Feast of Joseph the Worker . . .

Joseph is the man on the outskirts, standing in the shadows, silently waiting, there when wanted and always ready to help. He is the man in whose life God is constantly intervening with warnings and visions. Without a complaint he allows his own plans to be set aside. His life is a succession of prophecies and dream-messages of packing up and moving on. He is the man who dreams of setting up a quiet household, simply leading a home life and going about his affairs, attending to his business and worshiping God and who, instead, is condemned to a life of wandering. 

Beset with doubts, heavy-hearted and uneasy in his mind, his whole life disrupted. He has to take to the open road, to make his way through an unfriendly country finding no shelter but a miserable stable for those he holds most dear. He is the man who sets aside all thought of self and shoulders his responsibilities bravely — and obeys. 

His message is willing obedience. He is the man who serves. It never enters his head to question God's commands. He makes all the necessary preparations and is ready when God's call comes. Willing, unquestioning service is the secret of his life. This is his message for us. 

Author Unknown

A Prayer for Work . . . 

Creator God, thank you for providing us with the gift to share our talents. Provide our community, our nation, our world the fortitude to provide work for all which is decent and fair. Make us faithful stewards of your creation to enhance the human dignity of our global family.  We ask this in the name of Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit now and forever. Amen. 

(From Being Neighbor: The Catechism and Social Justice, USCCB)

Patrick ~ Man of Courage, Man of Myth!

 

St. Patrick

http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729#synopsis

 

May your troubles be less
And your blessings be more
And nothing but happiness
Come though your door

The Blessing of Light, Rain and Earth

May the blessing of Light be on you
light without and light within.

May the blessed sunlight shine on you
And warm your heart till it glows
Like a great peat fire, so that the stranger
may come and warm himself at it
and also a friend.

And may the light shine out of the two eyes of you
Like a candle set in the windows of a house
Bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.
And may the blessing of the Rain be upon you, the soft sweet rain.
May it fall upon your spirit so that all the little flowers may spring up
And shed their sweetness on the air
And may the blessing of the Great Rains be on you
May they beat upon your spirit and wash it fair and clean
And leave there many a shining pool where the blue of heaven shines
And sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the Earth be upon you, the great round earth
May you ever have a kindly greeting for them you pass
As you're going along the roads
May the earth be soft under you when you rest upon it
Tire at the end of the day
And may it rest easy over you
When at the last you lay out under it
May it rest so lightly over you
That your soul may be out from under it quickly
And up, and off, and on its way to God.

(Author Unknown)

A Woman, A Well, and the Word!

In 2004, the revolutionary work of the renowned Japanese scientist, Dr. Masaru Emoto, was published in a book entitled, The Hidden Messages in Water.  He discovered that molecules of water are affected by our thoughts, words and feelings. He showed in his research, that when ice forms under positive conditions, (that is, when water is exposed to positive and loving words) then the ice crystals form complex, colorful snowflake patterns.  Then again, he showed that when it is exposed to negative conditions, the crystals that form are incomplete and dull in color. Since humans and the earth are composed mostly of water, his message is one of personal health, global environmental renewal, and a practical plan for peace that starts with each one of us.  His findings imply that we can positively impact the earth. 

In Sunday’s reading from Exodus, God’s hidden message in the water from the rock was that God was present in their midst totally and tenderly. The story recounts the murmuring of the people in the wilderness and the miracle of life-giving water from the rock. Truly, the people thirsted, yet rebelled against Moses and lacked trust in God. 

Here for these desert people, the messages hidden in the water invited them into a deeper awareness that God is truly the one that quenches all thirsts, satisfies all hungers, and fills all emptiness. God was constantly calling them to the Promised Land, but just as constantly, they wanted to go in their own direction. 

In our Gospel, Jesus is in pagan territory, enemy territory, in Samaria where he is absolutely not supposed to be. But as usual, Jesus disregards the rules and breaks through boundaries and borders. He is tired and thirsty, sitting by the ancient well which belongs to Jacob. Then something extraordinary happens. Jesus is approached by a Samaritan woman, engages her in conversation about religion, and opens her mind and heart in ways that he has not done for anyone else. The result is that he completely changes her, transforms her, if you will. He accepts her as she is and asks for her help.He speaks to her about her life and tells her about herself, and she says, “I see you are a prophet.” Jesus invited her to raise her believing beyond the immediate reality of water of the well that satisfies physical thirst to what would satisfy her spiritual thirst. 

In this encounter, Jesus tells her who he is. He opens himself up and reveals himself to her, calling himself, ‘I Am,’ – the name Yahweh gave to Moses in the burning bush. Transformed in her hope, she then can share the joy of her discovery and bring her neighbors to Jesus.  Having fulfilled her task she then moves again into the background. The townspeople no longer need her.  She has brought them to Jesus. The encounter with Jesus had transformed her life, and she had received a gift that no one could take away from her. “For God’s hope does not disappoint, and God’s intimate love has been poured out into her very being."

Now with the grace of love, acceptance, faith, joy, truth, and freedom the hidden messages within her own life-giving well are generously and abundantly shared with all who are willing to encounter this woman.  For now she stands tall in her transformation. Jesus is the “Gift of God” who is Living Water. The secret message in Jesus, the Living Water is that he is the real well!

If we drink from Jesus we will never be thirsty again.  If we make Jesus the center of our lives, we will have a spring of water welling up from within us, giving us life, no matter what is happening around us!

So let us ask this woman of the well to walk with us during these Lenten days.  Let her guide us in our journey of faith, hope, and love, so that we, too, will be open to the “Hidden Messages” of the Life-Giving Water that our God so desires to pour into our hearts.

Choose, Love, Create, Live . . .Lent!

 

Image from J.H.

 

Blessing
What we choose changes us.
Who we love transforms us.
How we create remakes us.
Where we live reshapes us.
So in all our choosing,
O God, make us wise;
in all our loving,
O Christ, make us bold;
in all our creating,
O Spirit, give us courage;
in all our living
may we become whole.

Author: Jan Richardson

People of the Cloud!

The Transfiguration

Reflections for the Second Sunday of Lent

Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Scott Peck

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. Pema Chodron 

Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, and they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human existence.                Anthony de Mello    

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus has taken his BFF’s  up the high mountain. It was believed that on mountains there one could go when seeking a special relationship with God.  Here on this mountain, Jesus stands with two prophets, Moses, “the liberator” and Elijah, “the troubler of Israel.”  On this holy mountain, Jesus bursts forth into a presence that overwhelmed the disciples.  Jesus turned into a radiant laser-like beam of energy!

The voice within the cloud directs the disciples to listen to God’s Beloved – “not just here on the mountain top – but on the plains of challenge and within the valleys where the people of God experience hunger, injustice, poverty and exploitation at the hands of the powers that be.”

The Transfiguration is a moment of glory commissioning us all and empowering us to live in the presence of God and to see the radiance of that presence in all the events of our lives: the people, the cosmos, and in ourselves.  Initially, the disciples were overcome by sleep, yet with this “explosion” of divine energy, they were awake . . . wide-eyed awake!

By our Baptism, we are all called to be “people of the cloud.”  We are invited to listen, and to be wide-eyed awake to express something of God through our lives. Through us, God wants to say something to this world.  Our task is to radiate the image of God and let it shine through us by our compassion, our healing, our understanding, and our willingness to be transformed.  It is said, that the purpose of life is not to be happy.  The purpose of life is to matter, to have it make a difference that you lived at all.  Our Baptism is the gift in which we choose to live out our purpose and it is the purpose of every human being to give God glory simply by being who we are with all our potential.

In an ancient story, it is told of an old pilgrim who was making his way to the Himalayan Mountains in the bitter cold of winter when it began to rain.  An innkeeper said to him, “How will you ever get there in this kind of weather, my good man?” The old man answered cheerfully, “My heart got there first, so it’s easy for the rest of me to follow.”

So let us be open to the graces of these readings:
http://usccb.org/bible/readings/031217.cfm

• Let us take up the challenge to be prophetic voices, “people of the cloud” and to speak for the least, the last and the lost. 
• Let us take up the challenge to not stay in the comfort of the present, but with an urgency move with the mission of Jesus into a future full of mystery, paradox, ambiguity, wonder, and wisdom.
• Finally, let us get up, look up - and see only Jesus, and not be afraid to follow our heart’s purpose and may we allow the light of God to shine in us, through us and to transform us and our world.

(Previously posted 2/2013)

Mother Agnes Day ~ March 6 . . .

Remembering Mother Agnes ~ 1847-1905
Death Anniversary of Mother Agnes Hazotte ~ March 6 ~ Foundress

Mother Agnes – Leading through Courage, Initiative, and Inspiration

“Our sisters go out as mission sisters and we teach the poor and care for the orphans. We take such places where many other communities would not take.” ~Mother Agnes Hazotte

• Anne Marie Hazotte was born in 1847 in Buffalo, New York, the youngest child of Christoph and Mary Ann Hazotte, who had emigrated from France just in time to escape the Revolution of 1848.

• Before the age of 15, Anne Marie lost her mother, father, two sisters, and a brother – difficult trials that shaped the heart and spirit of this determined, future woman religious leader.

• On a cold January day in 1862, 15-year-old Anne Marie became the “child of destiny,” as she was called by the congregation’s founder, Father Caspar Rehrl. Two years later, at the age of 17, she took her final vows and was elected as the first superior general on the same day. She served in that capacity for the next 40 years and came to be known as Mother Agnes.

• Pioneers in the frontier territory of Wisconsin, the Sisters of St. Agnes were dedicated to the education and faith training of the children of German immigrants who had settled in the region. Father Rehrl sent his sisters to schools throughout the area, relying frequently on the hospitality and generosity of the area settlers for food, lodging, and other needs.

• Moving the congregation in 1870 from Barton to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, was the culmination of ongoing tensions between Mother Agnes and Father Rehrl, whose missionary zeal and frequent absences due to his demanding responsibilities often left his candidates and sisters ill prepared for the challenges of teaching. Recognizing the need for more spiritual, educational, and ministerial opportunities for the sisters, Mother Agnes and most of the sisters made the historic move and continued to thrive under the spiritual guidance of Father Francis Haas, a Capuchin.

• As superior, Mother Agnes accepted the challenges of sustaining the congregation through prudent and innovative financial decisions. Throughout the course of her leadership, conscientious foresight and compassionate insight guided her decisions and led the congregation to become a foundational pillar of community development, both in Fond du Lac and in other communities around the nation, where the sisters were sent to teach and heal.

• Responding to the needs of the community and the requests of the doctors in Fond du Lac, Mother Agnes took up the challenge of opening and staffing St. Agnes Hospital in 1896, and purchased Cold Springs Farm on the outskirts of the city to provide fresh food for the patients and the sisters in 1899. (The current convent and motherhouse are now located at this site.) In 1903, the Henry Boyle Catholic Home for the Aged was established as the first facility for seniors in the area.

• After years of suffering from tuberculosis, diabetes, and a heart ailment, Mother Agnes Hazotte passed away on March 6, 1905, surrounded by the prayers of her sisters – leaving behind her a legacy of courage, determination, and faithful devotion to mission, and paving the way for generations of sisters who continue to inspire and transform lives.

Writings of Mother Agnes:
"Where there is union, there is strength.” (Letter to Sr. Angeline, August 20, 1902)

“Love your God, and give yourself entirely to Him.  He is the true friend.” (Letter to Sr. Seraphine)

“I shall never forget the evening when we knelt at the little altar, poor as it was, and offered our first vows to God. We were both young and inexperienced but god directed us wonderfully during these 25 years.”  (Letter to Sr. Bernardine, June 29, 1888)

St. Agnes Convent ~ Barton, WI 1858

First Sunday of Lent ~ Desert Transitions!

Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness

J. Tissot (Brooklyn Museum)

 

First Sunday of Lent ~

In our CSA Constitutions, in the section on Formation and Membership, there is written this theology statement:
Transitions of every sort mark our lives. We try to recognize in each of them a graced moment in our ongoing formation, one in which we can live out the paschal mystery and build the kingdom of God. (#58)

Some transitions are inevitable in our human experience, some are probable, and others are possible but perhaps not likely.  Birth, adolescence, mid-life, senior life, death.   All are transitions that are natural to every human experience, given an average life span. 

Even in our own community, we have had many transitions – I’d like to name just a few from the recent past-
• Can we remember when we initiated de-centralized government, along with establishing the offices of Sponsorship and Justice and Peace and Integrity of Creation and Associate Relationships?
• Can we remember when the Motherhouse at 390 E. Division St., was raised so that St. Agnes hospital could expand?
• Can we recall the decisions and emotions involved in the process of raising Nazareth Heights and constructing a site with four hermitages for those seeking rest, renewal, and solitude?
• Can we remember how we felt when we knew that decisions had to be made regarding leaving missions in Honduras and Nicaragua?
• And here we are in our 6th motherhouse since 1858. .  .
Yes, transitions of every sort mark our lives.

We continue to encounter transitions in which we are invited to name our present reality as we evolve into the future,  and even more so today as we dialogue with contemplative hearts in preparing for our upcoming Chapter this summer.

Transitions always begin with endings that place us in an in-between space – or a liminality that is uncomfortable, uncertain, disorienting; there may be a loss of a sense of identity, and oftentimes we can experience a change in our relationship with ourselves and perhaps with God as well. 

In her book, Journey of the Soul, Sister Doris Klein speaks of transitions with the following words:
“When we face those times of uncertainty in our life, the scene is often blurry.  Things we were so sure of suddenly make little sense.  The answers we thought were clear now seem lost in a distant fog, and we wander aimlessly, unable to regain the focus we once believed we had.

Our confusion is unsettling.  Doubt, like vertigo, distorts our balance as we fearfully wander in a vast and empty inner wilderness.  As we wrestle with the darkness, a rush of panic washes into our hearts, our breath becomes shallow and, with each question, the judgments seem to escalate.”

Here in our Gospel, we find Jesus smack dab in the midst of transition – and “knee deep” in liminal space.  This could be considered his novitiate, or sabbatical time, a vision quest, or the Spirit’s idea of boot camp for prophets.
After Jesus heard God call him “My Beloved” at his baptism, we are told that the Spirit drove him into the desert to discover what it would mean to be God’s Beloved. 

It is here in this wilderness that his spiritual, psychological, and personal inner strength is challenged by the tempter who is the master of delusion, denial, and lies, and who is taunting him to choose the “dark side.”  Jesus’ desert drama is a struggle that will prepare him for all that awaits him in his public ministry and mission as the Anointed One. 

He will carry no light saber or magic wand to ward off the stones of critics, opponents, or enemies that find him too much for them. Here in the wilderness, he has fasted for forty days and forty nights. It is here on the margins of the city that he will wrestle with the demons of hunger, power, prestige, possessions, and fame. In his physical emptiness, he is made vulnerable in his call as Beloved.

He is confronted by the tempter to turn stones into bread – a temptation that entices him to believe that if his hunger would be satisfied with earthly pleasures – it will be enough. 

It is here in the school of the desert that he chooses the emptiness of letting go of all that satisfied him in the past – namely,  his relationships of his village, his family, his simple life of carpentry, his privacy, his identity. Jesus, alone in the desolate wilderness where he is without food or water, and is stripped of all his securities, now remembers and embraces the words of love he heard upon rising from the waters of the Jordan. . . You are my Beloved . . . God alone becomes his sustenance.

For Jesus all of the comfortable, familiar, and secure have ended.  He refuses to give in to the tempter of illusion and is nourished again by the voice and words of God - for his journey will be one of feeding the hungry in spirit, mind, and body with the bread of his words.

His second temptation is to doubt God’s abiding love. Jesus is challenged to test whether or not God is really trustworthy.  Jumping from the pinnacle of the temple would gain Jesus instant acclaim as a wonder worker, winning over the multitudes. But Jesus stands firm.  He refuses to give in to self-destruction and self-hatred and chooses to remain faithful to God, trusting God’s unconditional love.

Finally, the tempter shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and taunts that if he is God’s Beloved, why not be popular, famous, and have a chance to be a rock star?  This is a subtle temptation for domination and power, to become an owner of everything, having control of everyone, in charge of life itself.  The price demanded by the tempter for all the kingdoms of the world was to worship him. Jesus again says that being the Beloved is all that he needs and he chooses faithfulness to God.

So what is the Good News for us? 
“To struggle is to begin to see the world differently.    . . .  If we are willing to persevere through the depths of struggle we can emerge with conversion, faith, courage, surrender, self-acceptance, endurance, and a kind of personal growth that takes us beyond pain to understanding.  Enduring struggle is the price to be paid for becoming everything we are meant to be in the world.” (Joan Chittister)

• As individuals, as a community, a church, as people of this shared planet . . . how do we face struggles with the hungers, illusions, and powers of temptation that confront us every day? 
• What struggles do we face at this juncture of “in-betweenness” and liminality? Can we accept the challenges: to name them, realize their impact, and consequences?  Then, how will we choose to walk with trust, hope, and audacity into the now and not-yet?
• What is the grace we desire at this time, at the beginning of Lent, as we prepare to move through the paschal mystery?
• What gifts within our present transitions are we invited to claim?  Are we able to surrender to this time of conversion, allowing angels to minister to us and to nourish us with God’s Word and the faith of one another, letting go of the needs and desires that may separate us from God?
• Finally, as we enter this desert time of transitions, let us ask for the graces we need to rekindle our love of God and God’s mission; for God is tenderly, lovingly, unceasingly speaking to our spirits: You are my beloved!

So let us pray:
Transitions of every sort mark our lives. We try to recognize in each of them a graced moment in our ongoing formation, one in which we can live out the paschal mystery and build the kingdom of God. (#58)

Jesus Ministered to by Angels ~ J. Tissot