The Flood of Our Undoing

I’ve always thought one of the most upsetting lines in Scripture is God’s chilling assessment of human beings just prior to flooding the earth: “I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen 6:7). Of course, these words are only half as chilling as the floodwaters themselves, which cover the earth and destroy all living things.

Was God really sorry for making people? No, I don’t think so. Like the flood itself, God’s words express a deeper meaning, a sorrow so profound that it is expressed here in a plaintive hyperbole, a purposely shocking lament. The broken heart of God is groaning! Yet it is not God we humans harmed but one another. According to Genesis it was the inclination of the human heart that grieved God’s own heart (6:5-6). It was the way we treated each other.

At the end of this dark story of divine disappointment and devastating destruction, a covenant is established, the first in the Bible. It is a covenant made not only with humans but with animals, with all of creation. This is a covenant of peace. All that humans are asked to do is to not kill each other (9:6).

There are many ways to kill: in thought, in word, and in actual deed. As these days pass in our nation and our world, it seems almost impossible that we could ever get along, that we could treat each other in a way that will not grieve the heart of God, or that we could stop killing one another in thought, word, and deed. God has promised to never flood the earth again, but we can still drown ourselves.

We know the only antidote is love—the one gift that always builds up and never tears down—the one spiritual gift that can’t be lorded over someone else or twisted for power or self-promotion, the one that is never rude, that rejoices in the truth: the one that never ends (1 Cor 12–13).

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life we celebrate this week, said many things that this nation treasures, and among those: Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Only love stops the destruction of the other—mentally, verbally, physically, socially. Only love as deep as our divisions can stop this flood of our own undoing.

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A version of this reflection was originally published here, January 2021.

New Stations of the Cross Book: Come to Me, All of You

Hello, all! I’m excited to share that I’ve been working on a new project with a gifted artist named Gabrielle Rowell. Gabby and I have collaborated on a new version of the Stations of the Cross, now available from Liturgical Press.

Why I Wrote These Stations

I have always loved the Stations of the Cross. The reason goes back decades. As many of you know, I grew up in a small Episcopal parish in Plano, Texas. The Stations of the Cross was an essential part of our Lenten practice as a parish family. Actually, the full practice was soup, sandwiches, and Stations! Every Friday evening in Lent for years, I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my friends in the parish hall, and then gathered in the church with the whole community to pray the Stations. I was an altar server, so I often walked from station to station with a large candle in hand. No doubt this experience remains a part of my muscle memory. I still prefer to walk the Stations rather than pray them in a pew.

The Stations of the Cross is a devotion that has structure but allows a good deal of imagination and creativity. When I began dreaming about a new version of the Stations, I wasn’t sure how to go about it. But I began to think and pray with these sacred moments, entering as much as possible into Jesus’ experiences. One day the painful Tenth Station was on my mind: Jesus is stripped of his garments. I wondered if—in that moment when every last thing was stripped from him—Jesus may have recalled the stories of Eden, where the first human beings were naked but not ashamed (Gen 2:25). A realization that the Scriptures he knew so well must have permeated Jesus’ mind and heart in moments of crisis allowed me to reimagine the scene. Perhaps Jesus was not utterly humiliated in that moment, as I had always thought. Perhaps he was comforted, even strengthened, by recalling this original truth—that we are all naked before God, and we need not be ashamed. No doubt this was a moment of suffering, but perhaps it was also an experience of total surrender and freedom before God.

I began to let this imagining inspire the way I thought and wrote about the other Stations. What might Jesus have been thinking as he walked this path? What bits and pieces of Scripture might have surfaced as he struggled? In the moment he saw his mother? When Veronica touched his face? When the first nail struck? We cannot know for sure, but there is value in wondering, in imagining, in entering the mind of Christ and hearing his voice speak within us.

There is one thing I knew for certain as I prayed with and wrote these Stations: whatever Jesus might have been experiencing and thinking, we are all invited to be a part of it. Because with God, every thought is outward movement. It is all invitation: Come to me, all of you. This invitation saturates these Stations. Whether Jesus is falling to the ground or being lifted up on the cross, he is thinking of us. He is calling us to stay close.

The Art

Art helps us imagine. As this project came into focus, I knew it needed art that would help us walk this painful, life-giving path. I reached out to Gabrielle Rowell, a young artist, photographer, and mother living in Washburn, Missouri, whose work I have followed for several years. Gabby’s art is both bold and gentle—this was the artistic tone I envisioned for Come to Me, All of You. And it is what Gabby created. You can visit gabriellerowellart.com to see her beautiful, original linocuts, each one carved by hand for this book.

Inside of Come to Me, All of You, you’ll also find a simple guide for praying with the art Gabby has created. It is our hope that both the words and images in this new version of the Stations of the Cross will help you enter more deeply into the mind and heart of Christ.

Learn More

To learn more about Come to Me, All of You: Stations of the Cross in the Voice of Christ and to see sample pages, visit litpress.org/stations. Multi-copy pricing is available for those who wish to purchase ten or more copies for sharing or parish use.

You can also view a “Question and Answer” author video about the book here.

Please feel free to share with others who may be interested in praying the Stations of the Cross in a new way! And thank you all, as always, for your encouragement and support—you are a blessing to me!

Come to Me, All of You

The Eighth Station: Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem

Linocut carving of the Eighth Station before stamping

Artist Gabby Rowell and her daughter Saoirse

The Unbearable Tension of Hope

The essay below was published in the October issue of Give Us This Day as commentary on this week’s lectionary — especially the readings from Romans on Monday and Tuesday, but also looking forward to the celebrations of All Saints and All Souls on Wednesday and Thursday.

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I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing
compared with the glory to be revealed. (Rom 8:18)

St. Paul was a master of opposites. I can remember my New Testament professor making wonderful lists of Pauline opposites on a chalkboard, back when chalkboards were a thing. What a wonderful list he would have made (and probably did!) with the readings we have this week from Romans 8 (Monday and Tuesday). In Column A, we have this present time, characterized by: flesh, death, spirit of slavery, fear, and suffering. In Column B, we have what is to be revealed, with its corresponding opposites: Spirit, life, spirit of adoption, hope, and glory. I can almost hear the spirited scratch of chalk and see those dust particles flying!

Although Paul suffered plenty of rejection as a preacher, there is a reason his gospel took hold and still speaks to us today. Paul knew all too well that suspended feeling each of us experiences every day of our lives—the “eager expectation,” the waiting, the endurance, the groaning—the way it feels to live in both columns.

Paul’s gospel was about hope. Not a shallow hope meant to numb or appease, but a “prophet-who-has-seen-the-Promised-Land” kind of hope, a living witness. Paul’s understanding of salvation was primarily apocalyptic; he was convinced that the present and the future intersect and collide. The present time is moving inexorably toward a future that is rich and overflowing with glory. In the meantime, we “groan.” And yet! In the meantime, we already taste God’s glory as children of God who live in a time of incredible promise: as “joint heirs with Christ” we will inherit everything Christ himself has inherited. The first inheritance is resurrected life.

Paul’s opposites express the almost unbearable tension of this apocalyptic hope. Although salvation is playing out in our lives every day, indeed every moment, it has not played out in its fullness. Not yet. But if one column of our chalk­board list could be etched in gold, it would be Column B, with its one foot firmly in the present and its full lean into an abundant future. Indeed, Paul insists that “the sufferings of this present time” are “as nothing” (“a small price to pay,” translates Brendan Byrne, SJ). Elsewhere Paul insists that “this slight momentary affliction” will yield “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor 4:17).

Sometimes the “sufferings of this present time” overwhelm us. Death, fear, and futility still have their way with us. And yet it is Paul’s vision—one that was acquired, let’s not forget, on a dusty road to Damascus when he encountered the Risen One in a blaze of light—that sustains us. The “glory to be revealed” is none other than our own transformative encoun­ters with God as joint heirs of the Risen Lord—a glory we can already see, taste, and touch, but which we do not yet fully experience.

The saints and souls we celebrate on Wednesday (All Saints) and Thursday (All Souls) are living witnesses of this light-filled vision. Having lived the opposites, they are icons of the hope etched in gold—a hallmark of Paul’s gospel and of every Christian life.

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Amy Ekeh, from the October 2023 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2023). Used with permission.

Postscript: My New Testament professor was Fr. Frank Matera at The Catholic University of America, now retired in my home diocese, the Archdiocese of Hartford, where I’m blessed to see him regularly. He taught me so much about reading the New Testament, and I continue to count on his mentorship and friendship.

In Honor of Thomas D. Stegman, S.J. (1963–2023): A Tribute to Work

The first time I met Tom Stegman, he was working. Sleeves literally rolled up, Bible in hand, teaching—intelligence, humor, clarity, charisma. Here was someone being himself. Being himself for others. There are moments in our lives that we remember with crystal clearness. This is one of my moments.

My friendship with Tom began that day, and our several years of collaboration began some years later. It was during those years that I came to an even deeper understanding of the work Tom did, the wholeheartedness with which he did it, and the way the work occupied so much of his mind. He loved people. He loved sports. He loved the STM, his Jesuit community, his family, students, colleagues, the priesthood. But he also really loved to work.

Some people are workaholics. They work to escape other things. They work to avoid. This was not Tom. For Tom, work was life—it was the joy of life, the proclamation of the gospel, a privilege and a vocation. The thousands of hours of his life that he poured into books and articles, lectures and retreats, administration and preaching—we see what the work amounted to in his sixty years with us. Hours upon hours of sharing his knowledge, his ideas, his encouragement. The legacy is not only what is in print, but what is in our minds and hearts.

Things changed dramatically for Tom in the last year of his life. But he never stopped working, not until he simply could not do it anymore. As his friend and his editor, I always told him that he was steering the ship, that the work could stop at any time. But we kept working. He wrote a Bible study on Romans. He wrote essays for publication. We started a book of reflections on the healing ministry of Jesus. I don’t think we had a single conversation that last year that didn’t at least touch on work. And he never stopped generating ideas—for the work still to be done, for projects yet to take shape. The last time we talked, he had a lot to say about 2 Corinthians!

Tom knew he was dying. I don’t think the focus on work was a denial of that or an attempt to escape from it. But he knew what life was about: figure out who you are, and be that person. Be that person to the best of your ability—with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Be that person at work and at play, with family, friends, and strangers. Be that person in such a way that those around you glorify God, nodding their heads and believing God is with us. Be that person in such a way that those who must go on without you will go on without you, but always saying in their hearts, Here was a man who knew who he was. Here was a man for others.

“But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.”

— Acts 20:24

Thomas D. Stegman, S.J., was dean and professor of New Testament at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, a respected scholar, prolific author, and popular retreat director. A Jesuit of the Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus, Tom was also a beloved brother, son, and uncle, a valued colleague, and a friend to many, including me.

Photo by Tony Rinaldo. Used with permission.

I See You

We thought we were prepared to read Genesis with our sons. It’s not as though we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. And honestly, it wasn’t the fact that God essentially drowns every human being except one family in Genesis 7 that raised eyebrows. It was Noah getting drunk and naked in Genesis 9 that really got their attention. And then, of course, there was Genesis 16—Abram’s wife telling him to sleep with her maid Hagar to conceive a child. When we read that, Eli said, “This has me thinking about Noah getting drunk.”

But then we read about Hagar. . . Hagar, pregnant, running away. Hagar, who never asked for this. Hagar . . . who is every person who feels unmoored, unloved, unseen.

But God saw Hagar. And in Scripture, when God sees, God loves, God protects, God promises. And as the story goes, “To the Lord who spoke to her she gave a name, saying, ‘You are God who sees me’” (Gen 16:13).

Then I remembered why we were reading Genesis. Because even a ten-year-old and a twelve-year-old need to hear and know that no matter how insignificant we may feel or how bleak things may look, we are seen by the one who created it all. The glance of the one who is both lover and beloved is eternal (Song of Songs 2:4; 4:9). This is God’s name, after all, a name given by Hagar: God-Who-Sees-Me.

We know God by this name. Like Hagar, this gaze, this glance, has fallen upon us in the wilderness, by the side of the road. It has fallen upon us in hospitals, at gravesides, in bedrooms and kitchens. It falls upon us when we lie awake at night, when we worry, when we grieve, when we’re numb.

We may not always feel “ravished” by this glance like the lover in the Song of Songs. But after years of living and loving (and reading Genesis), we know. Our God is the one who sees.

Hagar Kneeling Before the Angel, Rembrandt