Chevalier de la charité

The somber mood spoke volumes.

Displaying a despondent countenance before a throng of national media, University of Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman and two of his stalwart seniors — quarterback Riley Leonard and linebacker Jack Kiser — fielded numerous questions following a 34-23 loss to Ohio State University in the College Football Playoff national championship Jan. 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.

« Obviously tough moment, tough outcome, » said Freeman. « There’s reasons why we didn’t get the outcome we wanted. Credit to Ohio State and their ability to execute on both sides of the ball. … We obviously didn’t play the way we needed to get the outcome we wanted, but as I said to the guys in the locker room, there’s not many words to say when everybody is hurting. »

Aiming for its 12th national title and first since 1988, Notre Dame started strong. Culminating a momentous 18-play, 75-yard drive that ate an unfathomable 9 minutes, 45 seconds off the clock, Leonard powered home from the one-yard line to give the Fighting Irish a 7-0 lead.

As soon as he reached the end zone and noticed a camera directly in front of him, Leonard pointed to his wristband to share his favorite Scripture passage, Matthew 23:12: « For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. »

At his first opportunity to speak at the post-game press conference, Leonard said, « Before I answer your question, I want to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for giving me the opportunity to play in this game. »

In addition to his wristband, he wrote on his hand Proverbs 27:17: « As iron sharpens iron, so should one man sharpen another. »

« Us and Ohio State are the two teams that praise Jesus Christ the most, and I think that we strengthen each other in our faith through coming to this game and competing against each other, » he said. « I’m happy to see godly men come out on top no matter what the circumstances. I’m happy to praise Jesus in the lowest of the lows, as well. »

After the win, several Ohio State Buckeyes publicly praised God, including quarterback Will Howard. « First and foremost, I’ve got to give the glory and praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I wouldn’t be here without him, » he said in an on-field interview. Howard has celebrated his team’s postseason wins on social media with Bible verses.

Despite later throwing a pair of touchdown passes and being directly involved in a whopping 49 of Notre Dame’s 58 offensive plays, Leonard said he felt he had let his teammates down in the championship game, this despite helping the Fighting Irish climb to within 31-23 with four minutes remaining in regulation, thanks mostly to his heroics.

Reflecting on his decision to transfer from Duke University for his senior season, Leonard credited his coaches and teammates for his brief, but incredibly successful, Notre Dame career.

« It’s very easy to be a successful quarterback when, first and foremost, your coaches are setting you up for success, » Leonard said. « I’ve never been so prepared in my life. I’ve just learned so much within this past year. … The character of this place is kind of hard to describe, and I think I’ve grown so much because of the people around me. »

Kiser, a six-year player who set a record for most games played in Irish navy blue and gold, echoed his fellow team captain.

« When you look at the six years I’ve been here, what I remember is the people, » Kiser said. « Getting to meet amazing guys … and to go on the journey that we went on. To have Coach Freeman — yeah. It’s about the people. It’s the people that have made this place different. It just shows where this program is heading. The people in this building are the best, absolute best. »

Like a father figure making sure his flock understood his gratification for a job well done, Freeman lauded the entire Notre Dame roster. He described a team that « chose to work, we all chose to trust each other, chose to love each other, to be selfless and put the team in front of ourselves. »

« I’m just proud of them and proud of what they’ve done, » Freeman said. « I’m proud of who they are, the way they represent themselves, and it’s just an honor to be on this journey with them. »

The latest episode of « The Nonviolent Jesus » podcast features John Dear in conversation with civil rights leader Bernard Lafayette, a colleague of Martin Luther King Jr. The podcast can be found here.

On the podcast, Dear, the founder of the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus, speaks with Lafayette, an activist and organizer who was part of the Nashville student movement. He worked closely with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

An ordained Baptist minister, Lafayette, 84, founded the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island. 

Future episodes:

• Episode 4 (Jan. 27): John Dear in conversation with St. Joseph Sr. Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking.
• Episode 5 (Feb. 3): John Dear in conversation with Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr about his new book on the prophets, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage.

A former Jesuit and previously an NCR columnist, Dear is executive director of the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus, a charitable organization founded in 2020 and based in Morro Bay, California.

Dear’s most recent book, The Gospel of Peace: A Commentary on Matthew, Mark, and Luke from the Perspective of Nonviolence, was published by Orbis in 2023.

As I turn 80, I feel as though I am guiding the fragile watercraft of my life across a metaphorical lake. I find myself facing down the mist, hesitating before I enter it, as I cannot see what lies on the other side. I want to believe it is a beautiful place. But there is trepidation. I sailed easily through my 50th, 60th and 70th birthdays. Why does this one feel so different?

Being a chronically spiritual person, I look on this moment through the eyes of my soul. People wiser than I have spoken and written of spiritual « stages » that we pass through in our lives. How might I identify stages I have lived through? Am I now standing on the brink of a new one? 

Looking back, I see clearly two stages: regulation and integration. Looking forward, peering into the mist, I sense a fearsome but refreshing invitation: transformation.

When I was a child, the words « religion » and « rules » occurred in the same thought, the same breath. Do not lie, do not steal, do not cheat, do not call others bad names, honor Mom and Dad, and go to church on Sunday. Go to the right church, and Jesus will love you.

One second grade morning, I was accosted by a classmate who demanded to know if I was a Protestant or a Catholic. Hands on hips, I sternly declared that I was neither. « I am a Methodist! »

In my New York high school, I was one of three Christian students in our group of college preppers. The others were the smart Jewish kids who got together after school to help each other with homework. I envied them, but was not one of them. I firmly believed that various groups of God-followers were separated from one another by deep, uncrossable chasms.

As I entered adulthood, such regulation moved into integration. After four years of majoring in religion at a Methodist university, I became a Catholic (a story for another time) and took a job as a full-time parochial liturgy director, directing the arts and ministries of the parish. I was also an improvisational sacred dancer, and taught dance groups around the United States and in Australia in a wide variety of denominations: Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal, Catholic, Congregational, Unitarian and Mennonite.

After retiring from the liturgy work, I became a certified music practitioner and served for 15 years as the « chaplain with a harp » in a hospice inpatient unit. There, I played my harp for, prayed with, and learned from persons of multiple spiritual paths, now adding Baha’i, Mormon, Buddhist, Jewish, Sikh, questioner and nonbeliever to the list. 

Ten years ago, in our summer RV park, four of us — two Christian and two Jewish women — formed an informal Faith Club, meeting every week to share, ask each other questions and learn from one another, forming an unbreakable bond that endures today.

Needless to say, my walls came down. On Sundays, you will still find me in a pew at my local Catholic parish, but now my heart has no boundaries. Integration has allowed my spirituality to expand beyond labels, and drawn me into the One Source of life and love.

Now, at the big 8-0, I sit on the proverbial lake in my fragile craft, and the mist before me beckons. I retired late, at age 72, but for years have clung tenaciously to my former identities to maintain a sense of self-worth. Now I feel drawn to let go: let go of my imagined self-importance, my need for control, my need to be « something » in the eyes of others rather than simply someone who lives and loves and is grateful for each person, each day, each breath. For years, I have talked and written about « Let go, and let God. » Good intentions. But I haven’t yet done a very good job of it.

I remember the words of Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister in The Gift of Years: « It is in our later years that the real subject of religion — the relationship between the human being and the Creator … and the consequent surrender to the spiritual meaning of life — becomes real. »

I don’t dance like I used to. I no longer need to schlep a harp hither and yon. I am no longer obsessed with whether or not a liturgy is done with rubrical correctness. I write, and pray, and love, and walk and wonder. I am ready to « surrender to the spiritual meaning of life. » Not without trepidation. But it is time.

I pick up my paddle. Holding it firmly, I push it deep into the water and press forward into the transforming mist …

I now know. I am coming home.

Time, what is it?
What time is it now?
Do you have time for …?

My mom used to say, « Time comes, baby comes. » The number of weeks or months counted before greeting a baby was far from exact. By the clock, time can be very precise — and that matters for a lot of mechanical or human things. But time itself passes, and it has nothing to do with the clock.

We are living in the beginning moments of a new era, the roots of which go far back. In fact, I would suggest that we haven’t seen a time like this for five or six hundred years. Back around the mid-1400s, Johannes Gutenberg invented a machine called the « movable-type printing press » that revolutionized — and began to democratize — reading. The press made possible the Protestant Reformation, putting the Bible into the hands of laypeople as never before. Meanwhile, Christopher Columbus failed at finding the sea route he wanted and instead found out that the world was not at all like he and his European friends had thought. 

Two hemispheres were changed unimaginably as Europe confronted America, but those novelties had a more immediate effect on the upper classes and intellectuals than they did on the peasants who made up about 90% of the population. Today, it’s different.

Almost everyone in the world is affected by the communications revolution that has brought the world into our living rooms, and by the fact that AI has only begun to make us reconsider what it means to be human. This has left vast numbers of people feeling off-kilter, unsure of what the future might hold but knowing that it will be unimaginably different.

Today, as we celebrate our liturgies, we listen to literature written somewhere between about 2,000 and 2,500 years ago. 

As always in the Gospel of John, there are layers upon layers of meaning to be peeled in the account of the wedding at Cana: the meaning of water becoming wine, the subtle exhortation to save the best for last, the assurance that marriage is a blessing and even the confirmation that a good party is a holy experience. Not to mention the import of Mary getting Jesus to change his mind, one of only two women in the Gospels to do so. (The other was the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:24-30.)

In today’s reading, Jesus says, « My hour [time] has not yet come. » But John has already told us that something earthshaking is about to happen. For some reason, our liturgy cuts off the first part of the first verse of this reading, but careful readers will notice that John introduced the story by saying, « On the third day, there was a wedding. » The « third day! » That’s the day of the Lord, the day of salvation, the day Jesus predicts as the day of his vindication.  

Jesus claimed not to have felt that his « third day » had arrived, but Mary knew how badly it was needed. The people who ran out of wine at the wedding symbolize people who have run out of hope. They had prepared for everything to be plentiful; they were beginning a new life! And then, it started to fall apart as the joy wore thin. Mary noticed and, instead of arguing with Jesus, she told the stewards to do whatever he would tell them and all would be well. Jesus responded to his mother’s urging; not because he was ready, but because the need was ripe.

As a church, we have just begun the Jubilee Year of hope. Pope Francis tells us that hope is both a gift and a duty. He tells us that « hoping is waiting for something that has already been given to us: salvation in God’s eternal and infinite love. »

Our world seems to be running out of joy. We’re afraid for the vulnerable, we’re sorrowful with the victims of war, we’re concerned about our country and world, and especially about our descendants in this time of unpredictable upheaval on every front.

What are we to do? Mary herself didn’t know what Jesus would do, only that he could make a difference.

In this Jubilee Year, we are invited to be pilgrims of hope. Our hour has come. We have been given the gifts necessary for the moment, we only need to « do whatever he tells you. » And whether we understand it or not, God will work out the rest. 

With their sparkling embroideries and colorful sashes flapping in the frigid wind, hundreds of Guatemalan faithful flocked to the Catholic church of this heartland farming town to celebrate their biggest festival yet in honor of the Black Christ of Esquipulas.

Just days before the start of a U.S. administration that’s promised a swift immigration crackdown, they turned with hope and pride to the statue of the crucified Jesus, an elaborately carved replica of the most venerated image in their tropical homeland. Church members had it especially commissioned and brought from Guatemala at enormous expense, along with two massive marimbas. No feast is complete without these musical instruments.

“The Black Christ of Esquipulas has come taking planes and crossing borders like us,” said Lucas López. Fourteen years ago, he left San Marcos, one of Guatemala’s poorest regions, where communities nonetheless also organized festivals this week.

López and his wife, María Ramírez, are now raising their four children in Worthington, a town transformed by international migration. With his salary from the pork processing plant job for which he awakes daily at 4:20 a.m., the couple recently bought their first home a few blocks from church.

At Sunday’s Mass that launched the daylong celebration, López and Ramírez — wearing sequined and embroidered huipil and skirt, colorful ribbons tied in her hair — led a dozen faithful in a traditional barefoot dance bringing the offerings to the altar.

“We’re so happy to show that we are here, with our American dream, and also to share our culture with others,” López said.

One crucifix for many countries — and their migrants

The original crucifix dates back to the late 16th century, and its feast day on January 15 draws thousands of pilgrims to the basilica in Esquipulas, a city on Guatemala’s border with Honduras. On Sunday, Cardinal Fabio Baggio, long the head of the Vatican’s migrants department, will also celebrate a special Esquipulas Mass at St. Peter’s.

From New Mexico to Panama, and throughout Guatemala, nearly 300 churches are devoted to its veneration, making the image a source of communal identity even beyond its religious meaning, said Douglass Sullivan-González, a University of Mississippi history professor.

He added that it’s been intertwined in modern Central American politics, from Indigenous rights — because centuries of candle smoke have given it a darker skin tone — to civil wars.

“The image itself comes alive in its context,” Sullivan-González said.

For many in Worthington, that context is migration. Gratitude they made it to the United States, whether twelve months or two dozen years ago, mingles with nostalgia for customs and loved ones left behind.

The community includes undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and U.S. citizens, so apprehension over who will get to stay and for how long mixed with the pride of having pulled off a genuinely Guatemalan celebration some 2,500 miles (4,080 kilometers) away.

“The immigration police is coming already!” joked Benigno Miranda when an empty passenger van pulled up by the house where he and other church members had gathered to prepare the two marimbas to be transported to St. Mary’s Church. That’s what the van was really for.

“One can’t be afraid all the time,” added Miranda, reflecting widespread sentiment among those celebrating the festivities that God will decide their destinies more than shifting politics and policies.

Working a miracle to bring a sacred image to Minnesota

After all, the Black Christ of Esquipulas is known for miracles — as long as one truly has faith, choir member Lilia Soto said.

She remembers going to visit the sanctuary in Esquipulas with her grandmother before she came to Minnesota at 17 — and also recalls how, shortly afterward, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at Worthington’s meatpacking plant had many migrants terrified to leave their homes.

But now the Black Christ is here at St. Mary’s — normally hanging on a wall by the entrance, though for the festivities it was mounted on a processional float decorated with the same kaleidoscopic fabrics as the women’s dresses.

“When they were getting it down, I basically went running to give it a hug,” Soto said.

That made it even better than in Esquipulas, where the image is untouchable behind glass, she said.

“It’s like having a little piece of Guatemala in this church,” added Dilma Pérez, her fellow choir member.

Pérez and her brother Sergio came to Worthington from San Marcos — where their parents regularly took them to church, but couldn’t afford to travel to Esquipulas — more than two dozen years ago, when she was a teen and he about 9.

Now Pérez and her husband have three U.S.-born children, and also relatives in Guatemala who still depend on their remittances because wages in their region hover around $6 a day. They both work in a pork processing plant 45 minutes away by car.

Nevertheless, one taco and tamale sale at a time, the family led the community’s effort over the last three years to fundraise the nearly $40,000 needed to have an artist in Esquipulas sculpt the statue, to buy the wooden marimbas, and to get them to Worthington.

“We sacrificed a lot,” Sergio Pérez said Sunday afternoon, after serving the celebration’s free taco lunch in the parish school cafeteria and before playing guitar in the hours-long prayer service. “It’s been somewhat physically exhausting, but spiritually I feel strengthened.”

Keeping traditions alive for future generations

For many diaspora communities, maintaining traditional celebrations while integrating in the life of the local church is crucial for the faith of future generations, said Jennifer Hughes, a history professor at the University of California, Riverside.

In the villages in San Marcos that also celebrated festivals this week for the Black Christ of Esquipulas, some participants lamented losing many youth to migration.

“Unfortunately, our people have to migrate to get ahead,” said Freddy De León, a dancer in one of the processions.

But ties remain, also through remittances. The sister of another organizer, Luis Ramírez, watched a live Facebook video of their hamlet’s festivities from her New Jersey home.

“That’s how the tradition continues,” he said.

In Worthington, where students of color constitute more than 80% of those enrolled in K-12 and speak more than 40 languages, children are growing accustomed to intercultural mixing.

Downtown, a flyer advertising the celebration in Spanish hung in a Guatemalan corner store, three blocks from where lifelong residents ice fished in the middle of frozen Lake Okabena.

That’s one thing Ramírez isn’t eager to try, though the cold no longer fazes her. Her prayers to the Lord of Esquipulas center on a binational future for her family — that they can one day travel to Guatemala without losing the grip on their American dream.

During Mass, the procession of the crucifix to the altar was preceded by dancers carrying flags — that of Guatemala and the Stars and Stripes next to each other in the center — and accompanied by the marimba tune of “Our Lord of Esquipulas.”

“It was very emotional. It’s what we’ve learned since our birth,” said one of the players, Antulio Juarez. He’s spent 12 years in Worthington, but learned marimba music by ear from his grandfather in Guatemala’s volcanic highlands.

Sergio Pérez hopes the opportunity to hear this music will help keep the festival growing for years. Beyond that, he asks for no other miracles.

“I don’t ask him for anything, because I feel that he’s already blessed me so much,” he said of the Esquipulas image.

His sister Dilma was equally self-effacing — and trusting.

“Faith is what keeps us going no matter what life confronts us with,” she said. “We don’t do it to please anybody but God.”

Back in November, just a week after Donald Trump was elected to a second term as U.S. president, Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chair of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ committee on migration, said the bishops would be cautious not to overreact to Trump’s immigration promises, as « the reality is different from the rhetoric. »

Now, one week ahead of Trump’s inauguration, after the administration has said it will cast aside a restriction on Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids on sensitive spaces, including houses of worship, and after Customs and Border Patrol conducted a large-scale raid near Bakersfield, California, Seitz is taking a more urgent tone.

« We are at risk of losing part of our soul as a nation, so this is a time of great concern, » Seitz told RNS, saying immigration policy must acknowledge the importance of fundamental human dignity and inalienable rights. 

Seitz, like many immigration observers, believes the Bakersfield area raid foreshadows the types of raids that might take place under the Trump administration, which made mass deportations a cornerstone of Trump’s campaign promises.

On Monday (Jan. 13), Seitz traveled to Newark, New Jersey, to join Cardinal Joseph Tobin, his archdiocese and Faith in Action, a multifaith community organizing group, at St. Lucy’s Catholic Church for a day of prayer and dialogue with immigrant families. After the event, Seitz went to visit the Statue of Liberty, which has « great meaning » for him, especially now, he told RNS en route.

Bishop Dwayne Royster, a United Church of Christ minister and the executive director of Faith in Action, said that beyond the Catholic bishops, there were faith leaders from the United Church of Christ, as well as Jewish and Muslim leaders. In addition to Tobin and Seitz representing Catholic prelates, auxiliary bishops from Newark, and New Jersey bishops from Camden, Metuchen and Paterson were all present.

The Faith in Action leader said the presence of many different faith leaders together was meant to send a strong message against mass deportations, that « we’re going to do everything within our power to prevent this from happening. »

Royster said the leaders also meant to convey to the decision-makers in government who are pushing mass deportation policies: « If you’re a person of faith, you are operating contrary to the will of God. »

The Rev. Stephen Ray Jr., former president of Chicago Theological Seminary and senior minister at United Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut, who spoke at the event, told RNS he felt it was important to engage in interfaith action because « an entire part of the way that this is being weaponized against people who are very vulnerable is presented as if deportations, etc., are somehow some sort of Christian response. »

« It’s important to show a picture of people of goodwill across religious traditions, that we stand together for the best society, » Ray said.

Seitz told RNS that a critical element of the event was listening to immigrants themselves, and he, Royster and Ray all said they were moved by the testimonies of immigrants who are now fearing deportation under the Trump administration’s proposed policies.

« One of the things that makes one most fearful is being alone in times of trial, » said Seitz. « That’s one of the things the church certainly can do is to be present to people who might otherwise feel forgotten. »

In his speech at the event, Tobin said: « We’re deeply concerned about the potential impact of mass deportation on children and families. Within the Catholic tradition and other faith expressions represented here today, we’re able to see the humanity in everyone. »

Tobin said faith communities could show their love to immigrants through four actions: encounter, a Catholic term involving listening, accompaniment, prayer and advocacy.

Royster, who also leads a religious order called the Society for Faith and Justice, highlighted that not only houses of worship, but also schools and hospitals, which had previously had some protection from ICE raids, often have ties to religious traditions. 

« The interruption of the government is actually invading religious liberty when they invade those spaces, » Royster told RNS of the proposed change in ICE raid policy. « We ought to be able to minister to those who are sick, those that need education, those who are seeking to have deeper connection. »

In his prepared remarks, Seitz also spoke to the importance of those spaces. « It is to sanctuaries like this one, to churches and temples and holy places like this one that the community comes to be formed into a people, » he said in a speech that warned against the division created by fear and unjust laws.

« When the law is used to divide, to instill fear, to separate, this is not good law. This is not humane law. This is not just law. To elected officials I say, mass deportations are not good law, » he said.

Seitz added a caveat that has been part of his rhetoric, especially in recent months. « We do not oppose legitimate law enforcement actions against those who would threaten the safety and security of our families and our communities with violence, » he said.

But, he made clear, « in the face of tactics of intimidation and division, the Catholic Church will work to protect our families, to witness to human dignity, to defend our religious liberty, to oppose the shutting down of our borders and our hearts, to march and work for immigration reform and good laws, to pour cool water on embers of hate, to preach the good news. »