1. Again, thank you Miguel for such a great presentation that has generated good thinking and conversation... Good morning, Brothers. It is so good to have these days together. And overwhelmingly, I am happy to be with you, but allow me to complain just a bit before I begin. After all, I am no Bob Berger, who, as you may know, is so self-disciplined that, despite his complaints, he suffers in silence.
a. So, imagine being asked to fill in for Charlie Kitson on the team preparing the retreat. No fancy footwork, no amazing powerpoints, no expertise on Association.
b. Then, imagine being asked to be the speaker after Miguel Campos? Hello!! Miguel is a Lasallian giant. Who dares to speak after an icon?
c. And how about this topic that I have inherited, “With Broken but Grateful Hearts, we remember.” OMG. Just what you came here for - to remember your broken heart?!
2. However, I have grown to appreciate the reality embedded in this theme. And my job in this short presentation is to be a bit of a bridge between our ritual last evening and Miguel. So, let us start at the very beginning. Surely this is a time of grace. There is an energy among us that is a reminder of God’s presence and blessing. Just one week ago, we all sang these words, ‘America! America!God shed his grace on thee -and crown thy good with brotherhoodfrom sea to shining sea!’ From the farthest reaches of border-less DENA, God sheds his grace upon all of us.
3. We have so much to be thankful for – our families, our vocation, our minds and hearts, our differences, our ministries, our health, our faith and zeal. So, hopefully, we have already begun to remember our lives with gratitude. So many good things, but let’s be real. As Joan Rivers used to say, “Can we talk?” There have been hurts and heart breaks along the way. Thank God. We are individually, flesh and blood - and real and relate-able. We are, as a community, not Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but rather Brothers who are stronger, together and by association.
4. Life is so mixed, isn’t it? There is no pain-free world and there is no situation that does not have some blessing in it. I think often of the Psalm that we recite every Monday of the 4th week of the Psalter: Psalm 90. Allow me to remind you: “Our life is over like a sigh. Our span is 70 years or 80 for those who are strong.” (Congratulations to many of you here!) It gets pretty depressing immediately: “And most of these are emptiness and pain. They pass swiftly and we are gone.” (Yikes!) But there is redemption in balance: “In the morning, fill us with your love; we shall exult and rejoice all our days. Give us joy to balance our affliction for the years when we knew misfortune.” Young and old, dear Brothers, we all know afflictions. It can be problems in our families; it can be our own health issues; it might be struggles with our vocation; it could be the departure from the Institute of our closest friends. We all have known and continue to know afflictions. But is there not sufficient joy to balance these afflictions?
5. So, this morning, we invite you to resume the remembering we began last night. Focus on the many joys, if you prefer, but allow me to concentrate on the broken heart side. Upon reflection, we have had such moments way back in our childhood and certainly in our adolescence; while in formation and when we were“in the world”; in ministry and in community –joys and pains are simply part of being engaged in life.
6. Let me share two brief personal moments. The first was way back when Jimmy Carter was the President: 1980. I was in my 8th year of my first assignment, happily teaching ten year olds. The Visitor hauled me out of my developing comfort zone. Against my will, I moved all the way from Queens to Brooklyn! I got to my new room and closed the door and cried for hours and hours. I was sad, angry, on the brink of unknown, feeling the separation of the familiar. Though my heart was clearly broken that night - and for some time afterwards, I gradually recognized what a blessing that move was, for so many reasons. We all have moments in our lives which could have broken us, but they didn’t.
7. It was not that moment that I reflected upon last night. It was a more recent one. For 66.42 years, I had been as healthy as anyone. No medications at all. However, beginning Wednesday night, April 13, in Kenya and lasting some 60 days, I knew ever-increasing pains throughout my body. Fortunately, on June 9th, I had a diagnosis - and, at last, drugs! Within a day, the pains subsided. Even though, for 2 months, I was very self-preoccupied, not very social, and wondered if I would ever get relief, I felt God’s presence very clearly. I understood the cross better. I related to so many others who suffer chronic illnesses. My whole body, including my heart, felt broken, but I believe I was particularly close to God during these darkest of days.
8. As you can sense, this morning, we are focused on the past. Miguel presented beautifully about the early Brothers. It is undeniable that DLS had so many productive years, but they were filled with incredible heart break. You know the story: his rheumatism (with Dr. Helvetius’s famous cure!); the rejection of civic and ecclesiastical authorities, the Writing Masters, the betrayal of some Brothers, the legal wars.
9. But I really do love the letter that the Brothers wrote to DLS in1714 for so many reasons. One is that they were not seeking him to return to Paris to be founding more schools. His role was so different at his advancing years. I thought of DLS as I watched an 11 minute eulogy last month. Allow me to share only one minute of it.
10. (After the video) I am mostly speaking to our first and second generation Brothers but I hope that all our generations can appreciate the message in this eulogy. In our youth, all of us, no matter our generation, wanted to be world champions, to make a difference. And we could be world champions - teaching brilliantly, touching hearts, encouraging troubled youth, leading the revolution, standing up to injustices. For some of us, Muhammad Ali was an icon. And who can deny what Bill Clinton said about Muhammad Ali, “The first part of his life was dominated by the triumphs of his truly unique gifts.” None of us here may have ever been able to “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” but all of us, no matter which of the 3 generations we are, has truly unique gifts.
11. But Clinton said, “The second part of his life was more important, because he refused to be imprisoned by a disease... That is, in the second half of his life, he perfected gifts that we all have: Every single solitary one of us has gifts of mind and heart. It’s just that he found a way to release them in ways large and small.” Is it not true that all of us here have gifts of mind and heart? Our challenge, as I hear it, is to perfect those gifts as best we can.
12. Earlier this morning, we heard Miguel speaking of the 3 generations and we have just hear of Ali’s two halves of life. Many of us are familiar with Richard Rohr’s “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.”Dear Brothers of our Third Generation, you who are clearly in the first half of your life, is it not as Rohr describes it, “In the first half of life, you are devoted to establishing yourself; you focus on making a career and on finding friends; you are crafting your identity.”?? Brothers of the first and second generation, is this not how we remember our first half of life?” Young Brothers, continue to be full members of the First Half of Life. But do read Richard Rohr, for he speaks of that time in life when a crisis comes and perhaps “washes out your spiritual life.” It happens.
13. So many of us on this retreat have made it through such incredible crises. Our faith may have been shaken but look how strong we have become, even if we have frailer bodies, weaker tones. Are we not more authentic and relate-able precisely for having dealt with crises and come to the second half of life where we are hopefully (even if not always or perfectly) letting go of things - of material things, of judgement, of status seeking. And it is a time to risk, to trust, to surrender - and to get to know the God who also fell before rising.
14. Alas, I realize I am intertwining the past and the present but they are connected in each of us. Brothers, we gather in this family home here at LSU with our Brothers. It is a moment of grace to remember, both the good and the not so good. It is a time, embraced by our common humanity and brotherhood, to thank God for His abiding presence throughout our lives, in great times, in average times, and in times of brokenness.