Shabbat Shalom: Back to the Future

Dear Beloved—

     Each of You and All of You, 

Lighting a candle tonight: Shabbat Shalom, Back to the Future

All Catholics are Spiritual Israelites. We’ve been oriented to the New Testament but all of us “own” the Old Testament, too. When we pray the Psalms, we are praying what Jesus, Mary and Joseph prayed. How awesome.

Yes, you’ve got it!! Shabbat is not a substitute for my regular Mass attendance and practicing my Catholic Faith.

Fr. Edward Hays has said that we must live a spirituality for our time. My head and heart have never been more distracted……….Shabbat shalom is my attempt to “go back to the future”. Continuing from Hays, (be)“Mindful that a mystic is simply one who experiences God”. And God is Truth. But today, in the Roman Catholic Church to which we profess belief, Relativism reigns. Today, Catholics believe if they think it so, so it is….. The Real Presence is largely ignored. For me, the socio-cultural-political culture reached its nadir when people even lost/denied the realization that a baby is created by God because they ignore God. But God is the Beginning. To celebrate that, I began to celebrate Shabbat  each Friday evening with the lighting of the Shabbat candles and stir up with my hands the light that God called forth before everything else—the light of transcendence, the light of the soul. Gen 1:1, Man exists in space in our work-a-day world for the six days of the week which God has said He made good.  On the seventh day of the week God said He made the world holy. On the Sabbath there is the light and energy of time which is transcendence. Check out The Sabbath, a classic work by Rabbi Abraham Heschel which enlightens and instructs us far beyond what is possible here. 

Context…. Out of context….. Context clues……. In what context…..? Yes, Context is King to understanding even a nanosecond of our life. We live in a society, in a culture and in politics. One is almost unbounded in context. Come, take a look at my Faith Context.  I grew up in a mixed faith family, but attended 12 years in my Catholic parish school and 4 more in a Catholic college. Faith Abbott of the McFadden Family of the Human Life Review writes in her memoirs that God writes His plans in invisible ink. It was a plan invisible to me when I worked my way through college as an au pair in a Jewish family that one day it would re-emerge as a context of what I call Creation Elation. Friday was always my “night off” so I was not present but  I did witness the table prepared with the candles set out, the special menu, and the family bond this home liturgy engendered. 

When we transplanted from upstate NY to the Pine Belt of South Mississippi, we experienced a new cultural context of  “Have a Blessed Day.” This context did bless me with a bond with Jesus. I had grown up in the cultural “Keep the Faith” context. This mantra was said. It was witnessed. It was lived. It implied a strong faith, essentially a dogma  in God, in the Catholic Church, and in the Democratic Party. And the constant, sure, repetition did not doubt a commitment to evangelization despite its personal context that religion is between God and me. The context was not rhetoric; it was regular Mass attendance; fasting and abstinence; making the Easter duty; observing Holy Days of obligation; supporting the Church. Although Jesus, King of the Universe, died for our sins the cultural context eroded Jesus our Savior into a hippie lover for whom “anything goes” and morphed until the Church was in Eclipse of Him as described by Frank Sheed. I held the torch to keep my zeal to pass on the Faith to my family but where was the Faith? “Dogma” has become ideology which has resulted in chaos writes Dorothy Sayres. 

Twice as a growing family when the Sunday anticipation Mass was routine, we “kept Sunday” as a Sabbath by not using electricity. I loved the sense of calm. One of my sons had gone to work during high school as a part-time checker at a local chain grocery store and how it edified me when he came home after his hiring interview to tell us he has told them he did not work on Sundays which they accepted.

Lighting a candle tonight: Sacramental Sabbath Preparation 

I studied the Sabbath Ritual. There are 2 candles proscribed. I have promised so many to light a candle for them, I have 13 and people share a flame…… There is bread and wine and a pitcher and bowl. We bless the Lord, King of the universe, for commanding us to light Shabbat candles which express the transcendent light before all. We bless the Lord King of the universe, for the fruit of the vine. We bless the Lord King of the universe, who sanctified us with the commandments and commands us with the washing of the hands. We bless the Lord King of the universe, who brought forth bread from the earth. It brought back the Hebrew prayers I had said with the children. Adonai……I love the sacramental baking of the Challah bread meditating on the wonder of the Design down to the last detail. I proof the yeast and watch the atomic cloud rise over the measuring cup. Honey with the honeycomb still in the jar witnessed the worker bees making the longest lasting food on the planet. I add eggs from the chickens—a winged fowl in Genesis? Then I whisk olive oil, from seed-bearing trees? Don’t forget ginger and nutmeg created to spice up our life. Little red threads of saffron from the stigmas from the crocus are pinched between my fingers. I must be patient for the dough to rise. Then braid and wait again for the dough to rise.  What You have wrought for me, O Lord in gift and gift and gift.

Lighting a candle tonight: Shabbat Shalom in Watchman Context 

There is a shadow play between good and evil in the context of each of us morally. That conflict surrounds us at every level of relationships. We must be Watchmen trying to identify the battles between good and evil. Ezekiel whispers to us a reminder that there is indeed a “shadow play” between good and evil since the First Man and the First Wo-man were created in freedom. Freedom!!!! Ezekiel 3: was God’s Watchman to the Beloved People of Israel.  If he failed to warn them of their transgressions, he would suffer instead of them. Paul Greenberg is a Watchman: Let us trust that the cause of life will yet prevail. BUT IF NOT..........we will not bow down before their idol, nor sacrifice our children to it. We will witness, and not grow faint. We will be strong, and we will grow stronger. For we will strengthen one another. As on this night. L'chaim! To life! 

Lighting a candle tonight: For Prophets/Whistleblowers

Prophets: speak the truth as opposed to those who see but do not say and remain silent

Whistleblowers: Prophets Demonized by the world for Truth 

Lighting a candle tonight: Havdalah Leave-Taking

When 3 stars appear in the sky, it is time to take leave of the Sabbath. These blessings are said: 

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, Creator of all kinds of spices.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, Creator of the lights of fire.

Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who distinguishes between the sacred and the profane, between light and darkness, between the seventh day and the six days of creation. Blessed are You, Adonai, our God, Who distinguishes between the sacred and the profane. 

You teach us to distinguish between the commonplace and the holy: teach us also to transform our sins to merits. Let those who love You be numerous as the sands, and the stars of heaven.

 A good week, a week of peace, may gladness reign and joy increase. (repeat twice)

Lighting a candle tonight: to Keep the Faith, Beloved!

Lighting a candle tonight: to know God has a plan for you written now in invisible ink, Beloved!

Lighting a candle tonight: to examine and understand the socio-cultural-political context surrounding yourself, Beloved!

Lighting a candle tonight: to be an alert Watchman for the shadow play of good v. evil endangering you and all of us, Beloved!

Lighting a candle tonight: For you, Treasures ALL. God love you. God bless you. We are sacred to each other.

 We thank you, Lord…..

Could song fill our mouth as water fills the sea

And joy flood our tongue like countless waves,

Could our lips utter praise limitless as the sky…

Never could we fully state our gratitude for one ten-thousandth of the lasting love

Which is Your precious blessing, dearest God, granted to our ancestors and us.”

Those who celebrate Shabbat rejoice in Your kingship, hallowing the seventh day, calling it a delight…”

Tell me why the stars do shine

Tell me why the ivy twines

Tell me why the sky's so blue

And then I'll tell you just why I love you

Because God made the stars to shine

Because God made the ivy twine  

Because God made the sky's so blue

Because God made you, that's why I love you.

Shabbat Shalom.