Monday, January 28, 2019
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
An Ordinary Blessing for Ordinary Time ~
+ Blessing The Ordinary +
Let these words
lay themselves
like a blessing
upon your head,
your shoulders,
As if,
like hands,
they could pass on
to you what you most need
for this day,
as if they couldanoint you
not merely for
the path ahead
but for this
ordinary moment
that opens itself
to you - -
opens itself
like another hand
that unfurls itself,
that reaches out
to gather
these words
in the bowl
of its palm.
You may think
this blessing
lives within
these words,
but I tell you
it lives
in the reaching;
it lives
in the ache
where this blessing
begins;
it lives
in the hollow
made by the place
where the hands
of this blessing
meet.
From: Circle of Grace by Jan Richardson
Knot In Your Life!
The Knots Prayer
O God,
please untie the knots
that are in my mind,
my heart, and my life.
please untie the knots
that are in my mind,
my heart, and my life.
Remove the have nots,
the can nots and the do nots
that I have in my mind.
the can nots and the do nots
that I have in my mind.
Erase the will nots,
may nots, might nots
that find a home in my heart.
may nots, might nots
that find a home in my heart.
Release me from the could nots,
would nots, and should nots
that obstruct my life.
would nots, and should nots
that obstruct my life.
And most of all, God,
I ask that you remove from my mind
my heart and my life all of the
I ask that you remove from my mind
my heart and my life all of the
‘am nots'
that I have allowed to hold me back,
especially the thought
that I am not good enough.
that I have allowed to hold me back,
especially the thought
that I am not good enough.
Amen.
Author Unknown . . .
 |
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Winter Waiting . . .
A Winter Blessing
Blessed are you, winter,
dark season of waiting,
you affirm the dark seasons of our lives,
forecasting the weather of waiting in hope.
Excerpted from The Circle of Life by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr, ©2005. Used with permission of the publisher, Sorin Books®, an imprint of Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428,
Monday, January 21, 2019
A Life That Mattered . . .
A Prayer in Honor of Martin Luther King Day
By Lilly Kaufman, January 2012
By Lilly Kaufman, January 2012
Dr. King would have faced hard facts today.
He would know the number of children
going hungry in America this very minute.
He would know the number of our war dead,
and those wounded in new ways.
He would know the astounding costs
of financial corruption.
He would have seen beyond the numbers,
to the faces of our people,
and he would still have faith in them,
and in what is right.
He would be preaching now
a determined, measured, poetic, prophetic outrage.
He would be teaching by example
our civic duty of compassion,
and decrying the grave civic danger of cynicism.
He would challenge the strange new ideas
that money equals speech
and corporations are people
in a democracy.
When he gave his life for peoples’ rights
of speech, and assembly, and the vote,
it was for people
who had no money to pay for speech.
They knew speech as an unalienable right,
and their wealth of spirit sufficed.
Dr. King had faith in a few great things:
one was our essential American dream.
Not a middle-class American dream,
or an upper-class, a working-poor,
or an impoverished-class American dream.
But the defining American dream
which lifts up those bowed down.
The abiding American dream
of liberty and justice for all.
Amen.
Friday, January 18, 2019
The Wedding Guest ~
 |
| http://www.chanttherosary.com/wedding-at-cana/ Artist Unknown |
In John’s Gospel, we get a glimpse of what
our God does best and enjoys the most. Our God enjoys being with people
in the ordinary and extraordinary times of their lives. God desires to be a
“guest” in the everyday happenings of our lives. We need only to have an open spirit
and listening heart.
John’s Gospel is filled with many levels of meaning and there are always a great many symbols throughout his writings. But in today’s reading, I would like us to reflect on the fact that Jesus was invited to this wedding celebration at Cana. This is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Here he is not the host of the wedding feast, but a guest like everyone else. Jesus’ ministry opens with him as the recipient of a gesture of hospitality. This beginning of his ministry is played out in an intimate, personal, and familial setting. With the sensitivity of his Mother, he is informed that the wine at the wedding feast has run out. He is moved to respond not only to the lack of wine but to free the young couple and their families from embarrassment and shame.
In his divine wisdom and creative imagination, he notices six stone water jars standing dutifully at the entrance of the home. These jars held 20-30 gallons of water. The water was used by the Jews for purification rituals of washing their feet upon entering the home, and washing their hands after each course of the meal.
It is here, within these water jars, that the power and the presence of God is experienced. Scarcity becomes abundance; shame is released and honor restored; the ordinary becomes the extraordinary, for simple water now becomes choice wine!
Let us pray that as we stand much like the stone jars, that God’s words of blessing may touch the waters of fear, anxiety, doubt, or resistance in us. May the “waters” be transformed into the rich “wine” of courage, serenity, confidence, faith, and mercy.
John’s Gospel is filled with many levels of meaning and there are always a great many symbols throughout his writings. But in today’s reading, I would like us to reflect on the fact that Jesus was invited to this wedding celebration at Cana. This is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Here he is not the host of the wedding feast, but a guest like everyone else. Jesus’ ministry opens with him as the recipient of a gesture of hospitality. This beginning of his ministry is played out in an intimate, personal, and familial setting. With the sensitivity of his Mother, he is informed that the wine at the wedding feast has run out. He is moved to respond not only to the lack of wine but to free the young couple and their families from embarrassment and shame.
In his divine wisdom and creative imagination, he notices six stone water jars standing dutifully at the entrance of the home. These jars held 20-30 gallons of water. The water was used by the Jews for purification rituals of washing their feet upon entering the home, and washing their hands after each course of the meal.
It is here, within these water jars, that the power and the presence of God is experienced. Scarcity becomes abundance; shame is released and honor restored; the ordinary becomes the extraordinary, for simple water now becomes choice wine!
Let us pray that as we stand much like the stone jars, that God’s words of blessing may touch the waters of fear, anxiety, doubt, or resistance in us. May the “waters” be transformed into the rich “wine” of courage, serenity, confidence, faith, and mercy.
Cana Wine
By Irene Zimmerman, SSSF
By Irene Zimmerman, SSSF
“The weather’s so hot and no more wine’s to be bought in all of Cana!
It’s just what I feared . . . just why I begged my husband to keep the wedding small.”
“Does he know?” Mary asked.
“Not yet. Oh, the shame!
Look at my son and his beautiful bride!
They’ll never be able to raise their heads again, not in this small town.”
“Then don’t tell him yet.”
Mary greeted the guests as she made her way through crowded reception rooms.
“I must talk to you, Son,” she said unobtrusively.
Moments later he moved toward the back serving rooms. They hadn’t seen each other since the morning he’d left her . . . before the baptism and the desert time.They could talk tomorrow on the way to Capernaum.
She spoke urgently, her words both request and command to him: “They have no wine.”
But he hadn’t been called yet! He hadn’t felt it yet. Would she send him so soon to the hounds and jackals? For wine?
Was wine so important then?
“Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come.”
Her unflinching eyes reflected to him his twelve-year-old self telling her with no contrition: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
She left him standing there . . . vine from her stock, ready for fruit bearing . . . and went to the servants. “Do whatever he tells you,” she said.
From across the room she watched them fill water jars, watched the chief steward drink from the dripping cup, saw his eyes open in wide surprise.
She watched her grown son toast the young couple, watched the groom’s parents and guests raise their cups.
She saw it all clearly: saw the Best Wine pouring out for them all.
Look at my son and his beautiful bride!
They’ll never be able to raise their heads again, not in this small town.”
“Then don’t tell him yet.”
Mary greeted the guests as she made her way through crowded reception rooms.
“I must talk to you, Son,” she said unobtrusively.
Moments later he moved toward the back serving rooms. They hadn’t seen each other since the morning he’d left her . . . before the baptism and the desert time.They could talk tomorrow on the way to Capernaum.
She spoke urgently, her words both request and command to him: “They have no wine.”
But he hadn’t been called yet! He hadn’t felt it yet. Would she send him so soon to the hounds and jackals? For wine?
Was wine so important then?
“Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come.”
Her unflinching eyes reflected to him his twelve-year-old self telling her with no contrition: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
She left him standing there . . . vine from her stock, ready for fruit bearing . . . and went to the servants. “Do whatever he tells you,” she said.
From across the room she watched them fill water jars, watched the chief steward drink from the dripping cup, saw his eyes open in wide surprise.
She watched her grown son toast the young couple, watched the groom’s parents and guests raise their cups.
She saw it all clearly: saw the Best Wine pouring out for them all.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
St. Agnes Feastday ~ January 21 Reflection
Agnes - A woman before her time!
Someone once wrote: “If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Today, January 21st, we gather to remember and to celebrate St. Agnes of Rome, under whose patronage the Sisters of St. Agnes were founded. She declared herself Christian in a pagan society and committed herself to remain virgin in a patriarchal culture. She gave testimony that she had chosen Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior with the public sacrifice of her life.
Much of her life and death are surrounded by legend, but early writings tell us that Agnes was born into a wealthy and powerful Roman Christian family and, according to tradition, she suffered martyrdom at the age of 12 or 13 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian on January 21, in the year 305.
The story is told how the Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, for women, at that time, were property of the State and had children to promote the State’s agenda. But Agnes refused a forced marriage and remained adamant that she had consecrated her virginity to Jesus Christ. Her refusal was considered an act of treason and punishable by death. At that time, Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, so Sempronius had a naked Agnes dragged through the streets to a brothel. In one version of the story, it is said, that as she processed through the streets, Agnes prayed, and her hair grew and covered her entire body.
Some also asserted that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. She was sentenced to death with many other Christian companions who refused to worship the Roman gods and to pay homage to the emperor as divine.
Agnes grew up in a patriarchal culture, whose religion included many gods – a religion of laws, customs, and prescriptions that no longer had the power to define her. Agnes chose a new way of life – a life of virginity. She was resolute in choosing her own power in Christ to define her new identity.
So what is the Good News for us today?
Much of her life and death are surrounded by legend, but early writings tell us that Agnes was born into a wealthy and powerful Roman Christian family and, according to tradition, she suffered martyrdom at the age of 12 or 13 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian on January 21, in the year 305.
The story is told how the Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son, for women, at that time, were property of the State and had children to promote the State’s agenda. But Agnes refused a forced marriage and remained adamant that she had consecrated her virginity to Jesus Christ. Her refusal was considered an act of treason and punishable by death. At that time, Roman law did not permit the execution of virgins, so Sempronius had a naked Agnes dragged through the streets to a brothel. In one version of the story, it is said, that as she processed through the streets, Agnes prayed, and her hair grew and covered her entire body.
Some also asserted that all of the men who attempted to rape her were immediately struck blind. She was sentenced to death with many other Christian companions who refused to worship the Roman gods and to pay homage to the emperor as divine.
Agnes grew up in a patriarchal culture, whose religion included many gods – a religion of laws, customs, and prescriptions that no longer had the power to define her. Agnes chose a new way of life – a life of virginity. She was resolute in choosing her own power in Christ to define her new identity.
So what is the Good News for us today?
- Our God continues to invite everyone to live with hope, trust, courage, and faith. We are all called to be witnesses of the Risen Christ.
- As women and men religious, associates, friends, and partners in ministry, it is on such a feast as today, that we are invited to ponder our own witness to our faith and the values of our Christian lives.
- That like Agnes, when we find ourselves standing “naked” in our vulnerabilities, limitations, powerlessness, doubts, dilemmas, and decisions that affect the social, economic, cultural, religious, and political challenges of life, may we more and more learn to call upon the Spirit for guidance, grit, and grace – for it is in God that we live and move and have our being.
Tomb of St. Agnes in Rome (previously posted)
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