I tend to be a pretty happy guy. People tell me that I smile a lot. That comes as second nature to me because I count among my blessings a loving family and my fulfilling life as a Franciscan. I know that others carry many crosses and I listen to their stories with compassion. But I’m convinced that being thankful can brighten a dark day.

Scientists have done research that shows grateful people sleep better, are healthier, happier, less depressed, less stressed, and have more positive ways of coping with difficulties.

Benedictine David Steindl-Rast writes about the practice of gratitude as a way of healing oneself and society. He takes an active role in “Gratefulness: Network for Grateful Living,” an interactive, online forum in which thousands from many countries participate. He sees gratitude as a remedy for the exploitation, oppression, and violence that plague our society. Thankfulness, he says, is also the heart of prayer.

The Love of God

Faith provides us with powerful reasons to be grateful. We recognize the Giver of all good things and put our trust in God who loves us.

“To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything he has given us—and he has given us everything,” Thomas Merton writes. “Every breath we draw is a gift of his love, every moment of existence is a grace. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.”

When we are mired in crisis, a spirit of gratitude can help us. It can prompt us to go deeper to the foundation on which can stand.

Toward the end of his life, St. Francis was in pain from the wounds in his body. He was going blind. But his faith in God’s presence was real, and from his heart he sang a hymn of thanks: “Praise be my Lord for Brother Sun, Sister Moon and the stars, Sister Water, Brother Fire, our Sister Mother Earth. . . . Praise and bless my Lord and give him thanks.”

Want to find a future saint? Look around you.

Snow shovelers, flight attendants, phlebotomists, kindergarten aides, car mechanics, postal workers, gardeners, cooks, farmers, computer technicians, produce managers, librarians, garbage collectors: They make a lovely litany for the Feast of All Saints!

Sometimes when I get depressed about the folks at the top—the greed-driven executives, the hypocritical leaders, the unethical actions of the supposedly “best and brightest”—I like to think of Tim. Tim’s job wasn’t prestigious. He worked as an aide at a retirement center where my 84-year-old friend Cathy lives. Sometimes I pick her up for a lecture or a concert, because she craves stimulation and loves to get out.

One cold morning when I arrived, Tim greeted me at the door. “Cathy’s got only a light jacket. Do you think she’ll be warm enough?” he asked with concern. “She’s so excited about going. I styled her hair!” Cathy emerged several minutes later, glowing. I complimented her on her hairstyle while Tim retrieved a heavier coat. As he waved us off, I thought no parent had sent a child to prom with more tenderness or pride.

Do we think of Tim as a saint? Probably not. Aren’t saints the folks with lush capes and sculpted halos, glowing through stained glass? Even in martyrdom, their hair is perfectly blow-dried, not one brocade thread of one sleeve askew. They are never overweight, late, anxious or irritable. But such an image does a great disservice to reality. When we put the saints on a pedestal too distant, we’re off the hook. If they were perfect, we don’t need to imitate them!

Saints in Progress

Perhaps the saints are people so drawn to Christ’s vibrant energy that they mirror him, just as long married couples begin to resemble each other. They proclaim what Christ looks like, and there are infinite varieties on the theme.

A statue of St. Benedict that stands beside a lake at the Priory of Christ the King in Schuyler, Nebraska, once startled me into new realizations about sanctity. The saint’s arms are spread wide as the surrounding prairie. He looks up happily, joyous and inclusive. The sunrise seems like a fuchsia banner he tosses into the sky with glad abandon.

His followers, monks who fled Hitler’s Germany, carry on his heritage with reverent liturgy and a beautiful retreat center. St. Benedict changes my image of the saints as dogged followers of rules. Maybe, instead, they are dazzled delighters, who walk through life amazed at God’s wonders. Instead of hounding people about their flaws, they rejoice with gratitude at what is.

In his Rule, St. Benedict wrote, “Each day has reasons for joy.” The saints are the people alert to those hints, eagerly following God’s traces through their days. In her book Friends of God and Prophets, Elizabeth A. Johnson names this the feast of “‘Anonymous,’ whom the world counts as nobodies and whom the Church, too, has lost track of but who are held in the embrace of God who loses not one.”

As Johnson explains, holiness isn’t due to anything human beings have done or earned. Instead, it results from God drawing near to us with an infinite and contagious graciousness. She defines the Communion of Saints: “This is a people shaped by a profound relationship with the Holy One that acts like a deep spring of creative power at their very core.”

In exalting human beings, we are in fact praising God. For this reason Paul addresses all the early Christians as “saints,” even when he gets frustrated with their angry feuding. We can’t define “holy” people as “closer to God” if God is everywhere.

Hearts As Big As the Universe

When I gave a talk on this theme, a woman in the audience protested.

“I was taught that only the priests and sisters are holy,” she said.

“What kind of work do you do?” I asked.

“I help women in the homeless shelter get their GEDs.”

Then a wonderful eruption poured forth from the audience. “What could be more holy than that?” they asked in a splendid demonstration of the community’s power to teach. The lights that came on in the woman’s face could have brightened the whole convention hall.

Mark 12:28-34 records a significant conversation between Jesus and a scribe. We’re inclined to boo at this, because we’re conditioned to see scribes and Pharisees as the villains of the Gospels, so hellbent on enforcing rules that they miss the Messiah. But this encounter is different. What begins in a dispute ends in a compliment. “And when Jesus saw that [he] answered with understanding, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’” (Mark 12:34).

Later writers (Luke and Matthew) omitted that line because they didn’t want “the enemy” looking so good. Mark may have come closer to understanding Jesus—who delighted in goodness wherever he found it—even among the supposedly clueless.

Along those inclusive lines, it is comforting to know the infinite variety of paths to sainthood. From what we know of canonized saints with feast days, we can infer a lot about the anonymous saints who share the feast on November 1. Some, like Thomas Becket, seem catapulted there by the choices of others: the king who made his old friend head of the Church of England. King Henry II never suspected that Becket’s loyalty would be given to God instead.

For others, like Thérèse of Lisieux, it’s a slow, reflective process: They spend lots of time in prayer and reflection. Courteously and generously, they then share their mystic insights with the rest of us on the same path. Others, like Frances Cabrini, are doers. They don’t have time for long retreats or meditations.

Prayer is almost always an important part of their work, infusing it with energy and compassion. But for the most part, their holiness is expressed in work with the poor, action for peace or social justice, creating art, literature or music. Cabrini once asked God, “Give me a heart as big as the universe!” God must have answered, “O.K.”

Holy Eccentrics

Some come to God thinking (Thomas Aquinas, Edith Stein), teaching (Charles Borromeo), cooking (Martha, patron of chefs), writing poetry (John of the Cross), gardening (Rose of Lima), painting (Blessed Fra Angélico) or acting on stage (Pelagia).

Regardless of each individual path, the final goal is the same: that all achieve a union with God. From that summit, all can look back over their approaches and admire their different twists and turns.

Imagine a heavenly deck where saints admire the view from adjoining rocking chairs. St. Teresa of Avila compares her interior castle to the celestial architecture. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton relaxes because her work is done: Her many children are fed and educated. St. Ignatius leads an imaginative reflection, while St. Hildegard of Bingen sings an original tune.

Within our offices, classrooms or homes are future versions of these great saints. We want to continue honoring that variety there. Would the genius of Francis have flourished in the mold of Dominic? Catherine McAuley or Katharine Drexel couldn’t have done their unique work in a cloister, which many other women chose.

To anyone familiar with the saints’ different personality types and stories, it’s consoling to know that even someone wacky can reach the ultimate goal of human life. The most highly improbable characters arrive in heaven.

As the mystic Gabrielle Bossis wrote: “Don’t think that a saint must look saintly in the eyes of humans. Saints have an outer nature, but it is the inner nature that counts. There is a fruit whose rough—even thorny—skin gives no inkling of its sweet and juicy taste. That is how it is for my saints. Their value is in their hearts” (quoted in Robert Ellsberg’s Blessed Among All Women).

Grace and Guacamole

Perhaps we should celebrate this feast by looking more appreciatively at those around us: saints in disguise or in progress. There we’ll find proof of Thomas Merton’s saying, “To be a saint means to be myself.”

I tried this approach at the Mexican restaurant down the street, which has an assembly-line approach to building burritos. The ladies behind the counter load on beans and guacamole, sour cream or cheese. It’s the repetitive kind of work that would drive me up the wall within two hours, but the ladies are unfailingly gracious. They smile as they ladle the salsa with a generous hand, and we communicate with our eyes more than with words in different languages.

Their grandmothers, presiding over steamy stoves, may have taught them that food prepared with love warms the soul as well as the body. Was that the glimmer of a halo along the line? Could those drab uniforms be the garments of holiness? Maybe there’s more than fajitas in the making here.

Stand back and admire saints in the works!

If we look at the lives of the saints, we can find more than a few faults. Far from discouraging us, this should give us a measure of hope.

With the Feast of All Saints, I started thinking: Everybody loves the saints, but how many of us can really relate to them? This presents a problem. To begin with, although we read the lives of the saints and admire them, most of us cannot imagine ourselves in that sacred company. Of course, we know that, besides the more “famous” saints, there are those who will never be honored by the Church with miracles and a feast day.

St. Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, wrote “to the church of God that is in Corinth, to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours” (1 Cor 1:2).

He would have written that same letter to all of us because the Corinthians were struggling to make their faith active in their lives, just as we are.

Saint-Making 101

We need to talk about becoming a saint with a lowercase s—one of the millions of unnamed and unknown persons who have found God in their lives and loved God with all their minds, souls and hearts.

You know many of them and so do I. We had a secretary at the university, my alma mater, who was the most generous and giving person I knew. She died young, but even the week before her death she was eager to help anyone who needed anything. I also know a young teacher with great wit, intelligence and humor. He is the most profoundly prayerful person I have ever met.

But none of us can make ourselves saints. None of us can even say the name of Jesus in faith without his grace. It is God who reaches out to us, not we who first choose God. God reaches out to us every day in a million ways, so grace is always there. It all starts with God and it ends with God, and in between there are nothing but God-laden moments, although we may not always recognize them as such.

Tough Act to Follow

We all have our favorite saints—the joyful St. Francis of Assisi, the gentle St. Thérèse of Lisieux, her older Carmelite sister, the strong and sensible St. Teresa of Avila.

It is very Catholic and delightful, it seems to me, the way we feel so at home with the saints that we not only admire them and ask their intercession with God for spiritual favors, but also send them requests for the daily things of life. St. Anthony of Padua is a good example. Some of us remember the little prayer rhyme to him: “Tony, Tony, look around; something’s lost that must be found.”

Still, we tend to think that we can never imitate or measure up to most of the saints. We look at the saints who died for their faith—the martyrs—some of whom suffered horribly. Some of us are frightened when we think of St. Joan of Arc being burned alive, the torture that the North American Jesuit martyrs suffered in 1646 or the long and lonely prison terms of some of today’s martyrs. We shudder and hope that God will preserve us from those trials.

We think of the missionaries of old who left their homes and all that was familiar to them and headed off to serve God, which required immense sacrifices, sickness or even death. Some went with the disapproval of their families, which must have torn them deeply. These saints we cannot hope to imitate. They had a special calling from God that far surpasses our ordinary assignments.

We think of those who founded religious orders or established new types of service in the Church. Again, these people had a unique vocation. It is very hard to find on the Church’s liturgical calendar just plain everyday people.

Love for God and Neighbor

The reason is not that those everyday people do not often become saints. It may be because they do not have “lobbyists.” More than 80 percent of the canonized saints are clerics or members of religious orders. Since canonization takes so long, one needs a group dedicated to the work of seeing it through to Rome.

In spite of this, it is important for us to remember that those who have become saints did so not because of the so-called great deeds they performed, but because of the love of God and neighbor that drove them. We don’t have to look hard to find the truth of this. All we need are the words of St. Paul:

“If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Seven Characteristics of the Saints

1) All saints are filled with the love of God.  They have chosen God above all others and made a definite commitment to God. In her book Saint Watching (Viking Press), Phyllis McGinley writes that saints are human beings with an added dimension. “They are obsessed by goodness and by God as Michelangelo was obsessed by line and form, as Shakespeare was bewitched by language, Beethoven by sound.”

2) All saints love other human beings. It cannot be any other way. In the First Letter of John (4:20) we read: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” McGinley also says that, although saints may be different in many ways, they are always generous. You will never find a stingy saint.

3) All saints are risk-takers. When God called, they answered. For some it was taking a chance on a new way of life in a new place. In the Old Testament, we have the example of Abraham, called at an old age to leave his country and to go to the place God had selected for him. Even today, it is difficult for older people to leave their level of comfort and to face the new and unknown.

Abraham’s story is a marvelous example of trust in God, but even more so of a decision to plunge into the unknown. Like Abraham, saints responded to the graces that were given to them. Some were called to be popes, bishops, abbots or abbesses. Others found their calling in a quiet, reserved life, far away from the center of activity.

St. Julian of Norwich lived in a small cell attached to a church. She was even walled in, but that did not keep people away; they came to her and asked for her spiritual advice. St. Catherine of Siena lived at home, not in a convent, as a person dedicated to God. People flocked to her, but not because she wanted them to.

Others, whose names are not well-known, lived simple lives among their families and friends, serving God with all their hearts, but never making a splash in the world.

4) The saints are humble. Humility has always had a poor press; many people think that humility means saying derogatory things about oneself. Far from it! The saints showed their humility by using whatever gifts they had to perfection, but never attributing these gifts to themselves.

St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were brilliant men and they did not go around saying how stupid they were. They did acknowledge, however, that all they knew was as nothing compared to the infinite wisdom of God.

5) Saints are people of prayer. Some, especially members of religious orders, had entire days of prayer. Others found their time with God in other ways. Dorothy Day—not canonized but recognized by many as a truly holy person—started her day with prayer but said that she met God daily in the crowds of the poor who came to her hospitality house. None of the saints saw prayer as a waste of time or as an activity for only the weak or naive.

6) The saints are not perfect. Each of the saints had human flaws and faults. They made mistakes. Even at the end of their lives, they still found themselves in need of contrition, pardon and reconciliation.

St. Jerome, it is said, had a fearful temper. When another scholar of his time, a former friend, Rufinus, questioned his conclusions, Saint Jerome wrote pamphlet after pamphlet blasting him. St. Aloysius apparently had bad timing in his spiritual quest; the other novices were just as happy when he was not there. He was the kind of saint who did not seem to know how to enjoy the things of this life.

Some saints misunderstood their own visions. When St. Francis was told to rebuild the Church, he thought it meant the local church building. It is interesting and amusing to note that Jesus did not clarify the request for him until after he had exerted a lot of sweat and energy repairing an old church. St. Joan of Arc was coerced into signing a retraction of her visions, although she later retracted that retraction. St. John Vianney, “the Curé of Ars,” did not believe the children of La Salette concerning their visions of the Virgin Mary.

During the time of the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy at the end of the 14th century and beginning of the 15th, when one pope resided in Avignon and another pope in Rome, saints found themselves on opposite sides of the rival popes, as confused as many of the common people were.

7) The saints are people of their times. One wonders how anyone escapes being of his or her time. There were injustices around the saints that they did not speak out against. St. Paul did not condemn slavery but encouraged slaves to obey their masters. St. Thomas Aquinas considered women unequal to men. He believed their only task in life was to bear children.

If we look at the lives of all the saints, we can certainly find faults. Far from discouraging us, this can give us courage. Perfection is not what we are striving for, unless it is as perfect a love as possible.

The Gospel of Luke, read at Mass on most Sundays this year, affirms that God values each of us regardless of age, wealth, health or gender.

The Gospel of Luke assures us that the Kingdom of God, in its fullness, will confound all our expectations and will overturn our experiences. In fact, in the Kingdom of God everything will be turned upside down.

This is especially true when it comes to power, privilege and wealth. Luke assures us time and again that in God’s Kingdom those who struggle in life now—those who are at the bottom or on the edges of human society—will suddenly find themselves at the top and in the center.

On the other hand, he warns those who now enjoy the greatest human security and social advantage that their experience may be very different. As Jesus tells his listeners on one occasion, “Behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30, New American Bible, also used for other quotes). This notion that in the end God will turn everything we know upside down is often called the “Great Reversal.” It is a hallmark of Luke’s Gospel, where it appears frequently.

Mary’s Magnificat

The announcement of the Great Reversal appears early in the Gospel in the Magnificat (1:46-55), Mary’s great song of praise. Shortly after she consents to become the mother of Jesus, the young girl from the little town of Nazareth hurries to visit her cousin Elizabeth who, she has learned from the Angel Gabriel, has conceived a child in her old age. When the two meet, Elizabeth bursts into a joyous welcome for “the mother of my Lord” (1:43).

Mary responds by offering praise to God for what he has done for her:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.
For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness.” (1:46b-48a)

Mary represents the most powerless and insignificant people in her society: young, female, poor. Yet God has chosen her—of all people—to be the mother of the long-awaited Messiah. Mary’s lowliness, which in human eyes would surely disqualify her from even being considered for such an unimaginably important role in God’s plan of salvation, is exactly what makes her so perfect for it.

Mary is “lowly “not simply in social status, but also in her relationship to God. Her social vulnerability allows her to be spiritually vulnerable as well. She is humble, open to the call of God, however frightening it may be, however impossible it may seem. Because she knows she is so dependent on God’s mercy, she is radically free and open to put herself at the disposal of God’s glory.

Although she sings that “the Mighty One has done great things for me” (1:49), Mary also understands that what God has done for her as an individual is a sign of God’s concern for all the lowly:

“He has shown might with his arm,
dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart.
He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry he has filled with good things;
the rich he has sent away empty.” (1:51-53)

God’s action on Mary’s behalf signals an overturning of society as a whole. Not only are the lowly lifted up and the hungry fed well, but the rich and the powerful have actually lost their positions in society. What God intends is not just that those who are without will have, but that those who have will be without.

This is a declaration of God’s judgment on the arrogant and the proud, the exact opposite of the lowly and humble. Such people are not open to hearing the call of God and, as will become quite evident in the rest of the Gospel, are particularly resistant to hearing Jesus proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Their sense of security and well-being prevents them from seeing how dependent they are on God’s mercy. Thus, their social invulnerability has created in them a similar spiritual invulnerability. The proud and arrogant effectively shut themselves out of the Kingdom, resisting the call to conversion and the acceptance of God’s mercy, the two keys to that Kingdom.

What are we to make of the fact that Mary declares that these things have already happened? Anyone could see 2,000 years ago that the rich and powerful were still quite rich and quite powerful, and that the lowly and hungry were no better off than before.

According to some scholars, the original Greek uses the past tense here to indicate habitual action, so that Mary is describing a God who routinely upsets the rich and powerful while raising up the lowly. Other scholars argue that the past tense here means what it often does when used by biblical prophets, to indicate a future event that has been firmly declared by God. In that sense, it is as good as done.

While one does not have to choose either of these options, the Magnificat clearly refers to an eschatological reversal, that is, to one that will occur in the coming age. We recognize this as already inaugurated by God’s making Mary the mother of the Messiah.

Blessings and Woes

God’s Great Reversal will become a significant, and disturbing, feature of the teaching of Jesus. In his Sermon on the Plain (6:20-49), Jesus proclaims these four blessings (or beatitudes):

“Blessed are you who are poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man.
Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!
Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.” (6:20b-23a)

Poor, hungry, mourning and hated people receive from Jesus a great consolation: One day things will be different. The poor and hungry of the world are not blessed because they are poor and hungry—poverty is not held up here as a good thing—but because what they do not have now, they will one day have in the Kingdom of God, which is already theirs!

Even those who experience rejection because of Jesus should consider themselves fortunate, not because being hated is a good thing but because their fidelity to the Son of Man in the face of opposition assures them a place in heaven.

Hatred, poverty, mourning and hunger are social evils that are not acceptable to God, and never have been, as the prophets relentlessly insisted. Blessing lies not in being poor or in being hated, but in the fact that in the world to come, the poor and the hated know that their fortunes will be reversed.

What is a consolation to the lowly in this world is disturbing news for the comfortable, whom Jesus informs what they can expect:

“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
But woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.” (6:24-26)

Each of the earlier blessings has been matched by a corresponding woe. The rich will have no need of consolation in the coming age; they have it now. The well-fed, the carefree and even the socially admired of this world will not experience consolation in the coming age.

Like his mother before him, Jesus makes the disturbing announcement that the fullness of the Kingdom of God might be less than enjoyable for some people.

At this point, we might ask: What is wrong with being wealthy, well-fed or highly thought of? Doesn’t God want these things for all of us? It is easy to see why Jesus would assure the poor and hungry that one day their situation will be remedied, but why should the rich and well-fed be punished in the coming age for their current prosperity?

Is there something wrong with being prosperous or with enjoying the good things in life? The answer is no; there is not. But social and economic security can blind us to certain realities and make us deaf to others, making us unable to respond to the ethical and the spiritual demands of the Kingdom of God.

Later in the Gospel, Jesus tells a story demonstrating that social invulnerability can be spiritually dangerous.

Lazarus and the Rich Man

There once was a rich man, Jesus tells his disciples (16:19-31), who used to dress in expensive clothes and dine well every day. At his gate there was a very poor man named Lazarus, who instead of being covered with fine linen was covered with sores. Instead of dining sumptuously every day, Lazarus longed for even the smallest scrap from the rich man’s table. After both men die, the rich man finds himself in fiery torment in the netherworld, while Lazarus is comfortably beside Abraham and all the righteous.

On seeing this, the rich man orders Abraham to send Lazarus with water to quench his thirst. Abraham refuses, noting that the rich man had been very comfortable in life.

Then the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to the rich man’s brothers to warn them, so that they can avoid his fate. Still refusing, Abraham reminds the man that his brothers have all the warnings they need in the teachings of Moses and the prophets.

Once again, we have the Great Reversal, this time written in the lives of two individuals. Their situations in this life and the next can perhaps be understood to represent those of the poor and the rich in general. We can be quite happy for Lazarus, who surely deserved to receive great comfort with Abraham after such a miserable life.

But what of the rich man? What was his crime that he should deserve such torment? Jesus makes it clear that it was not his wealth that was the problem. He is not condemned simply for being rich and well-fed; he is condemned because his good fortune blinded him to the moral responsibility he had toward Lazarus. The rich man failed to take care of the poor, a religious obligation made abundantly clear in the teachings of Moses and the prophets (see, for example, Deuteronomy 15:7-11, Amos 6:1-14 and Isaiah 58:6-9).

Because the rich man addresses Lazarus by name and obviously knew him in life, he does not even have the excuse that he didn’t know there was a poor beggar suffering at his door. To make matters worse, the rich man seems to feel that even in death Lazarus should serve him, first, by bringing him some water and, then, by being a messenger to his brothers.

Insensitivity to the plight of the poor man is aggravated by arrogance and a sense of entitlement. Despite the insistence of his religious tradition that the well-off must have compassion for the poor, the rich man’s comfort and satisfaction with life made him deaf to God’s word. And so his fate is sealed and his fortunes reversed.

What about Us?

Such a message must have been particularly compelling, and probably not a little challenging, for the Christians who first received Luke’s Gospel. It seems clear that the evangelist himself came from a privileged level of society (his Greek is very sophisticated, indicating a good education), and he most likely was writing for other educated and affluent Christians.

The question of wealth and possessions comes up time and again both in the Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, also written by Luke as a companion piece to the Gospel. Acts also emphasizes God’s enduring love for every person.

The relationship of material wellbeing to discipleship must have been a particularly critical issue for Luke’s audience. The question was: How should Christians who are socially secure relate to their own well-being and to the needs of others?

Contemporary Christians, particularly those of us who live in relatively prosperous societies, are certainly called to ask the same question. To those of us who are able to enjoy material and social prosperity, the Great Reversal may seem like very Bad News indeed. What are we to make of it? What does Jesus want us to know?

One thing that is very clear about the Great Reversal is that it is the work of God, the God who acts to set things right, to bring healing and liberation in this world and in the next. It is not something that humans can accomplish, and so the announcement of the Great Reversal is not a call for humanly orchestrated social upheaval.

At the same time, it is not a call for maintaining the status quo by assuring poor people that their poverty is a blessing. The call of Moses and the prophets—and Jesus and the saints—is not only to care for the disadvantaged but also to work actively to bring about economic justice for all people. This charge remains our religious obligation, just as it was for the rich man.

The Great Reversal assures us that the poor, the vulnerable, the marginalized—all those who count for nothing in this world—count very much in the Kingdom of God. The future holds great promise for them because God cares deeply for them.

For those who find this life easy and satisfying, the Great Reversal serves as a warning. While they are not evil in themselves, wealth and power are spiritually dangerous, always threatening to lull us into complacency and insensitivity to the needs of others.

They can also make us proud, relying on our own resources and failing to recognize our ultimate dependency on God. Only when we recognize this dependency can we, like Mary, open ourselves to hear the call of God. Only when we recognize our dependence on God can we be humble enough to hear Jesus’ invitation into the Kingdom of God, where the last in this world will be first and the first in this world—the proud, the arrogant, the satisfied—will be last.

Jesus refuses to see women as inferior or unclean, and even makes them his disciples and reveals himself to them. His is a new model of how to treat women.

“I don’t think there is a place for me at the table,” a young woman told me a number of years ago. She was talking about how she felt in her Church.

Her comment has haunted me. The image I have of Jesus from the Gospels is of one who went out of his way to welcome women at the table and in his ministry. Read against the backdrop of first-century, Middle Eastern, Judaic culture, Jesus’ words and actions are strikingly inclusive.

Women’s Place: In the Home

Jewish culture in the first century was decidedly patriarchal. The daily prayers of Jewish men included this prayer of thanksgiving: “Praised be God that he has not created me a woman.” A woman’s place was thought to be in the home. Women were responsible for bearing the children, rearing them and maintaining a hospitable home. Men were not to greet women in public. Some Jewish writers of Jesus’ time, such as Philo, taught that women should never leave the home except to go to the synagogue.

Generally marrying young, a woman was almost always under the protection and authority of a man: her father, her husband or a male relative of her husband if she was a widow.

This left women in a very vulnerable position within Judaism. They had little access to property or inheritance, except through a male relative. Any money a woman earned belonged to her husband. Men could legally divorce a woman for almost any reason, simply by handing her a writ of divorce. A woman, however, could not divorce her husband.

In the area of religious practice, women were in many ways overlooked. Men were required to pray certain prayers daily, but women were not. While the study of Scripture was regarded as extremely important for men, women were not allowed to study the sacred texts. Rabbi Eliezer, a first-century teacher, is noted for saying, “Rather should the word of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman.”

At the Temple in Jerusalem, women were restricted to an outer court. In synagogues they were separated from the men and not permitted to read aloud. They were not allowed to bear witness in a religious court. But Jesus defies these expectations in at least four ways, which have implications for us.

Jesus Speaks With Women in Public

First, Jesus refuses to treat women as inferior. Given the decidedly negative cultural view of women in Jesus’ time, the Gospel writers each testify to Jesus’ treating women with respect, frequently responding in ways that reject cultural norms. He recognizes their dignity, their desires and their gifts.

Jesus, for example, speaks to women in public. He steps forward in a crowd of mourners to speak with the widow at Nain, and to call her son back to life (Luke 7:11-17).

He cures a woman who had been crippled for 18 years, laying hands on her in the Temple and saying, “Woman, you are set free of your infirmity” (Luke 13:12). When the leader of the synagogue becomes indignant that Jesus has healed a woman on the Sabbath, Jesus uses a title of particular dignity for her, “daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:16).

While the expression “son of Abraham” was often used to indicate that a male Jew was recognized as bound by covenant to God, women had never been called “daughters of Abraham.” With this title, Jesus recognizes this woman as having equal worth.

In John 4:4-42, Jesus ignores two codes of behavior. He initiates a conversation with a foreigner, a Samaritan. In addition, this foreigner is also a woman. Her surprise is included in the narrative: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (John 4:9).

Jesus not only speaks with her but also enters into a prolonged dialogue, a dialogue which recognizes and honors her thirst for religious truth. Ultimately, he reveals his identity as the Messiah. When his disciples return, they are clearly uneasy with Jesus’ behavior. John includes the questions they are afraid to verbalize: “What are you looking for? Why are you talking with her?” (John 4:27).

The Gospel writer does not hesitate to conclude the story with a comment that, although in Jewish thought a woman’s testimony was not trustworthy, here the Samaritan woman’s excited words are heard and acted upon. “Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified” on his behalf (John 4:39).

Respect and Compassion

Second, Jesus refuses to view women as unclean or especially deserving of punishment. Women who were menstruating or persons who had any flow of blood were considered ritually unclean. In this condition, women were not allowed to participate in most religious rituals. Anything or anyone she touched was deemed unclean.

The most dramatic story concerning a woman in this state is the account of the woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years (Luke 8:43-48). Luke emphasizes Jesus’ compassion for the woman by the way he situates the story.

Chapter 8 features Jairus, an official of the synagogue, coming to Jesus to beg him to cure his daughter. While they are on the way, this frightened, suffering woman, who has been ill and consequently isolated for years, touches his cloak. Jesus turns his attention from the synagogue official to the woman. He wants to know who touched his garment. By religious norms, the woman’s touch even of his cloak rendered Jesus unclean.

If the woman expects him to be angry with her for approaching, she is greatly surprised. He says nothing of her ritual impurity, but instead addresses her as “Daughter,” says that her faith has saved her and tells her to go in peace (8:48).

Jesus recognizes the dignity of women in situations that seem by ritual law to demand judgment, for example, the sinful woman who anoints Jesus (Luke 7:36-50) and that of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11).

In both cases he sees the person as someone deserving compassion. In Luke’s narrative of the anointing woman, after Jesus is touched and anointed by a woman who is a recognized sinner, we hear the expected reaction from Simon, his host. This prominent religious leader, a Pharisee, is dismayed and says, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner” (Luke 8:39).

Not only does Jesus tell the woman that her sins are forgiven, but he also uses her actions and the love which prompted them to teach his offended host! Jesus’ question is pointed: “Do you see this woman?” (Luke 8:44).

The question urges Simon to look beyond the categories by which he has always lived and to see her as a sincere woman, as a woman of great love. Jesus clearly teaches that the one who keeps all the rules is not necessarily the better person. “Her many sins have been forgiven; hence, she has shown great love” (Luke 8:47). In John’s account of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11), a trap is laid for Jesus. The scribes and Pharisees who bring the woman to Jesus present the case, the judgment and the punishment, and wait to see if he will reject the Mosaic law in favor of the woman.

Jesus wisely evades the entire legal debate and confronts them instead with a more fundamental truth that none of them is without sin. When the accusers have all left, Jesus speaks compassionately with the woman. He does not gloss over her sin, but in his refusal to condemn her, he invites her to a new place of freedom and a new image of herself.

Women Disciples

Third, Jesus steps over expected boundaries between men and women by his acceptance of women as disciples. Unlike rabbis of his day, Jesus taught women about Scripture and his way of love. Matthew tells of Jesus’ mother and brothers asking to speak to him. “He said in reply, ‘Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers'” (Matthew 12:46-50). His use of both masculine and feminine words clearly indicates that some of his disciples were women.

The familiar story of Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42 highlights Jesus’ acceptance and blessing of Mary’s desire to learn. She is described as one who “sat beside the Lord at his feet listening to him speak” (Luke 10:39). This is the typical position of the male disciple. To sit at the feet of a rabbi meant that a person was one of his disciples.

Martha, on the other hand, takes the expected woman’s role of providing hospitality. Perhaps she herself thinks it improper for Mary to act as a disciple. Regardless, Jesus will not deprive Mary of her opportunity. “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her” (Luke 10:42). Of particular interest is the fact that Jesus not only taught women, but some women traveled with him and ministered to him.

In Luke 8:1-3, Jesus is described as journeying from village to village, preaching and proclaiming the Kingdom of God. “The Twelve” were with him and several women: “Mary, called Magdalene, from whom several demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources.”

Mark, too, says of the women present at Jesus’ crucifixion, “These women had followed him when he was in Galilee and ministered to him” (15:41). This picture of women disciples is astounding, given that Jewish women at this time were not to learn the Scriptures or even to leave their households.

Jesus was doing something startlingly new.

Receiving Jesus’ Self-Revelation

Fourth, not only did Jesus have women disciples, but the Gospel writers also assure us that they were prominent recipients of Jesus’ self-revelation. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that he is the Messiah.

Martha, who is the sister of Jesus’ friend Lazarus, in the midst of her confusion and grief over her brother’s death, struggles to name what she believes about Jesus. While they stand at the tomb, Jesus reveals to her, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).

In all of the Gospels, women disciples are the first witnesses to the Resurrection. Mary Magdalene sees Jesus but is not believed (Mark 16:11). In John’s account (20:11-18), she recognizes Jesus when she hears herself called by name, testifying to the close relationship they had. Jesus tells her to go to the other disciples and tell them, “I have seen the Lord.”

In Matthew, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary and sends them to tell the disciples that they will see him in Galilee (28:1-10). Luke’s version also has the women announce the Resurrection, but he adds, “Their story seemed like nonsense and they [the apostles] did not believe them” (24:11). The two disciples on the road to Emmaus seem to doubt the women’s story as well (Luke 24:22-24).

Lesson for Us

The Gospels point us toward including women’s voices and gifts. While we live in a time and culture far different from that of the historical Jesus, his way of welcoming and responding to women has much to teach us.

Many women in the Church today still feel invisible and unheard. The woman who wondered if there was a place for her at the table in her Church was not questioning whether she would be welcome at the Eucharist or able to sit at a parish council meeting. Her desires go deeper than that. She, like other women in the Church today, wonders if there is really an openness to both her spiritual desires and her insights.

Is the Church today a place where a woman can sit, like the woman at the well, and explore her questions openly without fear of being considered negative, hostile or pushy? Is the Church a place where a woman’s voice and her experience are valued even and especially when she brings a new perspective or, like Jesus himself, challenges the way things have always been understood? After all, women joined the apostles in prayer between Jesus’ ascension and Pentecost (Acts 1:13-14).

Perhaps a now-familiar parable that Jesus told about a woman captures it best. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened” (Matthew 13:33).

Jesus recognized that women had gifts for discipleship, and he was not afraid to call these women forth. Some women today need to hear that the Church recognizes their “leavening,” and welcomes their creativity and spirituality for the gifts that they can be to the “whole batch” that is our Church and our world.

As John Paul II explained, the repeated prayers in the rosary help us get more in touch with the deepest desires in our souls for God.

Many great popes, saints, and Christian leaders have exhorted us to pray the rosary. It’s a powerful prayer, they say, one that can change your life, strengthen the family, bring peace to the world, convert entire nations, and win the salvation of souls.

But does the average person experience the rosary this way?

Many Catholics, unfortunately, have the impression that the rosary is not relevant for them. It might be a sacred prayer for very religious people—priests, religious sisters, and exceptional Catholics—but not for “an ordinary lay person like me.” Even some devout Catholics admit that they are a bit intimidated by this prayer. They have tremendous respect for the rosary, know it’s important, but feel bad that they don’t love it more. Many view it as the marathon of Catholic devotions. “I know it’s an important prayer, but it takes fifteen to twenty minutes. I’m too busy. I don’t have time for that.” “It’s too hard to stay focused for that much time. I prefer shorter prayers.”

Some have questions about the rosary: Does all this attention to Mary distract us from a relationship with God? Why do we repeat the same prayers over and over? Are we supposed to concentrate on the prayers, the mysteries, or both? Still others think the rosary is just plain boring—a monotonous, dry, mechanical way of talking to God, not as personal and meaningful as other forms of prayer. “It’s like taking the garbage out for your wife. You know you should do it, but date night is more exciting.” “Sure, the rosary might be good for you—like flossing your teeth—but it’s not as interesting and meaningful to me as spiritual reading or adoration.”

Others wonder if all the repetition has any meaning. “I know the rosary is important, but it just seems like rote prayer,” one young adult said. “It’s like saying magical words and something good is supposed to happen. What’s the point? Is simply saying these words actually doing anything for me spiritually?”

But what if I were to show you that there is a lot more going on in the rosary than simply saying these words and counting them with beads? What if I were to tell you that the rosary is not beyond you—that you, wherever you may be in your relationship with God, can actually experience a profound, intimate, personal encounter with Jesus through this devotion? And what if you were to discover that there are many different ways to pray the rosary—indeed, some that can easily fit within your schedule and help you with whatever challenges you face right now in your life.

Think of the rosary as being like the ocean: There’s something in it for everyone, whether you consider yourself a veteran mystic longing to go deeper in prayer with our Lord, a novice struggling to learn how to pray, or someone seeking the Lord’s help, right now, with something going on in your life. The deep-sea explorer and the child making sand castles on the beach can fully enjoy the same ocean while playing at different levels. And this is true with the rosary.

Getting Your Feet Wet

If the rosary is not a part of your regular prayer life right now, it’s easy to get your feet wet with this devotion. Here are five key things you need to know to get started.

First, we don’t have to pray the rosary all at once. Sure, some people might sit down and quietly pray a whole rosary in one sitting. But we can also choose to divide it up, saying just a decade or two at a time at different points throughout the day: on the way to work, in between errands, in between meetings, while folding laundry or doing dishes. Many holy men and women and even popes have prayed the rosary this way and have found it manageable and fruitful for their busy lives.

Second, we can pray it anywhere! The rosary is like a portable chapel we can keep in our pocket and pull out anytime, anyplace. Whether we have a sudden, urgent situation to present to God in prayer or we just want to fill some of our day with thoughts of God, all we need to do is pull out our beads and turn to the Lord in this prayer. Indeed, the rosary is always accessible.

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We might pray it in a church, in our room, in our office. Or we might pray it in the car, on the exercise machine, in the grocery store line, or while cutting the grass or going for a walk. Bringing our hearts into the rhythm of the rosary is something we can do intermittently throughout the day.

Third, we can pray the rosary in different ways, customizing it to fit the needs of the moment. Sometimes we might focus on the words of the prayers, thinking, for example, of Gabriel’s greeting to Our Lady as we slowly say with great devotion, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” At other times, we might reflect on the mysteries of Christ’s life, prayerfully contemplating scenes such as his birth in Bethlehem, his transfiguration, or his death on the cross, etching the Gospel on our hearts. At still other times, we might focus on the holy name of Jesus at the center of each Hail Mary, speaking his name tenderly with love as the pulse of our rosary.

Two and-a-Half Minutes That Can Change Your Day

Fourth, it’s easy to fit the rosary into your schedule. Do you have two and-a-half minutes in your day that you can give to God? This is the beauty of the rosary.

If I need a quick pause in my busy life—just a two-and-a-half-minute break—I can pull out my beads and pray a decade in order to regroup with the Lord and be nourished spiritually. That’s all a decade takes: one Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and one Glory Be. I can do that easily, pausing for a moment in between emails, in the car, in my office, in between meetings, in between errands. I don’t even have to stop some things I’m doing: I can pray a decade while cooking dinner, sweeping the floor, holding a baby, or walking to my next appointment.

If an urgent need comes up in the day—someone is in an accident, I’m about to begin a big project, my spouse is having a rough day, I have an important decision to make, I need to have a difficult conversation with someone, my child is taking an exam—I can say a quick decade right on the spot. In just two and-a-half minutes, I can offer a special gift to God—one decade of the rosary—for that particular intention.

Fifth, even if I’m not able to give the rosary my full attention, it’s still worth praying. I might not always be able to completely unplug mentally from the concerns of the day. I might be exhausted, too tired to pray well. I might be distracted and unable to reach the heights of contemplation. But still, the words themselves are biblical and holy. Offering God a decade or two in the midst of my daily life gives him something beautiful, even if I give it without my full, relaxed, undivided attention. I’m giving God some space in my day and filling it with words of praise for him.

Going Deeper

But the rosary can take us deeper—a lot deeper. When we pray the rosary in its ideal setting, doing a whole set of mysteries, the prayer can slow us down, calm our hearts, and enable us to rest in God’s presence. It draws out the deepest desires in our souls, desires for God and God alone.

The rhythm of the repetitious prayers can have a profound spiritual effect. In this, it is much like the traditional “Jesus Prayer” many early Christians recited: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” They would slowly repeat these words over and over again throughout the day, such that the rhythm of this prayer was linked to the rhythm of their breathing.

As John Paul II explained, this loving repetition “embodies the desire for Christ to become the breath, soul and all of one’s life” (RVM, 27). In the same way, the repeated prayers in the rosary help us get more in touch with the deepest desires in our souls for God.

We as human persons are made with infinite desires that only God can fulfill. But because we’re fallen, we tend to live at the level of our superficial desires—desires for comfort, fun, fame, wealth, pleasure, success. These desires are not bad, but the rosary helps us be more aware of the soul’s deepest desires, which are for God. As St. Catherine of Siena taught, the greatest gift we can give to God in prayer is not the finite work of saying the words but our “infinitely desirous love” for God that is expressed in those words and that is being drawn out of our souls in prayer.

How might this happen in the rosary? As we’ll see more in my book, when we pray the rosary, we can focus on the name of Jesus at the center of every Hail Mary. We can simply speak Jesus’s name with fervent, heartfelt love. We can gather all our desires into that one word, his beautiful, holy name. And with each Hail Mary, we can call out to him, like a lover speaking to the beloved: “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…Jesus…Jesus.”