Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy Joy

“The celebration is short, and the work is long.” – Jim Callan

So it’s Monday, May 3. The hoo-rah is done, the party is all cleaned up. The out of town guests are heading back to El Salvador and Austria and Cincinnati and St Louis and Boston. It’s my first ordinary day as a priest.

The celebration was fun – it was wonderful! – but the work is the point of it all, and I’m happy to get to it.

Up on the floor at St. John’s nursing home I get ready to do a service. The common area is full of people in wheelchairs: some alert, interested, others not. Some who appear not to be listening will sing along with the hymns, pray aloud the “Our Father.” Some who appear to be listening will turn out to be deaf, and not to have heard a word. I preach without knowing whether my words are understood… Maybe it’s always that way, and just more obvious in the nursing home. I’ve learned to preach loudly, in a voice that carries to the hallway and to the nurses’ station. Uncomfortable at first, it’s become normal. The best part is the singing, and I’ve learned to add in some extra songs: an “Alleluia” before and after the Gospel, an additional hymn – and to make sure they’re familiar, the ones most people know – most people of their generation, anyway.

“I come to the garden alone,” they sing with surprising energy “while the dew is still on the roses….and he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own…”  Here I thought that would be too obscure, and they all know it!

On this day, one thing is new, and I ask if anyone can tell what it is. My stole! I don’t have to pin it diagonally across my chest any more. Now that I’m a priest it hangs around my shoulders. I look down at it with satisfaction and joy: I’m a priest! And I’m doing the work I’m called to do, and that feels so, so good. No more “almost,” no more “not quite.”

Denise Donato said on Sunday that ordination did not bring about a change. Rather it confirmed a reality that was already there. Like marriage:  the wedding doesn’t make the commitment, it acknowledges and celebrates and deepens it. Years ago I realized that ordination is a sacrament, and the definition of a sacrament is that it is an outward sign of an inward grace. That means, the grace is already there; the reality is already there. Sarah Brownell said it four or five years ago when she introduced me this way: “This is Chava. She’s our priest. Well, she’s not really our priest… but she’s our priest.” Denise was right, and Sarah was right, and I was right to recognize that I was living the reality long before the sacrament confirmed it. The love was already there, the commitment, the day to day service, the showing up and listening and loving and loving and loving.

But in one of life’s great “Both/Ands,” something did happen on Saturday, May 1, when the Spirit filled the room and people prayed, and my “Yes” to God became public, acknowledged reality. Empowerment happened. Freedom happened. Joy happened!!!! Lots and lots of joy!

“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God,” Teilhard de Chardin said. And Hafiz -- here’s Hafiz on joy: “the upcoming consecrated free-for-all”  --- why am I telling you this? ---- why am I trying to express the reality of that day, the joy?

Well, I think it’s because we don’t get a lot of joy. Even in church – we think, we process, we theologize. What was it that Annie Dillard said about crash helmets?  - That we don’t realize the power we’re invoking, that we should wear crash helmets to church, not velvet hats!  We are like children playing with atomic building blocks, innocent of the power we think we control – we don’t control it, we live in it, we breathe it, we have our being in it – we try to harness Light and make it do our bidding, when what we should say is “YES, yes Lord, I come to do your will.”

I’m afraid I’m growing incoherent, again. The thing is, I’m a mess – incoherent, babbling, in love, in light, and not particularly useful. But here’s what I’m thinking. There are photographs taken before the service: Theresa’s and my vestments, laid out so neatly, orderly, each carefully placed on a pew at the side of the altar, looking as smooth as if they’d been ironed right there. Our new vessels, our chalices and patens, sat on a table at the back of the church, glistening: Theresa’s silver chalice, pure, clean; my ceramic vessels, the glaze reflecting the light. All pristine and beautiful. One might have the illusion that we were in control.

At the end of Mass --- after the Holy Spirit barged in and took over the service – and the dancers came in at the wrong time – and our hands had been smeared with oil – and the chalices and patens were used for eating and drinking --- and the collar of my new chasuble was sticking up and my new stole all crooked and hanging off my shoulder --- at the end, we were a great and holy mess.

And that’s the thing. That’s it, right there: it’s not about control. It’s not about being pristine and shiny and new and perfect. It’s about getting your stole knocked off, hugging people. Your new dishes all sticky with hospitality.

More than that. It’s about letting your heart get broken, pouring out all that love. It’s about Yes and Yes and Yes and Yes! – it’s about realizing that we’re all broken, we’re all poor, we’re all standing up to our ankles in the mud, in the rain, drenched and dripping with our humanity, our mess, our love and our trust in God. That’s joy. That’s joy, right there.

Forget about your stocks and bonds. Forget about security. Safety isn’t joy. Standing with the poor and the sick and the lonely and not being afraid to be one of them ---- THAT’s joy. Embracing that broken humanness, that sinful messed up humanity – here we are and it’s all that we are but we love you, Lord --- That’s joy. Right there.

So back to the floor in the nursing home. No big celebration, there. Just some people to love. That’s what it’s all about. St. John’s and St. Joe’s, for me, on this ordinary Monday. Loving the people in front of me – all in our lovely mess, together. It is so good to be human, to be alive. The celebration is short, but the work is long ------ and I am so glad and grateful for the work.

Amen!

Chava Redonnet
May 11, 2010

Chava Redonnet and Theresa Novak Chabot were ordained priests in a ceremony at Spiritus Christi Church in Rochester, NY on Saturday, May 1, 2010 by the Roman Catholic Womenpriests. Caryl Johnson, Patti LaRosa and Ann Penick were ordained deacons at the same ceremony.

Previous Inspirations by Chava Redonnet:

Inspirations-October-2009

Inspirations-November-2009
Inspirations-November11-2009

Inspirations-November-18-2009
Inspirations-September 7, 2010
Inspirations-May 11, 2010

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