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By Any Other Standards by Fr. Dave Kelly, c. pp. s., Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation Director
I am often asked what keeps me going.“ How do you keep from burning out?” While my answer includes having a good team and celebrating the little moments, I always end by saying that ultimately it is because I embrace a spirituality that holds both the suffering of the cross and the joy of the resurrection. Death does not have the final word. Life overwhelms death, not by eliminating it, but by outlasting it.
The post-resurrection stories that we heard in scripture during the Sundays of Easter, allow us to experience a Jesus who returns to his disciples after the crucifixion and resurrection. He returns with his wounds still very visible. Then he embraces the disciples with words of peace and calls them to go out and proclaim the message of life. Likewise, Jesus calls us to proclaim a message of hope without glossing over the pain and death that is so much a part of life.
Sammy is a young man who goes to school, plays basketball and football, and brings home decent grades. He doesn’ t cause serious problems; he appears to be the typical 17-year-old. He is respectful and asks for very little. By any other standards, he is just doing what most high school juniors ought to do— go to school, get some decent grades, and prepare for adulthood.
However, while Sammy might seem like an ordinary teenager, he has had to negotiate a path that most of us cannot even imagine. His older brother was killed a year ago, he has another brother who just received 30 years in prison, his mother suffers from lupus and is in and out of the hospital. Sammy realized that if he stayed in that environment, he wouldn’ t make it. He knew that as hard as he might try, the pressure and strain might very well get the best of him. He had witnessed his older brothers gradually slipping into the streets. He wanted something different.
Several years ago, Sammy was part of our summer program and was a good student who loved basketball. His eighth-grade teacher, Mrs. Barnes, who was also the mother of his best friend, saw so much potential in Sammy but feared for his future. As high school loomed, a plan was made that he would stay with the
Barnes family during the week and attend a Catholic high school. With the support of pbmr and the blessing of his mother, Sammy moved into the home of Mrs.“ B.”
Sammy has flourished. He met the challenges of a more structured and demanding home and high school with determination and hard work. He now plays basketball and football and by all accounts is doing well.
Even though Sammy is doing well, he bears the scars of losing his brothers to death and incarceration; he carries the trauma of growing up in an environment of addiction and violence. His wounds, while not visible to all, are still very real.
While we celebrate the resurrection with shouts of alleluia, let us not miss the scars that life often carries. Our spirituality teaches us that by touching our woundedness and the woundedness of others, we become a new creation.
Everyone carries the pain and disappointments of life. It may be the death of a child, a divorce, or the loss of work.“ Spirituality, in its best sense, is what you do with that pain and suffering”( Richard Rohr).
In the end, I am still here after many years because of a spirituality that embraces the totality of the human experience. As we stand alongside those who suffer, we also witness to what is possible— transformation and hope! �
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16 • The New Wine Press • June 2018