Catholic Spirituality | Catholic Caregivers | Retired Catholics

Ann and Jim Cavera

Catholic Spirituality

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Quotes

"We cannot isolate our spiritual life from the rest of our life, for it is in our day-to-day situations that we experience our personal transformation toward wholeness."

Joyce Rupp “May I have this dance?” Ave Maria Press. 1992.

“Let nothing disturb you, nothing dismay you. All things are passing, God never changes. Patient endurance attains all things…God alone suffices." St. Teresa of Avila

Robert Ellsberg from “All Saints. “ Crossroad Publishing. 2002.

“We are all called to a way of faith. At each step God asks us to trust him, to say yes to him, to put our lives in his hands… We want certitude, but instead God asks us to have faith.”

Fr. Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos from “The Great Themes of Scripture.” 1988.

“The fruit of prayer is a clean heart and a clean heart is free to love. The fruit of love is Peace – Unity – Joy.”

“The farther we go on the journey of faith, the more faith has to do with trust and self-surrender. The Kingdom of God leaves none of us in our own little kingdom where we decide what happens.”

Richard Rohr “Simplicity”

“Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation, or despair begin to invade the human soul this is not something that comes from God.”

Henri Nouwen “In the Name of Jesus

“Thanks is the only thing we can give [to God]. As a life-stance, gratitude moves us to cherish everything as a gift to be cared for, nurtured, and brought to fulfillment.”

Wilkie Au “The Enduring Heart”

“Let me not expect more of friends than they can give – but let me give them more than they expect. Let me not expect too much of others who, like myself, struggle under the burden of life, but rather let me be, as best I can, a friend who does not fail.”

“In your own life, dark times will come. If they are very dark and bitter, know that you have plenty of company.”

Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R. Arise from Darkness

“The first half of life is consumed with exploring and developing our bodies, educating our minds and cultivating our talents. Midlife is an ideal time to venture into the unknown, the territory of your soul.”

“As you deal with having to make difficult decisions, realize that “I’ve changed my mind” is a declaration of repentance, which Jesus said is essential to entering the Kingdom of God.

Prayer Notes to a Friend

“We are not channels, we are instruments. Channels give nothing of their own, they just let water run through them. In our action, we are instruments in God’s hand and He writes beautifully.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta

“So I saw that God is our true peace; and he is our safe protector when we ourselves are in disquiet, and he constantly works to bring us into endless peace.”

Julian of Norwich Showings

“Anything can happen. What the stories tell us is not that miracles will always happen, or even often happen, but that some kind of life will triumph over the many kinds of death. Nothing can separate us from Love.

Web Picks

Center for Action and Contemplation

Founded by Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr in 1987, in Albuquerque, New Mexico to “understand the constructive message of the Gospel that crosses boundaries of religion, ethnicity, social class and gender.”

www.sojo.net

Christian ministry based in Washington, DC seeks to proclaim and practice the biblical call to integrate spiritual renewal and social justice. Features the Sojourners magazine.

Boston College

The “Front Row” lecture series includes 419 topics discussed by some of the most thought-provoking speakers such as Michael Himes and Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J

www.webmd.com

Medical information and health tips are presented in a easy to read format.

www.retreatsintl.org

Links to retreat houses listed by state make it easy to find a place to rest and relax for a few days. Also, one section makes it easy to contact a speakers and presenters available for retreats.

Open Door Community

Our good friends Nelia and Calvin Kimbrough live and work as partners in this well-established homeless shelter in Atlanta.

www.FSJC.org

Excellent site for caregivers

www.familylifecenter.net

Steve Wood’s site is filled with help for Catholic families

Reflections – By Jim and Ann Cavera

Devoted to faith, hope, love & laughter

in the second half of life

Columns for Spring 2008

Kairos Children

Ann

I am sitting at the kitchen table and Cate and Rachel are sitting on either side of me. Each has a bright blue and a bright yellow lump of Play-Doh. Cate grabs her blue lump with two little fists. She clenches her teeth and squeezes the air out of the lump. Then she stretches this lump thin until holes appear. Holding up a piece, she looks up at me through the hole and smiles.

Meanwhile, on the other side Rachel separates little blue and yellow balls of Play-Doh into separate color-coded piles. She pulls two of the empty containers close and says “cup.” Then she begins dropping bits of yellow clay into one cup and blue balls into the other until the space in front of her is clean.

Not quite two years old, neither of my granddaughters has any concept of time. We live in a perpetual “now” without a past or future. For the next five hours we are together without a clock, agenda or schedule. As their companion, caretaker, friend and grandmother, my time has become theirs.

Grandpa has put up a pup tent for us in the sitting room. A large stuffed “Elmo” is in the magazine crock and at some point we will unpack the box of toys in the corner. Whenever the mood strikes, we play a CD of Irish fiddle tunes and dance around together until Grandma collapses and turns on an educational video about farm animals or shapes and colors. Whatever we think of is what we do next until one or all of us tires of it. The Greek word “kairos” means dancing with God in the present moment. Truly, Cate and Rachel bring kairos into my life.

St. Ignatius of Loyola said, “There are very few people who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into His hands, and let themselves be formed by His grace.” I had almost forgotten what it means to abandon my schedule for life without structure. When my own children were young we played while I kept one eye on the clock, and so I only half-entered their world. Now I know how quickly kairos time can disappear into the structure of pre-school, kindergarten and school. In the grown-up world only little puddles of kairos slip into our hurried-up lives. A walk beside the ocean at dawn, the birth of a baby, moments of forgiveness and reconciliation, the visit of friends from far-away; all bring time without borders into days that are shortened by clutter. Jim says he thinks kairos is the way time must be measured in heaven. Once we were too young and too busy to enter kairos when it came upon us. As we sit at this table, finding out what we can do with Play Doh, I know Cate and Rachel are forming me too, helping me understand what it means to abandon ourselves to the grace of God.

Is Anybody Listening?

Jim and Ann Cavera

On the web site “YouTube” millions of clips have been downloaded from homemade videos. Cyberspace must be clogged with “blogs” personal logs made available to anyone anywhere to read. Everybody wants to talk. People are curious in an impersonal way about what they are saying. No one seems to care whether or not they are being heard and no one seems to care much about what is being said. Is anyone really listening? Everyone can hear. In fact, we feel bombarded with too much in the name of communication. We are more concerned about a different kind of listening that no longer seems possible.

We remember from our childhood being alongside our parents and able to see how adults behaved and listening to what they talked about. One of Jim’s favorite memories is going to a coffee shop before dawn with his father to hang out with the other produce workers. Sitting on a stool at the counter with the men, he listened and heard what men out working for their families might talk about. I remember helping the women in the kitchen at family gatherings. Shelling peas or peeling potatoes provided an excuse to hear what grown women thought about and talked about.

One of the women in our church had a luncheon for a few women last week. We gathered at her home at 11:30 and we left the luncheon table about 3:30 p.m. In between I learned more about family triumph and tragedy in a small town than if I had spent weeks delving into local genealogy. It was all there for the listening.

Real listening needs to be done in the physical company of others. Listening involves both the eyes as well as the ears. A raised eyebrow, frown, tremor in a voice conveys far more than a text message on a cell phone. Listeners have to let go of personal agendas and journey into the joy and sorrow of someone else. To listen means to value the person who needs to be heard. Perhaps our children lack self-esteem because many of them have never felt the value that comes from being listened to.

This week, we remember the Israelites listening to Joshua as he spoke words that bound them to their homeland and to their God. In this week’s gospel, people heard Christ but missed his message. If we are no longer able to listen to each other, how can we hear the voice of God? King David, and his son Solomon, the prophets, Mary sitting at Jesus feet while her sister worked in the kitchen, Paul on the Road to Damascus, and Peter and the Apostles in the upper room had no form of mass communication, and yet they heard the voice of God. We can’t help but think God may still be speaking. We are too distracted to listen.

It’s Only Temporary

Jim and Ann Cavera

It is so easy to reach for temporary solutions to difficult problems. The trouble with temporary solutions is that they have a way of becoming comfortable, and permanent. The original problem gets covered over and forgotten and the solution becomes accepted as normal. Years ago when we moved into our home, we bought some “temporary” furniture at a Goodwill store. When we moved out of that same house 35 years later, some of the original Goodwill stuff was still with us, still serving its “temporary” purpose.

On a larger scale, especially in the area of politics, things often slide into our culture as temporary solutions. How many taxes are we living with today that began as temporary measures? It may be far easier to mortgage our children’s future than it is to set national priorities and create a sustainable budget. Even as individuals and families many of us find it easier to charge goods or borrow money than it is to take the financially tougher road to live within our means.

Finding permanent solutions to long-standing problems can be difficult because those solutions often seem unattainable. In our parishes it is more tempting to buy a quick-fix program that promises to turn us into a vibrant parish community than it is to become disciples willing to pour out our lives for the love of Christ. Concerning marriage, in the second half of life it can be easier to slide into the silent company of two individuals sharing a house than it is to nourish a growing relationship.

This season of life offers time to assess how we have lived our lives so far. If we have spent too much time accumulating wealth (just until we have enough) or too much time in self-centered pursuits (we have been working so hard, we need to relax) or too much time following “shoulds” and “oughts” instead of fulfilling our deepest inner call, there is still time. Life can be found in change and growth. Seeing almost everything as temporary and few things as permanent can open new doors.

We are encouraged by scripture to seek and hold onto the few things of permanence that transcend life on earth. In speaking of God’s gift of salvation the author of Hebrews 6:19 says: “We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul…..” In Titus 1:9 St. Paul encourages his disciple to keep a firm grasp on the eternal message and to give up everything that does not lead to God. (Titus 2:12)

In “Sabbatical Journey,” the diary of his final year, Henry Nouwen wrote, “We are not talking here about moral obligations or ethical imperatives. We are talking about the mystical life. It is the intimate communion with God that reveals to us how to live in the world and act in God’s Name.”

We can become far too comfortable living with temporary solutions to deeper problems. It’s better to seek the few things we know are permanent because now we more fully realize the life we keep holding on to so dearly is only temporary.

In Plain Sight

Jim and Ann Cavera

How does this happen? I reached in the hall closet to get my jacket and purse only to discover both were missing. I double-checked the closet and then looked through every room and closet in the house before calling Jim to ask if he might have seen my missing purse and jacket. His answer was that he thought he had seen them in the hall closet just that morning. Even though I had already looked in that closet twice, just to reassure him, I looked again. Imagine my shock when the missing jacket and purse were right there on the hangar just where they should have been. We are at an age where important things that should be right in front of us seem to vanish.

Important things in marriage can sometimes seem invisible or appear to have disappeared, too. Gary Chapman’s book “The Five Love Languages,” hit the best seller list some years ago. Recently we reviewed his ideas while we were preparing for a retreat. According to Chapman we all crave love expressed primarily in one of five ways: Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts and Physical Contact can each express love on a meaningful level. Couples who are aware of each other’s primary love languages are able to make emotional connections on the deepest levels. Too many couples struggle with their marriage. One or both partners may feel invisible because a spouse doesn’t express love in a way that fulfills the other’s emotional needs. Chapman’s ideas are well worth understanding and he has helped a host of couples have better relationships.

Not everyone will seek to understand Chapman’s ideas. Many people live alone, or they have partners who believe their marriage is just fine and really don’t want to be bothered with new ways of understanding. Fortunately, God himself has a profound plan for fulfilling our needs. The word for quality time with God is called prayer and the practice of prayer leads to a life of love and peace, even in the middle of chaos. Scripture is full of words of affirmation meant to express God’s love for us in a personal way. We are told God knows each of us so well even the hairs on our head have been counted. For acts of service, Christ washed his disciple’s feet and we are able to continue his example by serving others. For love spoken through gifts, what gift could compare with the gift of God’s only Son? The Eucharist provides physical contact that is the “source and summit of our relationship with God just as physical contact is an expression of heart and soul in marriage.

We often keep God on a hangar in a closet. When we need him, we can’t find him, even though he is right there where we left him. Life can have a way of making us feel invisible as we age and not everyone has someone devoted to speaking love in his/her own language. When that is the case, who better to turn to than the author of love and the speaker of all languages? When we devote our lives to speaking God’s language of love, we discover God’s own abundance meets our deepest needs.

Second Sight

Jim

There is a familiar hymn that we sing during communion time that asks us to look beyond the bread we eat and see our Savior and our Lord. We were thinking about this particular hymn because the gospel stories during Easter focus on seeing the risen Christ. Those pilgrims on the road to Emmaus were so preoccupied in their conversation with one another that they did not recognize the stranger who walked beside them. Only in the breaking of the bread did they recognize the risen Christ in their presence. Others couldn’t believe their eyes when Christ came and stood before them. It just didn’t compute in their brains, in spite of what they saw. Obviously there is more to “seeing” than physical perception.

Have you ever known a blind person who, in many ways, had the ability to see more than you did? Austin was such a person for us. He was a regular lector at his parish and he never missed his assigned Sunday to read. After making his way unassisted to the ambo and adjusting the microphone, he would unroll a cloth mat and lay his paper in the center of it. With a clear voice he then proclaimed the scripture as his fingers skimmed along the raised dots. Most lectors occasionally let a word slip by as they pushed to finish a certain passage. But Austin never missed a word and neither did we, his listeners. He “saw” the words with his fingers better than most of us read with our eyes.

In her book “Left to Tell” Immaculee Ilibagiza describes the horror of the ethnic cleansing in Rwandan holocaust. Along with seven other women, she spent 91 days hidden and starving in a small bathroom. During this ordeal Immaculee gradually came to see life through the eyes of faith in ways she had never seen before. She began to see those who hunted her as children of God who were, like her, caught in the grip of evil. Immaculee’s new vision eventually allowed her to face and forgive the man who murdered her family and sought to kill her.

All of the human family is on the “road to Emmaus,” and every single heart holds the hope of heaven as its final destination. Unfortunately, we have chosen to surround ourselves with pollution, corruption and destruction in every form. Lines down the center separating friends from enemies become more clearly defined. Like Austin, we need to keep the word in our heart and proclaim it with boldness. Just as Immaculee did, we must use eyes of faith to see beyond hatred and violence. When we are willing to break bread, especially with those we have to come think of as enemies, we will finally realize the presence of Christ among us.

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Common Ground

Questions of aging explored in the light of faith.

We must face difficult situations in the second half of life. Often, these situations seem to be questions without answers. To such questions, the only answer is the kind of faith that has already seen us through so much in life. From time to time we will consider one of these questions in the light of faith.

If you have experienced a similar situation and your faith has brought you to a different, stronger, better place in life than you could have imagined, would you share your wisdom with us? We may from time to time post selected responses to the question. Last names of respondents and names of companies and /or /other people will be omitted for protection of privacy.

Topic: We Are Not Who We Used to Be

When we look in the mirror, Jim and I both realize we aren’t what we used to be, especially when it comes to physical fitness and energy. How do we maintain ourselves physically as we age? We know what to do, but finding the time to do it is another story. One problem is that all of the diets, exercise programs and energy building tips are so complicated, we would have to drop everything else to make any of them work. Simple must be better. We have a friend who has a simple exercise routine and she gave up sugar some years ago. While we can’t imagine a world without ice cream and cookies, she does quite well without either. Physically, she appears much younger than her 70+ years. What are some of the simple things we can do to make the most of who we are physically at this point in our lives?

Topic: Mending Family Rifts

In his book “The Journey to Peace, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin says “If you accept the Lord’s peace into your hearts, the darkness will not be able to overwhelm you.” This afternoon a friend, who happened to be passing by, saw us in the yard, and she pulled into the driveway. She had just spent the afternoon with some of her family at the funeral home because one of her aunts had passed away.

Though the aunt had lived in a small town nearby, our friend had not seen her in many years. There had been some trouble over money in the family long ago and the aunt had not spoken to a single one of her seven brothers and sisters for as long as our friend could remember. She had come away from the funeral home feeling sad that the rift in the family had never been mended.

Why is it that there is often a lack of peace in our families? Unforgiveness grows in the darkness in our hearts, producing mildew in the soul. It can’t grow in the presence of peace and light. The older we become the more we realize how fragile things are – how little holds our financial system together, how fragile our health is, our quickly peace within our families can be destroyed.

Many people talk about forgiveness, but often the people the most difficult to forgive are the ones closest to us. Have you mended a rift in your family? If so, how did you accomplish this? Let us know and we will share ideas with others who may be hoping to bring about peace in one small corner of the earth.

Topic: Family Reunions

We look forward to our family reunion each summer. It isn’t as large as it was in years past. Both Dad and Mom have passed away. Younger generations have moved on or moved away. Still we look forward to seeing those who come.

We have heard some creative solutions for getting family together. One family rents a house in a different part of the country each year so that the burden of travel doesn’t always land on one part of the family.

Another couple always rents the same condominium on the Gulf Coast of Florida for the month of September each year. Children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles and cousins come and go for a few days or longer as their schedules permit.

While family reunions offer great opportunities, they also hold pitfalls. What happens when some family members can’t stand the sight of each other? What if some family members have unattractive habits, drink too much, or are inconsiderate of others?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to hold our families together. If you have ideas, tips or solutions on how family reunions can be richer, happier experiences for all, please let us know.

E-mail responses may be sent to: ann@catholicseniorspirit.com
jim@catholicseniorspirit.com

Common Ground Archives

The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission. All rights reserved.