Donna Markham OP, PhD, ABPP
Loyola University Chapel Series
October 13, 2003

Now it was about this time that Jesus went out into the hills to pray; and he spent the whole night in prayer to God. When day came, he summoned his disciples and picked out twelve of them; he called them apostles.
He then came down with them and stopped at a piece of level ground where there was a large gathering of his disciples with a great crowd of people from all parts of Judaea and from Jerusalem and from the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon who had come to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. People tormented by unclean spirits were also cured and everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him because power came out of him that cured them all.

Then, fixing his eyes on his disciples, he said: How blessed are you who are poor; yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now; you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now; you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, drive you out, abuse you, denounce your name as criminal on account of me. Rejoice when that day comes and dance for joy, for your reward will be great in heaven.
Lk 6:12-23

When I was a novice during the tumultuous months leading up to our General Chapter of Renewal in 1968, my novice director asked us to keep vigil through the night, three nights a week, to pray that the Spirit would lead us through the contentiousness of those times and hold the Congregation in union so that we would be able to respond to the mission of Jesus, without polarization, in the years to come. So, throughout that year, we would get up through the night, two by two, and go to the chapel to pray for an hour.

As novices are wont to do, we were hyper-vigilant as to the whereabouts of the novice director. Although we never spoke about it then, years later we recounted how we had each noticed our director in the shadows of the chapel. She was there at midnight; she was there at two in the morning; she was still there at four. While she had asked us to come and pray for an hour, she spent the night in prayer. Then, each morning, she would meet us with unbounded energy and vigor, teaching us, challenging us, never giving the least hint that she had been awake most of the night. The witness of her prayer as a leader in our fledgling faith community of novices remains to this day a powerful influence in my life.

The gospel reading this evening presents an extraordinary picture of what it means to exercise servant leadership, what I have at times referred to as "spiritlinking" leadership: the action of leaders to connect hearts and souls in service to the common good, the mission of the gospel, the promotion of a sustainable global future. The movement of Jesus in this passage is significant for those of us who dare to lead in the midst of this troubled world of ours: Jesus goes apart-to the hills-to pray. And he spends the whole night in prayer. When day comes, he calls others to be with him in community, to be with him in mission. He then comes down from the hilltop with his friends and enters into the sacred act of bringing healing to the tormented, the anguished, the broken and the brokenhearted. He stops with them, on level ground.

Healing happens on level ground. Healing happens as Jesus regards the one who suffers, face to face, in intimate contact. Contemplation leads to the formation of community, to healing, and to blessing-four dimensions to which we are called in order to promote a viable church for the future. What, then, might this say to us members of a faith community, leaders of one sort or another, in a world torn apart by war, in a country trying to manage fear, in a church shaken by crises?

First ,the Call to Contemplation

Leadership without grounding in prayer is dangerous. Without our being prepared for it, we have been thrown headlong into 'night times' in our country, in our church-dusky and sometimes desperate places of the heart and soul and body where the unknown, the unpredictable, and the terrifying suddenly intrude and threaten. To some extent, this has been precipitated by dangerous, impulsive, or irresponsible leadership. And in the face of the situations with which we are now trying to contend, it is understandable that we find ourselves tempted toward retribution and vindictiveness. Unreflective response entices us to flail out in the dark, blinded by rage, driven by fear and impulses to do harm. The signs of these times can tantalize us to engage in such responses. But when we lead from the position of instinctive and unprocessed fear, we risk becoming as vengeful as those who perpetrated the initial behavior.

On September 8, 2001, Oblate Father Ronald Rolheiser met with a group of Catholic leaders at the Carter Centre in Ontario, Canada. Little did he realize how prescient his comments were. Ron urged us that day to reflect on what happens inside ourselves when we become targets of another's anger. He made a distinction between responding with "amazement"-by which we react with equal or more powerful hostile force, seeking to make the other feel the pain we feel-and "awe"-by which we receive the pain, hold it in profound prayer, seeking to transform it into compassion. In that way, he went on, we help "take away the sin of the world."

Three short days later, September 11th happened. Then, January 2002 came with its beginning of the horrific trail of the church sexual abuse scandals. Then we entered into war. Disillusionment and rage have become unwelcome guests, specters haunting the darker corners of our psyches, as we have each tried to make some sense out of the ending of a world as we once knew it.

I must say, I have found Ron's remarks a continuing provocation to enter into prayer as I struggle with my own responses to these times. Do I add to the building reservoir of global rage, or do I seek to transform my anger into compassion? These are not questions we easily answer alone. We need one another to stay in the dialogue, challenging one another, stretching each other's thoughts, and inspiriting one another when we become disheartened.

There was a fascinating social psychology experiment conducted with grade school children that demonstrated the fact that the trajectory of hostility intensifies with each individual act. In the experiment, one child was asked to gently push another child. That child, in turn, was asked to push back at the one who pushed first, using the same force she felt from that child-no more or no less intensity. This duet continued through several interchanges. Researchers, meanwhile, measured the force of each supposedly matching push. Interestingly, each successive push back was measurably stronger than the previous push. The instinctive path hostility follows is that of escalation.

I am not naive about how difficult it is for us to follow the gospel mandate to transform vengeance into compassion. These past two years have challenged the limits of my compassion enormously, yet I firmly believe that our roles as leaders today must be that of inviting others to enter into contemplative reflection as a precursor to any response to conflict, abuse, insult or terror. Without such prayerful deliberation we, and the groups we lead, run the risk of slipping into collusion with those forces of hostility that threaten the very good that we hold in common. Without grounding in contemplative prayer, leaders dare not invite others to join them in realizing their vision. To do so is consummately irresponsible.

Second, the Call to Community

After his time of prayer in the darkness, daylight comes and Jesus invites his friends to join him in his mission. He calls them to be with him and then, together, they walk down the hillside and stop together on even footing.

There used to be a widely distributed TV commercial that ended with the phrase, "We'll leave the light on for you." Awhile back, I set out for a cottage in order to have some time and solitude for writing. I left after work, and it was raining and terribly foggy. As it became darker and foggier, the roads were becoming more winding and narrower as they bisected inland lakes and ponds. I was becoming increasingly anxious. When I realized I was driving on a one-lane dirt road with lakes on both sides, I decided that as soon as I got to a place to pull off, I'd do so and spend the rest of the night in the car. As soon as I got to that place, though, I saw a garage light on. Someone had, in some providential way, left the light on for me. I went up to the house and explained my predicament-that I was lost, frightened that I could go off the road in the dense fog. Could they please tell me how to get where I was going? Instead of giving me directions, they got in their 4-wheel drive and led me to my destination. Their response was a wonderful metaphor about what good leadership is all about.

Leaders risk entering into the fog. They companion the community as they offer hope. They stand on level ground with the circle of companions. They are part of the group as they accept leadership within it. It would be far easier to direct others into risky places and critique them when they fall short of expectations. It would be far safer to sequester oneself from the discomfort incurred when lines of authority become blurred or ideas challenged. That is not the witness we have in the gospel. Jesus is with his community as he leads them more fully into mission.

Perhaps more than at any time in history, we realize that our interdependence in community is central to our survival as a planet. I would venture to define community as the human expression of our yearning for relationship and purpose. It is the deliberate act of establishing the circle of companions. The promotion of vibrant interconnection and bonding, community is both a proclamation of the mission of Jesus and a means toward engaging more wholeheartedly in that mission. Our engagement as members of the community of believers these days thus becomes a metaphor for global healing and reconciliation. To the extent we foster separatism, refuse to engage with the different other, or promote our own narcissistic needs for comfort and power, we play recklessly with life.

Longstanding research in group analysis yielded an interesting finding: it is extremely rare for any group to risk more than its leader is willing to risk. Jesus enters into the mission with his friends-not alone, not distanced, but on level ground-their leader in the community of faith, and he risks the ultimate for the sake of that community, laying down his very life. Leaders take bold action, risking their own well-being and reputation for the sake of the people they serve. They lead out into the fog, along treacherous paths, because they have compassion and conviction. They engage their companions in dialogue, even when it may become contentious or uncomfortable. No topic is off-limits.

As a church, we have learned painful lessons about what happens when silence is kept and secrets guarded. As a clinician, I have long known that we are as sick as our secrets. We must be about truth-telling, regardless of how uncomfortable, how disruptive or even potentially scandalous that might be. To do otherwise is to give witness to a sick church-a tragic consequence in the midst of a world that so stands in need of the compassionate presence of the people of God.

Third, the Call to Heal

Leaders engage the community in fostering networks of compassion. Jesus and the disciples stand in the midst of the tormented and the anguished. Those who yearn for an end to their pain are healed as they stand in close relationship to him.

You and I face brokenness all around us. People hurt. Countries are torn apart by factions and wars. Lethal divisions between the great religions and divisions within them-our own church included-threaten to subvert the emergence of the Sacred in our world. Leaders are called to be agents of healing and reconciliation, and to call their communities to such courageous action. As long as we allow ourselves to engage in cold wars of smug judmentalness toward one another, we collude tacitly in the infliction of greater pain on our world. If we refuse to talk with certain persons because they hold positions that are uncomfortable for us to hear, if we slam the door shut on problematic or difficult topics or, worse yet, threaten one another should certain issues be surfaced, then we have been co-opted by contemporary heresies of self-righteousness, isolationism, individualism, and separatism. We have been co-opted by fear rather than freed in courage and compassion. And, so, we become part of the problem. Difficult conversations-across our differences-serve to promote connection and community, if we are willing to endure the discomfort and the time necessary to engage in them and manage the anxiety that such interchanges necessarily surface. We may ask ourselves, who are the persons we dread engaging in conversation? Who are the people whose views we find intolerable? Whom have I stereotyped as "evil" or "dangerous" or "the adversary"? These are the very persons the Jesus invites us to engage. We must attempt to bridge those divisions in society and in our church that diminish our collaborative synergy. We must risk necessarily stepping onto ground where our footing is precarious and fear palpable as we address the gender rift, questions of lay-clerical tensions, or conservative-liberal dichotomizing and stereotyping. The community is not healed, the common good is not promoted, when we freeze out the "different other." We dare not stop the dialogue.

My colleagues who work closely with the 12-Steps often remind us that "we are as sick as our secrets." We know painfully how true this adage is. When we sacrifice transparent honesty in favor of face-saving silence, we set the stage for a sick church. Leaders call the group to open dialogue even when such dialogue is difficult, embarrassing or potentially anger-provoking.

The Catholic Common Ground Initiative, conceived in this very city by our beloved Cardinal Bernardin, was a prophetic invitation to us all to put an end to divisions among us. Do we dare to live it out in its radicality, agents of healing and reconciliation in the midst of the pain and brokenness of our world, our church? It is all too appropriate, here at Loyola in Chicago, to call upon this far-sighted prophet to shore us up in our efforts to carry out the vision.

And Last, the Call to Bless

Jesus fixes his eyes on his companions. He holds them in his gaze as he proclaims the blessing of God on the brokenhearted and suffering poor, on the outcasts and the humiliated. The import of the message is conveyed through his eyes. He has entered profoundly into our human community and has intimate knowledge of the paradox inherent in engagement with the despised, the abused and the suffering. He instructs his followers as he instructs us-blessing resides in the very midst of us.

Leadership places us in the company of anguish and beckons us to love. Blessing is a mutual act. When leaders allow themselves to become shared containers for the suffering of their sisters and brothers, the world becomes a little less frightening, a little less lonely. Leaders bless us by their willingness to become companions, even in the midst of pain. The despondent, the despised, the deprived, those who are consumed by shame or ostracized by hatred, these are the very ones who, if we dare accompany them, awaken in us depths of compassion and mercy we would otherwise not have known. This is the terrifying blessing of the poor.

The call to contemplation, the call to community, the call to heal, the call to bless-let us continue to remind one another of the sacredness inherent in being called to leadership in these troubled and troubling times. And, no matter what, let us commit ourselves to a church where compassion and mercy, truth and respect, are foundational; a church where conversations-no matter how awkward or difficult-continue and truth-telling always prevails.