with this book, a married couple are set in motion by a priest’s response to the woman’s haunting grief; and, therefore, once it is clear what has happened, the book travels a labyrinthine, even tiresome journey through restaurants and shrines, perhaps communicating that irrespective of the purpose and the relative comfort – the elements of prayer and perseverance are still necessary and, just as we can weary of eating if we have overeaten maybe, if we have no habit of prayer, pressing on from place to place can almost exhaust our spiritual response and make it seem that, for all the abundance of good food and wine, interiorly it is as if we are in a desert.

The accompanying husband, then, discovers a limit to his endurance of his wife’s desire to visit one more shrine, one more place that turns up, almost like the gift of a child to a bereaved mother, but then disappears again – but having left, somewhat mysteriously, a note to another destination, another chapel to visit, the husband’s patience wanes. So there is a kind of duality to the husband and wife. The husband hopes for a cure of his wife’s ever present distress and engages, somewhat ambiguously with a very attractive psychotherapist, as a default hope that if the pilgrimage does not work then there is another, more familiar remedy in the wings ready and waiting; except, however, the challenge of the wife’s distress seems, almost inadvertently, to tempt the husband to find relief from his wife’s unrelieved angst. Remember Abraham and Sarah who, in seeking to fulfil the promise of God that they would have a child. even though ‘it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women’ (Gn 18: 11). After what seemed interminable waiting they decided on their own solution that Abraham would ‘go in to’ (Gn 16: 2) Sarah’s slave girl, Hagar, and having a child with her which, as the story unfolds, shows the impossibility of adultery being the solution to the intimate life of husband and wife.

Having allowed the reader to share, as it were, the husband’s impatience there are pivotal moments in which, what seems so likely to be an account of a worsening situation adds up, little by little, to have a number of twists and turns which reverse the tendency to see everything as the wife’s “condition”. Their lives open out, towards the end, into a kind of conversion, because the wife now looks back to what cannot be changed with a new acceptance of the past and looks forward to what has opened up new possibilities and promises, for both husband and wife, filling them with the hope of life-still-to-be-lived – not in some vague and general way but in the concrete opportunity which arose in the course on their pilgrimage.

Madeleine, the protagonist, says, “I would not have sought … [Christ] as I did, had I not suffered”.

The wider question, to which we all seek an answer, is precisely this: “What is the point of our suffering?” On the one hand, there can be an abandonment of hope and a deepening helplessness in front of what we are going through, like writhing in a swamp and, with each weaker struggle, we slip, inexorably, deeper into the mire. Or, on the other hand, there is a quest for meaning which is almost like walking on water, in that what should destroy our lives has, mysteriously, provided an impulse to begin a search which, as it were, answers an invitation to seek, literally, to live out of the hope of answering the question which drives us, distraught as we are, to find an answer. In a way, Christine Sunderland epitomizes the contrasting help of psychology and spirituality. In the dialogue between husband and wife there is, as it were, the articulation of the problem on the basis that we discover ourselves in the communication of what is within us; and, at the same time, we discover the limits of human communication. So the spiritual help of the priest shows that there is a way beyond human help, although it can start through the humanity of the help of the priest, which takes us to where a different kind of encounter begins: the encounter with the saving love of Jesus Christ who meets each one of us to the extent that we are willing to meet Him.

Maybe this is a particular choice for our times: to accept the “darkness of faith” and to seek without altogether knowing what will answer our question or, by contrast, to be destroyed by the uncertain quest. What makes the difference? Perhaps you find the answer in this first book of a trilogy on pilgrimage: pilgrimage, prayer and the sacraments of the Church. At the same time, however, in the mixture of Christian denominations, and a certain sense of a semi-permeable membrane there is, in the visiting of Rome, a wider implication of the husband and wife’s pilgrimage being a part of a wider dialogue, between Rome and the Anglican Communion, or individuals within it, especially in view of St. John Paul II’s called to see the ministry of Peter as a ministry of unity (cf. Ut Unum Sint, That They May all be One).

Francis Etheredge, Catholic husband, father of 11, 3 of whom are in heaven, author of 13 books on Amazon, particularly, The Family on Pilgrimage: God Leads Through Dead Ends: https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/familyonpilgrimage/) and, more recently, Reaching for the Resurrection: A Pastoral Bioethics: https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/reachingfortheresurrection/.

I’ve been memorizing a prayer suggested by our Bishop Hansen. This week I repeated, whenever I had a spare moment: “Lift, O God, any veil from our minds and bring revelation and enlightenment in all things. Amen.” I also repeated last week’s line: “Let all of us, all our children, our children’s children, and our future generations know Christ fully and enter Thy Kingdom now to live with Thee forever.”

I want the words to be engrafted in my memory, for they can be called upon in times of sorrow and doubt. I have found that memorizing, while never an easy discipline, is worth the effort. But I have to recall the words regularly – as one does in the weekly liturgy of the Mass – or they will suffer from lack of watering as seeds thrown upon poor parched soil. For if I water the words with my memory, I am fed in return with a bountiful crop of truth.

Memory ensures that truths we hold are kept alive with each generation. Such truths keep us alive in turn, shining light on darkness and directing our way when choices loom before us.

We memorized many things in school over the years, Kipling and Frost and Shakespeare, but the Pledge of Allegiance seeded and watered belief in our country’s righteousness and freedom.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

I recall standing and reciting this every day in school in the ‘fifties, hand over heart, from a young age, the entire class turning to face the flag. We sat in rows then, like a fleet set sail for a common destination. Today students often sit in “pods,” or small groups, and with this move, the teacher becomes less the focus, less the authority, and more of a coordinator and equal.

They were small changes, it seemed, yet with vast implications. Instead of seeing ourselves as empty vessels to be filled with knowledge, we were taught how to find it on our own. Truth slipped into opinion. Self-esteem was paramount, and discipline disdained.

My classmates and I grew up knowing that America was a good country, not perfect, but good in terms of her ideals. My co-pledgers then and earlier, defended our nation – and the West – in Europe, the South Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East. They gave their lives, or were willing to, to protect “liberty and justice for all.”

Tomorrow we remember those who died defending us in these wars. We observe “Memorial Day,” a day of remembering. And in honoring their sacrifice, we remember who we are, that we are a nation worth defending. We are a nation of equality (not equity) under the law. And we are a nation of laws, rules we all agree on.

What would become of a sports game where rules could be ignored? The rules are put in place for a reason, so that all can share in the game in a peaceful manner.

Just so, laws that are unenforced, or enforced unequally depending on race or power or influence, deny citizens the equal chance to play the glorious game of America. In time, without law and order, it seems a waste of time to even try to compete. Why should one try when others cut in line, when others are favored? In time, allegiance to country and allegiance to this greater good, fades, and anger leads to depression.

But some of us remember a time when remembering was a good. We remember a time, re-member or put together again in our minds, when history, the story of the past, was considered vital to a culture enduring another generation. We learned where we had come from so that we could know where we should go. Our country, we learned, was founded by pilgrims desiring religious freedom. Our country, we learned, was birthed in the chaotic meetings of minds to agree upon principles, principles that would be declared worth fighting King George, worth dying for. Our declaration declared that

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

As school children, we learned these self-evident truths, writing these truths on our hearts.

And so today, we thank those who died for us. We thank those who left family behind and suffered for us. We remember them, for they were candles in the darkness of anarchy and tyranny. They knew without truths we agree upon to be self-evident, truths from our Creator, anarchy would ensue, followed by tyranny, a historical lesson for anyone who desires to learn from the past.

This week I will add the third verse to my memory prayer:

3. May Thy Holy Spirit cover and protect us daily, with mighty angels and the prayers of saints.

Today is Ascension Sunday, when we celebrate Christ’s bodily ascension to Heaven, after his many appearances on Earth in his resurrected body. Jesus leaves his devoted disciples, we are told, so that he can send his Holy Spirit to strengthen and comfort, to free from sin, to guide and protect. And so it happened. The Western world – Western Civilization – was born of Christianity, sculpted in the Judeo-Classical world, leading humanity toward love and law and equality, to freedom of worship, finally sending the Pilgrims to our shores.

For we are a nation under God, protected by his Holy Spirit, with angels and saints. Never in the history of man has there been a nation like America. Never has their been a more resilient people than Americans. And never has there been such a light shining on such a hill, a beacon of truth to the world.

May America continue to welcome those who share her ideals, those who remember who she is, and those who will defend her.

May we always pledge our allegiance to America, to liberty and justice, under God.

Rogation means asking. Traditionally, Rogation Sunday called for prayers for the harvest, and thus we associate this time not only with prayer, but the natural world and its bounty. Rogation is a short season, lasting these next few days, ending on Wednesday.

The Church prays for priestly vocations so that souls may be harvested as well.

For we as Christians have been seeded in good ground, the ground of the Church, the ground of Christ, the first fruits of our world. We grow and mature and we flour, then we bear fruit to be harvested.

There was a time when I was an embryo, a union of sperm and egg, and at the moment of conception at fertilization, I became ensouled by God. This union of two to become one and even three, is one of the greatest transformations in the history of man. Its miraculous occurrence, so numerous, is taken for granted. And yet I, like many, grew hourly, daily, weekly, in the womb, fed by my mother, listening to her heartbeat and the swish of the pool in which I swam.

Then I was born, bursting from the darkness and warmth of my mother’s body, into the bright light of our world, breathing the breath of life.

I grew in the light, the seed of life maturing into an infant and into a child and into a youth. The world around me helped me grow, the many faces of family and community and country. They looked out for me, protected me with law and liberty, and sent me into the wide world to seed my own family.

And so I did, with some rough fits and starts, with failures and successes, with sorrows and joys. I gave birth to a son, an embryo allowed to live within me, fed by me, my flesh and my love and my spirit. My son grew to be a man who seeded a son and a daughter. These events were nurtured by our second family, the Church. For the Church continued the feeding and the growing and the protection promised by Christ. The Church picked me up when I fell down and healed my wounds of body and soul. The Church loved me through my living and my life.

To be human is to be wounded. To love is to be scarred. But we are rewarded by the knowledge of Christ, and we become surrounded and filled with his mysterious glory, his glorious mysteries. To be human, we learn, is to love as God loves us, his own.

And so we pray this day for many things, but we pray, above all, “Thy will be done.”

And we pray, “Show me thy will.”

A friend posted a prayer online, an asking, a petition to God, for all of us to offer. I am working on memorizing it, for I find if I can write the lines on my heart, engraft the words onto my soul, the prayer becomes food to enrich my days. We shall see how far I can travel this road of joy.

Here is the part I think I have down:

1. “Let all of us, all our children, our children’s children, and all our future generations, know Christ fully and enter into Thy kingdom now to live with thee forever. Amen.”

The rest of the prayer goes like this:

2. Lift, O God, any veil from our minds, and bring us revelation and enlightenment in all things. Amen
3. May Thy Holy Spirit cover and protect us daily, with mighty angels and the prayers of saints. Amen
4. Send godly people into our paths, examples of life in Christ, sharing with us the joys of true faith. Amen
5. Defeat all that exalts itself against the knowledge of Thee, with all pride and rebellion, witchcraft, sexual deviance, and worldliness, increasing all that exalts Thee in each of our lives daily. Amen
6. Drive ungodly thoughts and evil habits from us, and let only good and profitable thoughts and behaviors remain. Amen
7. Bind Satan and prevent him from taking us captive through deceitful lies, and may the truth of God prevail to set us free forever. Amen
8. Give us to wear the full armor of God: Thy Truth, Thy righteousness, Thy peaceful Gospel, Thy Salvation, Thy Faith, Thy Spirit and Thy Word in each and over every facet of our lives: may we stand in Thee and prevail, to Thy glory O God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I want to know Christ fully. I want to know his voice. I want to share with others this knowledge, to plant more seeds in fertile soil, to grow to the light, to be birthed into the sunshine, to be watered by the skies and inspired by the Holy Spirit as he breathes upon us. To fly.

And I have found that in church, sitting in a pew in the marvel-ous ark that protects me as I sail through this world of time, I am shown Christ more fully. I am with others who share this hunger for God, others kneeling alongside and in front of me and behind me, others who will receive the Real Presence of Christ at the altar rail with me, others who will share their joy later as we chat, then step out into the world together.

I am not alone. None of us need be alone. We have Christ and we have his Church. We have such a bountiful harvest all around us, life beginning in the womb, souls ensouled at the moment of conception, babies born into the light of day. We have been given so much, we must share much too, and we must protect and feed that which we have been given.

“Be ye doers of the word, ” St. James tells us in the Epistle today, (St. James 1:22), “and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” And in the Gospel, Christ promises, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” (St. John 16:23)

And so we ask the Father in the name of the Son, to protect our little seedlings that are growing toward the light in the dark womb, sheltered by their mothers. We ask, “Thy will be done.” We ask, “Show me thy will.”

We must protect precious life from death, at every stage; we must pray for our unborn children in these Rogation days, this season of asking. We must pray for our children and our children’s children and our future generations, that we may enter the kingdom to dwell with Christ forever. Amen.

I am reading Francis Etheredge’s latest book, just released by En Route Books and Media, the ABCQ of Conceiving Conception. While I needed no argument to know when conception occurs, at the moment of fertilization, it is valuable to have a philosopher’s scholarship to back up my natural instinct and common sense conclusions. I hope to review this title in the near future.

He speaks of beginnings. What is, had a beginning, by definition of existence. All human life is sacred, he claims, from conception to death, for all human life reflects the Creator, God.

Bioethics and its demands upon human reason are insisting we take a closer look, reach for a deeper understanding of human life’s beginnings. With the scientific tools we have today, we know more, we see more. We see movement in the womb, reflecting life. We see reality in all of its mystery and glory. Some of us are blind, choosing not to see. But we must not turn away from this reality. We must face the ultrasound images, as loving, responsible, men and women. After all, we have been given our own gift of life. We are accountable. We will be judged accordingly.

The Supreme Court of the United States will be weighing in on allowing citizens to vote on the legality of abortion, considering this new scientific information detailing the living embryo, the living baby in the womb. When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, allowing this right to kill our unborn children, we didn’t have such tools. Times change and knowledge advances and today we must allow citizens to weigh in on these vital decisions of life and death. Abortion will not be outlawed with a reversal of the Roe decision, but it will be a matter for voters to decide at the state level, rather than unelected judges at the federal. This, after all, is what freedom means, what elections mean, what our republic is all about, or should be. We should all have a say in this.

I was recently introduced (through Francis Etheredge) to another bioethicist, Dr. Monique Robles, a pediatric critical care physician in Colorado. She blogs about these scientific/medical issues at Human Dignity Speaks. Not only is her website a beautiful one, but she speaks with authority, with not only facts but from her own experience. Her data is mined from her work as an Associate Scholar with the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Science and Statistics for Life, another site highly recommended.

These connections, all occurring so close to Mother’s Day, in May, Mary’s month, point to the work of the Holy Spirit connecting us once again, forming networks of Christians who see it is time to connect, re-enforcing one another, encouraging one another, and sharing the engrafted Word we have been given, to choose life.

And so I smiled this morning when I heard the lovely Epistle by James (1:17+):

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.”

So we were created with the Word of Truth, the engrafted word, “which is able to save your souls.”

And Christ in the Gospel of John speaks with loving care to his disciples (John 16:5+). This is the risen Christ, the Jesus Christ who appeared to his frightened followers in the locked room, who showed his wounds to Thomas in proof, who appeared to the two in Emmaus at the breaking of the bread, who joined the disciples on the shore after helping them with their catch of fish and told Peter, “feed my sheep.” This is the Christ who must teach us slowly and lovingly each day, carry us on his shoulders the next bit of path, protect us from the beasts seeking to devour us. This Christ tenderly explains he must leave his disciples once again, so that the Holy Spirit of Truth will come to them and guide them into all truth.

We are to be gifts to one another, good and perfect, if we are to allow the Holy Spirit to work among us, connecting us, fortifying us, filling us with the knowledge of God and his love. For it is the love of God that creates that miniscule embryo; it is the love of God that recreates each one of us; it is his Word expressed in Christ that we engraft upon our souls, that we feed upon in the Eucharist.

Looking back over the last few weeks, I see so many good and perfect gifts given to us. We must share them with others. We must breathe life into our world of death, engrafting Christ upon our souls.

It is a truth once universally acknowledged that mothers deserve praise. They carry us in their bodies for nine months, beginning the nurturing that will last through adulthood and beyond. They give birth, a remarkable feat we take for granted. They nurse and cleanse and cuddle and teach. They sing and comfort and discipline and protect. They love us. They reflect and deflect the world out there, good or ill.

May is Mary’s month. We honor Our Lady Mary, Mother of Jesus, Son of God and Savior of the world. We have painted her portrait and gilded her image and lit candles before her as we pray for intercession, for help here on Earth, help with our own mothering, our own families. 

Not all mothers are good and kind and loving. Not all mothers have or desire the gift of mothering, but one hopes they might try. Some mothers abandon their children; some curse them; some abort their babies before they take their first breath. Some mothers, as their children grow to adulthood, scorn their choices and beliefs. Some mothers call these choices and beliefs deplorable, following the siren songs of the times.

It was my fortune to have a good mother who raised my sister and I in an intact family, with our father present in our lives. We had a childhood of pleasant memories: swing sets and slides and tree forts; piano lessons; baking oatmeal cookies; riding the bus to school and returning home to a mother who created a stable and safe homelife. There were lots of books and reading to one another and singing together. I am grateful.

There are also women who are good mothers, who mother, who aren’t biological mothers. I found this to be true in parish life. As a single parent with a four-year-old son these older women mothered us, at a time when my own mother was unavailable. The church breathed life into our fragmented family. The women embraced us. We were not alone.

Today, I recall these women: Elizabeth, Willa, Janet, Lucille, Cathy, Kay, and many more. Most have passed into Eternity, and it is my turn to mother those younger than I in our parish. It is my turn to offer concern and care and prayers for these adopted children of mine in the family of God. It is my turn to love the next generation, to mentor, to show the way to Eternity.

These many mothers, all the women of the Church, Mary’s beloved, offer answers to life’s perplexities in their soft embraces and welcoming smiles. They open hearts to God, to His Son, allowing the Holy Spirit to work within the parish family as we pray, sing, and say the holy words learned by heart, words residing in our hearts. We sing and speak as one voice, in this, His, creation, the Church, the Bride of Christ.

The Church is also Mother Church. She embraces her children, protecting them from storms outside and fortifying them to re-enter the tempestuous world. The Church an ark, a boat sailing through the world in and through time. The ark carries its precious cargo, its faithful, within, as a mother carries new life in her womb. The Church is a mother, creating a safe and loving home.

In our world today families fragment as mothers no longer mother. Fathers father and flee, leaving mothers to parent alone. Mothers and fathers, upon conceiving children, often abort them, with little understanding as to what they have done, taken a human life, a tiny innocent baby.

And so we celebrate mothers, mothers who truly mother us all, with their example and their devotion, with their selfless sacrifice and their love. We celebrate those who choose life, who understand the immense honor of carrying life within, bearing and birthing, caring and nurturing. To be a mother is a great joy, for love is unconditionally promised and greatly rewarded. We birth the new generation, the future of mankind. We nurture these children, raise them up if they fall, so that they desire to choose life and not death, to fill them, full-fill them, with the love and life and light of God, as they travel the way to Eternity.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, the Second Sunday after Easter. We listened to a comforting Gospel, John 10:11+, for Our Lord says he knows his sheep and his sheep know his voice. He will lay down his life for us. He will gather us into one fold one day. And there are sheep not of this fold that shall be gathered. And “there shall be one flock, and one shepherd.”

One wonders naturally who the other sheep are, and perhaps they are the People of Israel, or other Christians, or pagans on the way to becoming Christian. Perhaps we, you and I, are the other sheep.

And so we listen for his voice. How will we know our good Shepherd’s voice? Through Scripture, Sacrament, and song; through other Christians; through regular worship in church; through prayer and practice. We desire to immerse ourselves and our souls in this wellspring of Word, His voice.

Today, May 1, is also the Feast Day of St. James and St. Philip.

James tells us in his epistle (James 1:1+) today that we must be unwavering, for the double-minded man is unstable, “for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.” The command is clear, if a bit stern, and in itself, unwavering and single-minded. And so we pray for faith, abundant and unwavering faith, in these times of turmoil.

Philip is mentioned in the Gospel for this feast day, May 1 (John 14:1+). It is Philip whose faith wavers, or perhaps he simply can’t grasp the truth in front of him. Christ is explaining about Heaven, and the “many mansions.” He tells us He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (in answer to doubting Thomas), the only way to the Father. Philip says, “Lord, show us the Father.” Jesus asks why Philip still does not recognize his divinity: “I am in the Father, and the Father in me,” he explains patiently, and his voice is full of love for his children.

So many of us waver, unseeing, unbelieving what is right in front of our eyes. Our minds are a bit scattered and fragmented by our world and its daily challenges. Louder voices claim our attention. And so we pray for sight – insight – that we may recognize Christ, when the time comes for our Shepherd to bring us home.

The afternoon sun is glancing off the silvery olive tree outside my window. A breeze is stirring an oak tree beyond and the wild green grasses sloping to the valley below await their yearly trimming, for we live in fire country. I look around. What else have I missed today? My cat has curled up behind the warmth of my laptop, her head resting on my glasses case (she had been resting on Bishop Morse’s prayer book, until I opened it to read.)

I recently reviewed Francis Etheredge’s collection of prose and prayers, Within Reach of You (Enroute), in this space. One gift given in this book is the vision of being in God’s presence at all times, by praying without ceasing, or even having this intent. For Mr. Etheredge writes that simply the intent to pray opens a space for God to enter and dwell with us. And so I pray the Jesus prayer as often as I can remember, breathing the Name in and out as Father Seraphim and Vicki of Nazareth House in Kentucky taught me. I have adopted this habit over the years, breathing the Name, and now I realize that this opens the space for Our Lord to be present. This places us within reach of Him and He within reach of us. I find this immensely comforting and gratifying and joy-inspiring, all brought to me by an British theologian (with a family of ten) and my Kentucky hermits (with the whole world their family).

How simple it is to unite the Holy Name to my breathing. I cannot live without either.

For we are creatures of flesh but also mind and spirit, and the three are one, in you and me. It is true these will separate at the moment of death, but they will also be reunited, later in Eternity, in holy perfection.

I recently read an early copy of Mr. Etheredge’s new book, soon to be published, Reaching for the Resurrection: A Pastoral Bioethics, to provide an endorsement. He writes about this very idea, that we are one person – body, mind, and spirit. But our materialist world seeks to divide our human person, resulting in loneliness, anorexia, suicide, abortion, and euthanasia. The materialist says this is all we are, mere matter; there is no meaning to life; there is no purpose.

It is up to us – Christians listening to Christ, hearing the Shepherd’s voice – to counter these materialist claims, to give meaning to lives of despair, purpose to pain, and salvation to souls who cannot walk on water, cannot reach Christ’s outstretched hand. They are wavering and unbalanced.

There is a lovely prayer I sing to my cat Angel when we turn out the light each night. Actually, I sing it to Our Lord. It is written by Fernando Ortega, and I hope he doesn’t mind my sharing a bit of it with you:

“Jesus, King of Angels, Heaven’s light/ Shine Your face upon this house tonight./ Let no evil come into my dreams./ Light of Heaven, keep me in your peace.

With all my heart I love You, sovereign Lord./ Tomorrow let me love you even more!/ And rise to speak the goodness of Your Name,/ Until I close my eyes and sleep again.

Jesus, King of Angels, Heaven’s light/ Hold my hand and keep me through this night.”

To know the voice (and the song) of Our Lord we must hear it often, interweaving the many graces given to us, all around us, the many Christians who help us hear him. Take these simple baby steps: go to church, minimum weekly, better more often; read the Gospels; read other Christians who witness to Christ; immerse yourself in the Eucharist, being fed by Christ’s Real Presence in the Mass, a beautiful poetic prayer, a medley of Scripture and song that opens a space for God to dwell within you (and me).

I think I am more like Philip than James, and I pray that if I keep asking, keep breathing his Holy Name, Christ will be with me always, even until the end of the earth.

Deo Gratias.