CNN Pre-Funeral Coverage for Pope Francis

In the hours before Pope Francis's funeral, I was privileged to be interviewed on CNN along with my Beyond the Habit co-host, Sister Erin McDonald, about the impact of Pope Francis on women and young people in the church. Check out the segment below:

The Hopeful Tension of Eastertide

The following column was originally published by Global Sister Report on Easter Monday, April 21, 2025.

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Waking up this Easter Monday, I’m tired. Holy Week in a parish can be exhausting — a balancing act of liturgical celebrations and one’s own prayerful reflection on the story of faith we tell and take part in. With the marathon of the Triduum behind us, today is a day for getting our bearings and taking stock. Easter Monday offers us a moment to begin again, to rest for a moment and feel the tension and the triumph of what has been and is yet to be.

Easter Monday is a tension point. Two parts of the memorial acclamation fall into place: Christ has died and Christ is risen. So what then remains? Christ will come again.

Just as we wake up holding the fruits and foibles of our Holy Week, the first followers of Jesus must have faced the same. For them, waking up the day after that first Easter must have felt like whiplash. Imagine everything the day before had held: the shock, the awe, the confusion, the unbelievable joy. Perhaps Jesus’ first followers never even went to sleep that first night and stumbled, in a state of emotional bewilderment, into what we now know as Easter Monday.

For them, of course, it was simply a Monday like no other they had ever experienced. I imagine that Peter and John could feel the tension in their leg muscles, having run to the tomb; that the two who had trekked back on the road from Emmaus kept playing that fateful journey over and over in their heads, remembering what it felt like to be broken open like the bread before them. I imagine Mary Magdalene awoke with puffy and swollen eyes, the scent of oil and spices still on her hands as she rubbed her face and tried to comprehend that the One she had so deeply mourned was once again alive.

There is an unbelievability to this day. The day after the day that everything changed, which of course, is and was three days after the day they thought was the day that changed everything. Yet, that is the thing we often forget about the Easter story: no one who took part in it knew what was going to happen.

In fact, I’d wager that it’s also the thing we forget about our own experiences of Easter — not just that we don’t know exactly how it’s going to turn out (which is true), but that (more often than not) we can forget that we are a part of this ongoing story.

 

Jesus is coming

"Where can I find someone to talk about hope?" a friend asked me a few weeks ago. That seems to be the perpetual question in this Jubilee Year of Hope. My friend, it seemed, was coming up short and losing hope in the process. "We’re not even halfway through this year, and I feel like my well is running dry." She opined.

Even just a day into this Easter season, I can feel her pain. Passion, death and resurrection feel like an all-too-common reality these days, with resurrection hope pulling up the rear (and, at times, limping to keep up!) With stories of deportations and job cuts, natural disasters and military attacks, the suffering of the cross, it would seem, is more of a daily occurrence than the empty tomb of Easter morning.

Still, as the day of the Resurrection opens into the Easter season, the tension of our faith invites us to hold the balance between blind hope and graced encounter. On Easter Monday, our faith invites us to hold the tension of the already and the not yet of Christ’s coming within the context of our current reality.

Christ has died. Christ is Risen. Christ will come again.

In the tension of current events and the temptation to despair, we hold firm to hope that Jesus is coming. This anticipation provides the hopeful tension of our lives, a tension holding us in suspense, buoying our spirits and pressing us to get over ourselves and on with life. 

It’s in the hope of this coming that vowed religious life, with its evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience, is rooted. We make these vows to testify to the absoluteness of God. These vows also harken to the Second Coming. After all, who needs a next generation or a lofty savings or a 20-year plan when Jesus’ return is imminent?

Are such thoughts naïve? Or maybe idealistic? Is this the stuff of dreams, or is it the call of the Gospel?

For centuries, believers have lived in that tension. God makes all things new, including us. The fact that we can’t control or even predict Christ’s coming asks us to surrender. If Christ could come whenever and wherever, we best show up accordingly.

We are meant to be harbingers of hope. Jesus is coming. We need to live like we believe this fact.

Nearly fifty years ago, theologian Johann Baptist Metz underscored this point. "To live Christian hope on the basis of imminent expectation of the second coming does not mean sacrificing its social and political responsibility but the reverse," he wrote. Believing Christ will come again means injecting urgency into our actions. It means living up to the ideals we profess — living out of love and seeking justice here and now.

We can’t assume or presume that time will go on forever or that Christ’s coming again is theoretical. Such a presumption robs the promises of our faith of their "tension by extending the expectation of the second coming to infinity."

If we don’t believe the Reign of God can be a reality… we’ve already lost hope. In the words of St. Paul, "if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain." (1 Corinthians 15:17a) Therefore, it is in the tension of faith lived in real life that we hold in tandem with what has already been and what is yet to be.

In that sweet spot of Easter Monday, we wait and we hope and we continue to act. To do any less is to dilute ourselves and our faith and to blatantly deny the promises of Christ to come again.

In that tension, we remain, and we remember. We remember the life of Jesus and give life to the Gospel in our day and age. And we do it all in hope — hope in the One who is to come and who calls us into being.  The One who held tension all his life and continues to hold us in the tension of our day.

Just as the first followers couldn’t have known where they were in the story of Easter, we certainly can’t know where exactly we are, either. In that tension, we are stretched to find hope. Under pressure, we’re transformed in our belief. In distress, we're called to lean more closely into the One who knows the pain of injustice and the self-emptying way of love. And together, we ultimately follow the Way into our Easter reality and beyond.

GUTD: Creating Supple Hearts

January 2025

Reflection

Creating Supple Hearts

Jesus prayed. It might seem like an obvious, and certainly fundamental, part of Jesus’ life, and yet I find myself captivated by the fact that amid everything else, the Gospel author chooses to make note that Jesus prayed.

I wonder what Jesus prayed about? How was the Spirit swirling on that hillside as Jesus looked out over the sea—having just fed the five thousand and watching his disciples struggle to understand everything that was happening? And if I were to sit with him in that moment, what might Jesus say to me?

Whatever Jesus prayed about, the example of his prayer reveals to us that remaining in God’s love is more than just a beautiful idea: it is essential to an active life of faith. The more we remain in God, the more supple our hearts become. Seated with Jesus in prayer, we sense the same calm that astounded the disciples—a spirit of Love so pure that it asks us to surrender everything to follow Christ. Offering this love in prayer and in practice, we are empowered to go out and do likewise—reconciling relationships, feeding the hungry, creating spaces of welcome, and listening deeply.

“No one has ever seen God.” The first letter of John attests. “Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.” To remain in God, we have to be in relationship with one another. Only then do the words we pray take on flesh and the lives we live confront life’s storms, uttering a profound “amen” to the One who assures us “it is I, do not be afraid!”

Sr. Colleen Gibson

Colleen Gibson is a Sister of Saint Joseph of Philadelphia who currently serves as coordinator of pastoral care at St. John-St. Paul Catholic Collaborative in Wellesley, Massachusetts. A writer and speaker, she cohosts the podcast Beyond the Habit (beyondthehabitpod.com).

[CREDIT] Sr. Colleen Gibson, “Creating Supple Hearts” from the January 2025 issue of Give Us This Day, www.giveusthisday.org (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2025). Used with permission. 

The Synod is Far From Over

 A few weeks ago, in the run-up to the opening of the second session of the synod on synodality, the Prayer of the Faithful in our parish offered an intention for the synod and its delegates. Together we prayed: "For the synod: that as delegates gather in Rome this week, they may carry with them the cares and concerns of the communities they represent — speaking freely, listening deeply and engaging prayerfully in their efforts to follow the Spirit's guidance."

After Mass, a parishioner stopped me in the church foyer. "Is that still going on?" they asked.

My face clearly revealed I didn't know what they were talking about.

"The synod," they retorted. "I thought that happened last year."

I paused for a moment to consider how best to respond. For all the listening sessions we had held, the events we had promoted, the language of synodality we had integrated into our liturgy and the practices we had made a part of our parish processes, this person had clearly missed the memo: The synod is far from over.

In many places, synodality has been slow to take hold, if the concept or practice was ever introduced in the first place. In the case of our parishioner, though, the added year had thrown them for a loop.

As the second session of the synod on synodality completes its second week, what has become abundantly clear is that what was once outlined as a two-year process will, in fact, take a lifetime. In short, synodality isn't going anywhere.

What the synod on synodality has made abundantly clear is that we are called to be a missionary church rooted in synodality. With its intensive listening, engaged encounter and communal care, synodality promises a radical return to the principles of faith and discernment that are so fundamental to who we are and who we're called to be as a church. Cultivating a culture of synodality is filled with promise, though not without the growing pains that come with allowing our hearts and minds to be reformed by the Spirit.

For those in tune with the happenings of the Vatican and the global church, the flurry of activity surrounding this second session of the synod points to the pain and the promise of synodality in action.

Coming into this session, speculation and urgent pleas arose. The well-founded fear that critical issues — including women and their role in the church, the pastoral need to restore women's ordained ministry as deacons, and the dignity of and ministry to the LGBTQ+ community — might somehow be swept away has stirred up cries for inclusion. In response, interviews, articles, online prayer services, and in-person gatherings have lifted up the importance of these issues. Some commentators, like Jesuit Fr, Thomas Reese, have urged the synod to set its own agenda. This would mean deviating from the prescribed plan for the second session, which seeks to define how to be a missionary church rather than engaging these forefront issues. 

One must ask, however, how the church can fulfill its missionary call without thoughtfully engaging in prayerful discernment around these key issues and marginalized populations. How can issues that repeatedly surfaced in reports from the continental phase and ecclesial group feedback be sidelined at this critical moment if the deep listening and heartfelt responding, so critical to synodality, are to be embraced?

The answers to such questions are unclear. We can't be completely sure that these issues have been put to rest as discussions occur behind closed doors. What we can be assured of, as the second session began, is that the appeals to the Holy Spirit have continued.

From the opening retreat days to the penitential prayer service held Oct. 1 to the opening Mass  Oct. 2, a Spirit-filled call for freedom from fear and for honest dialogue has rung out. As Pope Francis prayed at this session's opening liturgy, "Let us walk together, let us listen to the Lord, let us be led by the blowing of the Spirit." This is the way forward: to walk humbly with one another and with our God so that trust and dialogue might be built.

In the days since Pope Francis prayed these words, the second session has descended into the sacred space and silence of such dialogue. Beyond the gaze of onlookers, delegates are doing the hard work of synodality. While curiosity (or even cynicism) might tempt us to imagine what is transpiring in the synod hall, all we can truly be sure of (and pray for) is that all those present are speaking honestly, praying earnestly and listening deeply as they seek to follow God's will.

This is the hope of all synodal conversations: that they would be based in earnest engagement, committed listening and complete and utter dependence on the work of the Holy Spirit.

As we seek to embrace the synodal way, we must recognize that synodality is anything but static. Freedom and flexibility are par for the synodal course. Listening hearts must be open to change; they must allow themselves to be transformed by the Spirit, to ebb and flow as prayerful dialogue directs the course. Our part as people of faith is to be attentive to the Spirit's stirrings  — not only in our own hearts and lives, but in the life of the larger community and in the life of the church.

This may or may not mean that everything I think should happen will. In fact, by the nature of the communal discernment at the heart of synodality, we know that it won't. Instead, we must allow ourselves to let go of what is "ours" individually for the communal need and desire of the larger body.

We trust that this is what is transpiring in the synod hall as we hold vigil outside. We pray that delegates are speaking forthrightly, carrying communities with them and fostering community with one another. No doubt, the Spirit is stirring. We must trust that what the Spirit desires for the church and all the people of God will not be denied. 

Does this mean that everything will be sorted out by the time the second session of the synod on synodality concludes Oct. 27? Of course not.

Likely, Oct. 27h will leave us with more questions than answers. Some will be disappointed in what was once seen as a movement of great hope and promise. Some will say that we never should have had any hope at all. Some will confess that their synodal hearts are broken. With a synodal spirit, we must hold all these feelings. We must offer our needs and desires, anxieties and anticipations, heartbreaks and hopes to God. And we must hold one another, resting assured that the synodal way is not one of tectonic shifts but of step-by-step journeying together toward communal change.

With this in mind, we need to resolve ourselves to see that Oct. 27 is not an end, but a step on the synodal way. We have come this far together; dialogues have been opened, and with them, hearts and minds have been, too. Women and men, lay people and clerics, young and old from around the world have stood side by side as delegates. This is monumental.

Our job now is to ensure that the work begun in this synodal moment is not confined to a select group or a specific space. With patience and practice, we must continue these conversations. We must listen attentively and affectionately to one another. We must welcome the Spirit in our midst and reform our structures to allow every voice to be heard. We must continue to practice the skills of synodality and the discipline of synodal listening. Only then will we feel the freedom that the Spirit brings, embracing the transformative power of the Gospel and discovering what it truly means to be the synodal church we're being called to be, both now and forever.

Originally published by Global Sisters Report

When hearts walk together: A Lenten invitation to accompaniment

 Tell me: What did you give up for Lent? Chocolate, swearing, time on your phone … The list is endless. Or maybe, you are someone who took something on. Are you practicing patience? Trying out a new prayer practice? Giving money to a favorite charity? 

Whatever way you choose to mark this sacred season, there is something to be said for the ways in which we travel through the season of Lent. Lent, after all, is not about a destination. It is about intentionally making our way deeper into the heart of Jesus through the pathways of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. 

These practices are the routes that draw us deeper by bringing us into contact with God, ourselves and our neighbors. Prayer, fasting and almsgiving, when practiced with intention, are meant to free us, lightening our load and directing our path. Yet, without a keen eye toward intention, it is these same practices that can easily devolve into an obstacle course of instructions and restrictions: "You can do this and you can't do that."

What if this Lent, instead of holding tight to a roadmap marked with tasks or rules, the invitation was to a more free-range traveler's point of view, to explore the art of accompaniment as it plays out in our everyday lives?  

As Pope Francis writes in Fratelli Tutti, "we want to be a Church that serves, that leaves home and goes forth from its places of worship, goes forth from its sacristies, in order to accompany life, to sustain hope, to be the sign of unity… to build bridges, to break down walls, to sow seeds of reconciliation." If this is the church we want, then we must learn to be pilgrims who journey with others, who allow the spirit of the tasks we undertake — the spirit of the law — to draw us deeper into relationship with God and our neighbors.

A friend and canon lawyer once advised me, "Before anything else, consider the people before you. Get to know them. Come to love them. And then, walking with them, you will be able to find a way forward." In essence, he was saying that people have stories and it is only by entering into their stories and intertwining our own with theirs that can we truly serve the people of God.

The law, it would seem, seeks to serve the Gospel and not the other way around. 

This fact becomes readily apparent when we turn to Jesus' interactions with rule sticklers throughout his ministry. These are the ones who were diligently trying to find a way to the final destination (or in some cases trying to trip Jesus up on the law of love he was proposing). 

They are like the scholar of the law who asks, "Who is my neighbor?" after clarifying the call to love God fully and your neighbor as yourself (and prompts the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 29-37)). These folks want to know the parameters of following Jesus; they are the ones who find comfort in the security of details. They are the dear hearts that seek a plan even when it means missing the details of the important paths that guide the way in between.

In the same category is the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-30), who seems to have everything and to have done everything right and yet, still feels the absence of something more. When this pilgrim asks Jesus what more they must do, Jesus' reply is succinct: Sell everything and give it to the poor. 

(How is that for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving?)

Considering a call to accompaniment this Lent, it is the latter part of this command — "give it to the poor" —  that piques my interest. Selling everything is a big ask. It requires complete and total surrender, but what's more is Jesus' call to give it to the poor. That act is the very first step in true following. It is more than making a donation — it is a call to accompaniment.

Take all that is yours and make it ours, Jesus is instructing. In this context, "giving" is an invitation to relationship, to search out those most in need and to join them in their poverty, to give oneself to accompany and be accompanied in the act of giving that lies at the root of genuine relationship.

In this way, those in need (and really anyone we truly accompany) become our teachers and our companions. Opening ourselves to their need exposes our own neediness and at the margins of our meeting we are pushed not just to reach out but to unite our story with theirs. 

Unified in this way, we mourn and laugh together, we seek justice and hunger for what will nourish together, and ultimately, we follow Jesus and find renewed hope and strength in the promises of God together. 

In this togetherness, we accompany one another. We realize that the aid we offer one another is not a one-way street, just as no relationship can be. "True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness," Pope Francis reminds us in Evangelii Gaudium. Tenderly walking with one another, we are evangelizers ever in need of evangelization.  

Good News, it turns out, is for all. No one has exclusive rights as giver or receiver. In fact, if we see ourselves as both, we may just find that as we open ourselves to one another, we are more naturally open to God's activity in us and around us.

Such openness brings forth a vulnerability, equanimity and humility that predisposes us to mercy and grace. These qualities bond us together. They require us to take a long hard look at our motivations and intentions. As Australian artist and activist Lilla Watson famously attests, "If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." Truly, our salvation is bound up together. 

As we journey through the wilderness this Lent, we must realize that we cannot journey alone. As sure as we are called to accompany others, God is accompanying us. God listens and loves us, as my lawyer friend would say, intertwining the story of salvation with our own personal narrative. After all, we follow the Way of Jesus not just in reflecting on the stories of his life, death and resurrection, but by sensing that the Way — Jesus Christ — walks with us. Every step that we take in accompaniment with others is a step we take with Jesus. And just as we are one with others, we are invited into greater oneness with Jesus — coming to know God and know ourselves more fully in the holy act of accompaniment.

While accompaniment is meant to be part of our everyday lives, the 40 days of Lent give us a concentrated time to practice what we preach: to meet our neighbors, to put aside our ego and to unite with others in our need for and dependence on God.

At the end of these days, we will not have reached a destination, but with any hope, we will find ourselves further along the Way, more deeply embedded in grace and more fully disposed to give everything that we are and everything that we have to God and our neighbors. Ultimately, this is the call of accompaniment: that we might follow Jesus wherever he calls, giving all that it takes and taking on all that it requires, so that we might find our hearts walking hand in hand toward the transformative new life of Easter. 

Originally published by Global Sisters Report

Catholic Women Preach

This Sunday, I was honored to preach for Catholic Women Preach, a wonderful project that lifts up the voices of women in the Catholic Church and encourages an expansive sharing of the Word. Join me in reflecting on our true calling and how God calls each of us to authenticity. Watch or read more at https://www.catholicwomenpreach.org/preaching/01282024

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Preaching on the readings for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B:

 

Finding God in our Christmas Cards

 

This Advent I was blessed to join a host of wonderful writers commissioned by the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States in reflecting on finding God in the Christmas prep. It was a delightful assignment that gave me the chance to reflect on the Christmas cards I send this time of year. Join me in reflecting more deeply and while you're at it be sure to join us for the final days of reflection at jesuits.org/advent

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Each year, sometime in November, I begin to ask myself: What message will Christmas bring this year?

As I watch stores fill with decorations and radio stations slowly turn to Christmas music, I wonder to myself: What message do I need? What message does our world need? And what could possibly capture the magnitude of this season and the fullness of the Incarnation?

Then, putting all profundity aside, I ask myself: What will my Christmas card be this year?

There is something that brings me great joy in answering that final question. Browsing online catalogs and walking down the aisles of my local card shop, I marvel at the variety of cards available. From the sublime to the ridiculous, Christmas cards have you covered. A New Yorker cartoon with a child Jesus complaining about how close his birthday is to Hannukah? A Thomas Kinkade cottage tucked away in a winter wonderland? An abstract rendering of the Nativity? You name it, and I bet there’s a card for that.

Yet, as I browse, the question of message returns. What exactly is God calling me to be ready for this Christmas? It’s in answering that question that I ultimately come to the card I want to send.

Afterall, that message is what I will pray with time and time again as I write cards to my friends and family. That is the message that will be echoed in my own words written inside and which will be put on display in people’s houses, as the cards adorn mantles and refrigerators.

As I take my time writing my cards, my own mailbox will begin to fill with cards from near and far. Opening each one is a gift unto itself. These are physical manifestations of relationships maintained over the years, signs of connection and thoughtfulness.

Gleefully opening each card, I wonder to myself: What is the message this person wanted to send?

As the days of Advent progress toward Christmas, a collage of Christmas cheer begins to gather in my prayer space. With gratitude, I look upon them each morning, and as I recollect each night, I marvel at the ways God comes into our lives through the everyday relationships we maintain. God became human and dwelt among us.

In this busy season, the act of sending Christmas cards helps to ground me in that reality. It slows me down enough to see the goodness of God coming to life all around me. As I write my own cards, I revel in the simple signs of love these cards capture: families I’ve watched grow over the years, Christmas letters that give the roundup of what has been, and beautiful images emblazoned with messages of peace, hope, joy and love.

I take each card as a prayer from those who sent it, an act of intention — as if to say, I picked this stamp for you, this card for you, this picture for you… (And guess what else? I went to the post office, for you!). The implication of each is that if I would do that for you, I’d surely do much more. My hope, of course, is that those who get a card from me feel the same...

Read the rest of the reflection at: https://www.jesuits.org/stories/2nd-thursday-of-advent-christmas-cards/