The Crossing Place . . .

 

TRASNA

The pilgrims paused on the ancient stones
In the mountain gap.

Behind them stretched the roadway they had travelled.
Ahead, mist hid the track.

Unspoken the question hovered:
Why go on? Is life not short enough?

Why seek to pierce its mystery?
Why venture further on strange paths, risking all?

Surely that is a gamble for fools - or lovers.
Why not return quietly to the known road?

Why be a pilgrim still?
A voice they knew called to them, saying:

This is Trasna, the crossing place.
Choose! Go back if you must,

You will find your way easily by yesterday's fires,
there may be life in the embers yet.

If that is not your deep desire,
Stand still. Lay down your load.

Take your life firmly in your two hands,
(Gently... you are trusted with something precious)

While you search your heart's yearnings:
What am I seeking? What is my quest?

When your star rises deep within,
Trust yourself to its leading.

You will have the light for first steps.
This is Trasna, the crossing place.

Choose!
This is Trasna, the crossing place

Come !

Raphael Consedine, PBVM

 

Life's Thresholds. . .

 

“Like Spring secretly at work within the heart of Winter,
below the surface of our lives
huge changes are in fermentation.
We never suspect a thing.

Then when the grip of some
long-enduring winter mentality
begins to loosen,
we find ourselves
vulnerable
to
a
flourish
of
possibility
and we are suddenly negotiating
the challenges
of
a threshold…

At any time you can ask yourself:
At which threshold am I now standing?
At this time in my life, what am I leaving?
Where am I about to enter?

A threshold is not a simple boundary;
it is a frontier
that divides two different territories,
rhythms, and atmospheres.
Indeed, it is a lovely testimony
to the fullness and integrity
of an experience or a stage of life
that it intensifies toward the end
into a real frontier
that cannot be crossed
without
the heart being passionately
engaged
and
woken up.

At this threshold
a great complexity of emotion
comes alive:
confusion,
fear,
excitement,
sadness,
hope.
 
This is one of the reasons
such vital crossings
were always clothed in ritual.
It is wise in your own life
to be able to recognize and acknowledge
the key thresholds;
to take your time;
to feel all the varieties of presence
that accrue there;
to listen inward
with complete attention
until you hear
the inner voice
calling you
forward:
The time has come
to cross.”

John O’Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us

April 29, Catherine of Siena Feast Day!

 

April 29, the feast day of St Catherine of Siena, a lay Dominican,
Doctor and Reformer of the Church

 St. Catherine of Siena was the 25th child of a wool dyer in northern Italy.
She started having mystical experiences when she was only 6, seeing guardian angels as clearly as the people they protected. She became a Dominican tertiary when she was 16, and continued to have visions of Christ, Mary, and the saints.

St. Catherine was one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, although she never had any formal education. . Her spiritual director was Blessed Raymond of Capua. St, Catherine's letters, and a treatise called "a dialogue" are considered among the most brilliant writings in the history of the Catholic Church. She died when she was only 33, and her body was found incorrupt in 1430.

ARISE! by Doris Klein, CSA

Catherine’s Prayers:
• You, God, are a fire that always burns without consuming. You are a fire consuming in its heat every compartment of the soul’s self-absorbed love. You are a fire lifting all chill and giving all light. In Your light You show me Your truth. You’re the Light that outshines every Light. You, God, give the mind’s eye Your divine light so completely and excellently. You bring lucidity even to the light of faith. In that faith, I see my soul has life, and in that light, I receive You who are Light itself.

• God is a bright ocean that distills and reveals hidden truths so that my soul has a better understanding of how to trust Love, and the water is a mirror in which You, Eternal Trinity, give me knowledge.

• I want you to be a tree of love, grafted into the Word who is love, Christ crucified – a tree with its roots in deep humility. If you are a tree of love, sweetly rooted, you’ll find the fruit of patience and strength at the tips of your branches, and crowned perseverance nesting within you. You’ll find peace and quiet and consolation in suffering when you see yourself conformed with Christ crucified. And so, by enduring with Christ crucified, you’ll come with joy from much war into much peace. Peace! Peace!

The One Who Asks Us to Receive:

           

The Fourth Sunday of Easter 2026 

April 26, 2026

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

Acts 2:36-41; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:20-25; John 10:1-10

 

When Peter tells the Israelites that they put Jesus to death, they realized what they had done and asked, “What should we do to remedy our error?” In the second reading, Peter tells us that those who went astray returned to their guardian and shepherd. The Gospel passage tells us that Jesus is the one to be trusted because his care is genuine. He will care for those who want to receive his voice. He knows there are other voices who speak as a shepherd and they repeatedly show they do not have the shepherd’s heart. Jesus offers us life abundant life in its fullness.

 

How do we receive the offer that Jesus makes to us? We are trained in our spiritual life that it is far better to give than to receive. So, we do things like serving, sacrificing, and fitting morally good activities into our schedules. We feel comfortable in this realm, but there is a tension we have to face. Receiving can be much harder than giving and that makes us uncomfortable. We have great and subtle tensions around gift giving as well. When we pray, we ask for grace, which is a gift, and sometimes we are not comfortable receiving the gifts God offers. 

 

Resistance rises for different reasons. Some people say, “I don’t need help. I can do it on my own.” Pride stops us from receiving the fullness of the gift. Or, receiving the gift (or grace) puts us in a position of dependence, and our control issues arise. We are taught self-sufficiency. A primary resistance is a sense of unworthiness where we feel we have not done anything or enough to warrant a gift. Or, perhaps we wonder about the unknown, unforeseen strings that may be attached. Why would God offer me this gift? What further thing will God demand of me? Think about our personal history of receiving compliments. How well do you simply receive the goodwill someone offers?

 

Christ offers us salvation. God offers us new life. We need to see that Christianity is not something that we do, but something that we receive. Why me? Forget about the question and learn to accept the gift. Think about those events in our life where we are offered grace, mercy, or forgiveness. These are all gifts that are undeserved, and none of them are earned. We have to ask ourselves: Do I really want what I ask in prayer? We can also turn to Peter who resisted getting his feet washed. He wanted to be the one who gives, but Jesus insisted that the relationship demanded that Peter received what Jesus offered. Unless you let me serve you, you cannot share in me. The moral of the story is: refusing the gift actually blocks the relationship.

 

Receiving makes us uncomfortable because it makes us vulnerable. A part of our core self is exposed when we are vulnerable, which makes receiving love, forgiveness, or genuine care so difficult, but this is where intimacy begins, and Jesus calls us into deeper friendship, deeper intimacy. We want it and we resist. We have a problem. God does not operate on our time. God does not wait until we are ready or deserving. God is a persistent giver. God will also offer these gifts before we are ready, and we have to ask, “Are we willing to accept what God is freely offering?”

 

The Good Shepherd is offering us new life. We have nothing to prove. There is nothing we can earn. How willing am I to let go of my resistances so I may receive in abundance these gifts that are generously offered even before we ask for them?

 

And God waits . . .

 

 

 

 

There was once a very religious man.  One day he heard the voice of God in his prayer inviting him to come to a certain mountain where he would be able to see the face of the Divine and experience God’s loving embrace.

The man came out of his prayer and could not contain himself. He thought of this day when he would see God face-to-face, and he just could not wait. But then he thought to himself, I have to offer God something in return for such a wonderful gift and to commemorate this once-in-a-lifetime occasion.  

He thought of gold, silver, precious stones – but nothing in the material world seemed to suffice. Finally, he decided to fill a jar with tiny pebbles. Each one of these pebbles would represent one of his prayers, sacrifices, or good works. When the jar was finally full of his little pebbles, he ran up the mountain. He got to the top and his heart was ready to explode in anticipation. But to his surprise, he could not see or feel anything divine.

He began to think that he was deluded, a victim of a divine prank. Holding his jar, he broke down and began to weep. Just then, he heard God’s voice once again, saying, “I am waiting to show myself to you and wanting so much to take you into my loving arms, but you have put an obstacle between us. If you want to see my divine face and experience my love, break that jar!”

Author Unknown

Earth Day ~ Everyday!

 

 
Let the rain come and wash away
the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds
held and nurtured over generations.
Let the rain wash away the memory
of the hurt, the neglect.

Then let the sun come out and
fill the sky with rainbows.
Let the warmth of the sun heal us
wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that
we can see each other clearly.
So that we can see beyond labels,
beyond accents, gender or skin color.

Let the warmth and brightness
of the sun melt our selfishness.
So that we can share the joys and
feel the sorrows of our neighbors.
And let the light of the sun
be so strong that we will see all
people as our neighbors.
Let the earth, nourished by rain,
bring forth flowers
to surround us with beauty.
And let the mountains teach our hearts
to reach upward to heaven.
Amen.
a prayer for the world - rabbi harold kushner - 2003
 

Earth Day Prayer . . .

 

BEGIN AND END YOUR DAYS WITH PRAYER

The Earth is always a good teacher — and especially in spring.  Begin and  End your days this season with this prayer from the Native American tradition.

Earth teach me stillness
       as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
       as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
       as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
       as the mother who secures her young.
Earth teach me courage
       as the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
       as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
       as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
       as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me regeneration
       as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep with rain.
— Ute prayer