Beacons of Hope

It’s hard to write a blog after a horrible crime is committed.  Twenty-six people getting massacred, most of them little children, has cast a pall over our nation.  Ironically, the 3rd Sunday of Advent which we just celebrated is called Rejoice Sunday.  The reading from Philippians is especially appropriate to be read on this day:  

“Rejoice in the Lord always; I shall say it again, Rejoice!  Your kindness should be known to all.  The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety at all, but in everything with prayer and petition and thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

It was pretty hard to feel like rejoicing anywhere after learning what transpired in an elementary school in Connecticut on Friday.  There are no good answers to any questions we might have about why this happens - especially this one - how could God let this happen?  or where was God in all of this?

I do believe that what helps us ‘see’ God’s presence in all of this is when a father of a 6 year old girl who was killed can say, “I’m not angry...I’m sad.”  

...or when people gather to pray at Vigil services or make-shift shrines on the lawn of the local Catholic church.  

...or when prayers come in from children in Pakistan who can sympathize with the pain.

We have a custom of lighting a star on our water tower beginning the first Sunday of Advent until Epiphany.  As one of our local cooks said to a sister once, “ You sisters are that star to us.  You are a beacon of hope and goodness.”

I wandered out to look at that star this evening.  You can see it from the highway 3-4 miles away.  The ‘real’ stars were overhead in bright array.  I’m going to use an old cliche here but during the winter in Clyde, Missouri the stars are so bright you can reach out and touch them.  A small group of five of us ventured out last Thursday night to view the meteor shower from the top of our hill.  It was freezing cold but it was worth a few numb fingers to catch a glimpse of their beauty.    It is a beauty that is very short lived so one must be alert.  But many of them elicited 'oohs' and 'ahhs.'  Things that are most fragile are the most beautiful because we know they won’t last.  

It has to be dark for us to see the beauty of the stars.  Too much light hides the beauty during the day.   

The only way to survive the darkness in our lives is to be beacons of hope to each other.  And that is where God will make himself known.  

Advent is not about the shopping days left

I love the season of Advent.   I have come to appreciate and understand it more since I entered the monastery 19 years ago.   Before that, I was aware the month before Christmas was called Advent but I really didn’t pay much attention to it.  There was some thing called a Jesse Tree in church (a dead tree branch with what I couldn’t tell - hanging on it)...maybe an Advent wreath...but  Advent was more about the shopping days left until Christmas instead of anticipating the Messiah.  Plus you could watch a 24 hour marathon of “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “The Christmas Story” on TNT on what is now known as Black Friday.  

That all changed after I became a postulant.  The first adjustment I had to get used to is NO decorating for Christmas before Dec. 17th.  That was the monastic way of trying to keep Advent as Advent.  I was used to a world of 24 hour Christmas music; putting up the tree shortly after Thanksgiving (so you could enjoy it longer - somehow it doesn’t occur to people to keep the tree up longer AFTER Christmas for that same reason); hanging lights all over the house; shopping for presents...it seemed a little scrooge-like to not anticipate Christmas like the secular world I was used to.  So,  over the years I would put up little things in the privacy of my bedroom where no one would see.  I would have my little nativity set on the top of my bookshelf by Dec. 6th.   Sometimes I would even turn on the lights in my window before the specified day to which novices (whom I should have been setting a better example for)...would shake their heads.  

It was when I began to experience Advent as a liturgical season that I grew to love it for its own sake.  I fell in love with the daily readings at Mass, especially the ones from Isaiah which are so prevalent and speak of deserts blooming and the blind seeing and the lame leaping. 

As a postulant I discovered a book that I have since gone back to many times called “The Reed of God” by Caryll Houselander.  She describes Advent as “the season of the secret - the secret of the growth of Christ - of Divine Love growing in silence...if we truly have given our humanity to be changed into Christ, (that’s what I thought I was doing by entering a monastery) it is essential to us that we do not disturb this time of growth.  It is a time of darkness, of faith.  We shall not see Christ’s radiance in our lives, yet; it is still hidden in our darkness.  Nevertheless, we must believe that He is growing in our lives and believe it so firmly that we cannot help relating everything, literally everything, to this incredible reality...”

“...We are too impatient, a seed contains all the life and loveliness of the flower but it contains it in a little hard black pip of a thing which even the glorious sun will not enliven unless it is buried under the earth.  There must be a period of gestation before anything can flower.”

I know in my own life I want to go straight to flowering.  Skip the gestation or keep it short!  Advent reminds me every year that is not how the Holy Spirit works. 

Rosa knocks on the chapel door during
the ritual for entering postulants

We had the happy event of having Rosa Cruz enter the postulancy on December 2nd, the first Sunday of Advent.  A fitting time to begin religious life, I think.  Advent marks the beginning of the new Church Year and the postulancy a beginning in monastic life.  Both events are filled with expectancy, eagerness, and the joyful hope that God's promises to us will be fulfilled.

And by the way...I am getting much better about waiting until Dec. 17th to decorate for Christmas, even in the privacy of my own bedroom, over the past 19 years!

Thanksgiving and Black Friday at the Convent

Usually the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is full of hustle and bustle in our convent kitchen.   Different sisters sign up to make some particular item for the meal itself.   In years past I have volunteered to make the turkeys.  We used to do four  twenty-four pounders back when we had 50 – 60 sisters here.   Have you ever tried to stick 24 pounds of fowl into an oven bag?  

It is extremely hard to do by yourself.  I would holler at whoever happened to be passing by to help out.  This year, however, a  friend of the community donated smoked turkeys for our meal.   We also had the usual traditional meal:  mashed potatoes, cranberries, stuffing and of course pumpkin or pecan pie. I am grateful that God has called so many women who are good cooks to our monastery!

Some of the sisters watch the Macy’s parade in the morning and football in the afternoon.   Probably a good many of us took a nap sometime between doing dishes and Vespers.  You  may have heard that eating turkey makes you sleepy because it contains the amino acid L-Tryptophan.   I must admit it’s very handy in our cyber age to be able to ‘google’ things to see if they are accurate or not.   I’m not sure I would have sauntered over to the local library to check into that.  My query produced an article that says turkey has no more tryptophan than other foul and slightly less than chicken.   When was the last time you ate a chicken breast and felt sluggish?   So, another myth bites the dust.

Sisters on Black Friday hurrying into
chapel instead of the stores!

Do we go shopping on Black Friday?  Are you kidding?  One would have to be nuts to go shopping on Black Friday!  Every Friday (and for that matter, every day) is black for us, it’s the color of our ‘habits!’  

I just read on nbcnews.com where a record 247 million shoppers opened their wallets this weekend.  Online shopping on Black Friday topped 1 billion dollars.  Sadly, stores are now opting to be open on Thanksgiving instead of waiting for Friday for their sales.    It’s when I read this stuff that I am especially glad I live in a monastery or I might be caught up in that same nonsense.  In the future is Thanksgiving dinner just going to be what you drop in for between your shopping trips to the stores?

The Friday after Thanksgiving is always a leisure day at our place.  So my black Friday consisted of a nice relaxing morning after Lauds and Mass and then I watched my Nebraska football team beat Iowa.  (It would have been a black Friday indeed if they had lost!)  I followed that with a walk in the brisk air (the wind chill was around 15 degrees) that afternoon with one of my sisters.  Now I tell you, does that not beat getting up before the crack of dawn to go stand in line with other people at your local Wal-Mart?   Lest I forget, one of the best things about the Friday after Thanksgiving is the left-overs!  

One of the best things about Thanksgiving is that it means Advent is just around the corner.  Advent has become my favorite liturgical season.  I especially love the readings from Isaiah in the liturgies.  They are full of hope which is something our world needs these days! 

Gambling and a widow's mite

As a good Benedictine I’m trained in lectio divina.  The danger of doing lectio every day with scripture is that over the years, the stories become very familiar.  So familiar in fact, that while I may read them and listen to them as they are read, I can often tune them out.  So as I settled into my ‘lectio chair’ early this morning, I had to consciously tell myself to “pay attention!”

I spent time with the 1st and 2nd reading from the Sunday liturgy and then turned my attention to the Gospel reading from Mark.  It’s the familiar story of the widow’s mite:

And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums.  A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

I was struck with that last phrase, “her whole livelihood”.  As a vocation director, I often think it terms of discernment - it’s a job hazard.   I thought to myself that in a sense, 19 years ago I had given up my whole livelihood and tossed it into the ‘treasury’, a.k.a. religious life in my case.   My livelihood at that time was my job, a car, (luckily I didn’t own a house) and I moved away from dear friends and family.   I didn’t know when I entered that I would make it.  I would have to start over again if I didn’t.  I wasn’t a destitute widow as in our Gospel but I was stepping into a great big unknown.   In my more dramatic moments it was like stepping into the great abyss.

Entering religious life is a gamble.  I have gambled with my life instead of playing the ponies or heading to the nearest Riverboat Casino.  (which for us is 45 miles away on the Missouri River near St. Joseph, not that I’ve ever stopped, but I have passed the sign!)  Who knows what I may have done, the places I would have traveled to or who I may have married had I not followed those whisperings I heard in my heart from God.  

I have put my whole life down on the bet that God is worth my walking this monastic journey.  A whole lot of people would say that wasn’t a very good wager.  I suppose I won’t know for sure until I’m dead, but I’d rather put my trust in God than in anyone else...especially in politicians!

So if you are discerning religious life, a question I have for you is:  are you willing to hand over your whole livelihood and put it in the 'treasury'.  Are you willing to gamble and bet on God?  He is PROBABLY holding a Royal Flush in his hand so he WILL win in the end!

Hurricanes and God

"Unthinkable Devastation" reads the headline on CNN.com as I check on the latest update on Hurricane Sandy.  Other sub-headlines:

7.5 million without electricity

New York's worst storm ever

New York subways flooded

Many still trapped

We can be grateful in our modern times that at least we knew it was coming and could prepare somewhat for it.  But we are never REALLY prepared to see the kind of destruction mother nature can unleash.  And even in the midst of the best precautions, people can still get hurt or die.  

Our world is a dangerous place to live.

I often wonder when a terrible natural disaster takes place where God is in all of it.  I can tick off a few in recent memory:  the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 was a heartbreaker - over 250,000 people died;  Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the earthquake/tsunami off the coast of Japan in 2011.

I ran across an interesting book a few years ago that tries to make some sense of it all.  It's called Creation Untamed, the Bible, God and Natural Disasters by Terence E. Fretheim.

His premise is stated like this:  "God created the world good, not perfect.  For most people, perfect means something like "without fault, defect, or inadequacy, or in no need of improvement or development to be what it truly is."  The word 'good' however is different in its basic sense and needs closer attention."

He starts with the basic creation text from Genesis.  "Several clues in the text demonstrate that 'perfect' is not the appropriate way to assess the creational situation.  For one if the creation were perfect, how could anything go wrong, such as is reported in the chapters that follow?"

He also talks about the mess of creativity.  "Mess is the precondition of creativity.  Risks abound in every creative enterprise; indeed, risk is essential to the meaning of creativity.  Out of the mess, love and beauty and peace often slowly emerge.  To be a creator entails an almost infinite tolerance of messiness, of inefficiency.   The moment that tidiness and strict orderliness become the rule of the day, creativity is inhibited and the appearance of the genuinely new slows way down.  Natural disasters come into view!"

"God as it were does not paint by numbers.  God gives to creation the continuing capacity not only to be itself, to become what it was created to be, but also to develop into something more."

I think all of the above is food for thought.  Think of the beauty of Crater Lake in Oregon that was created because of volcanic activity thousands of years ago.  Or the crushing ice during the ice ages that carved out canyons of great beauty.

However, none of this is consoling if your house has just been destroyed by a hurricane.  But what I see happening here in the Midwest during this time are trucks leaving Kansas City stocked with food items, water and other essentials heading east to help those in need.  And this is happening all over.  If nothing else, disasters like this certainly remind us how much we humans need each other.  And perhaps for a little while, all our little petty problems get put into perspective.  

Our prayers go out to all in harm's way!

Doing nothing...

Clyde has lots of beautiful maples

October is one of my favorite months.  I love the chill in the air...the explosion of colors as trees prepare to shed their leaves...the harvest of crops carefully tended over the previous months.

It is a month in which I like to make my retreat.  Every year each sister in our community gets 8 days of retreat.  We can choose to make a preached retreat or a private retreat; stay at home or go elsewhere.  We relish in the solitude and silence afforded to us at this time.  I was supposed to be making retreat in a house high on Mt. Lemon in Arizona this week but because of my back injury, my plans had to change.   While that is disappointing, I am more grateful that I can walk almost normally again!   So disappointment has been transformed into gratitude and I am making my retreat here in the comfort of my own monastery in Clyde. 

Retreat for me is about having large blocks of unstructured time in which to do...nothing. 

This does not mean I become some sort of sloth hanging from a tree.  Doing ‘nothing’ is about taking time to notice what God has put in front of me.   (so maybe in that sense I should be a sloth and just hang around enjoying the NOW)   It means I can actually sit down and watch the leaves leap from the trees without worrying that I need to be somewhere else.   Watching them fall always reminds me about the importance of being able to let go - a very important part of the spiritual life and any discernment process.  This season must end.  It’s time to shed what needs to be shed and rest for a time before the new growth begins again.   I might as well enjoy that brief dance on the wind in the midst of letting go!

Retreat means putting myself out of reach...to others but not to God...no checking e-mail...no cell phone...no talking.  Try going 8 days without talking to anyone...it's wonderful when you get used to it.

      

Retreat means I can sit outside as the sun is setting and feel the day turn into night.  It happens very subtly...to notice it takes time and attention...something I probably don’t do on a daily basis.    My patience was rewarded a couple nights ago with a spectacular magenta explosion on the western horizon.  Beauty that is fleeting and will fade is the most precious.   Why do I not take time more often to notice?  I let busyness get in the way. 

Normally I do lots of hiking/walking during my retreat.  This year I just have to take slower walks...which as it turns out...is probably better.  I can often be in a hurry to see the next vista or what’s around the next curve.  This year I am spending more time at the ‘stopping places’ to ponder and praise.

I spend time outdoors because it’s always been a place where I could quiet my soul and it’s always been a place for me to study the artistry of God.  I, for one, cannot look at the beauty in nature and not think there is a Creator behind it.  To have just happened on it’s own because of evolution over time is not a sufficient answer for me. 

As a biologist, I learned about trees, chlorophyll production and why leaves turn color in autumn.  It is my FAITH, however, that causes me to be amazed and awed by the beauty of reds, yellows, rusts, oranges and browns in what is normally green...and to give thanks for it.   

You know what is the best thing about making retreat in October this year?   For 8 days I can be out of reach of negative political ads that tell half-truths.  Now that is worth turning everything off for!

The Year of Faith

The Year of Faith kicked off this past Thursday, Oct 11.  It is the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Vatican II and the 20th anniversary of the most recently published Catechsim.   So...just what is a Year of Faith?  The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops explains:

The upcoming Year of Faith declared by Pope Benedict XVI is a “summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the One Savior of the world” (Porta fidei 6). In other words, the Year of Faith is an opportunity for Catholics to experience a conversion – to turn back to Jesus and enter into a deeper relationship with him. The pope has described this conversion as opening the “door of faith” (see Acts 14:27). The “door of faith” is opened at one’s baptism, but during this year Catholics are called to open it again, walk through it and rediscover and renew their relationship with Christ and his Church.

Every baptized Catholic is called through baptism to be a disciple of Christ and proclaim the Gospel. The Year of Faith is an opportunity for each and every Catholic to renew their baptismal call by living out the everyday moments of their lives with faith, hope and love. This everyday witness is necessary for proclaiming the Gospel to family, friends, neighbors and society.

or if you want to know everything there is to possibly know, and I am SURE you do, you can go to the official home page for the Year of faith http://www.annusfidei.va/content/novaevangelizatio/en.html

One of the things we Catholics are encouraged to do during this year is read the Catechism.  As I was nosing around on Fr. Robert Barron’s website http://www.wordonfire.org, I found a great link to help study the Catechism this year http://www.flocknote.com/catechism.  When you subscribe, you get an e-mail each day with a portion of the Catechism and so in 365 days, you will have read the entire book.  Now that doesn’t sound too difficult so I signed up.  I have read portions of the Catechism but not the whole thing straight through.

As an interesting historical note, our sister archivist shared with us what our community did back on October 11, 1962.  

We rose at 2:30am this morning in order to have the community Mass at 3 am - in Rome this was 11am and the opening Mass of the Ecumenical Council was being celebrated...we had the votive Mass of the Maternity of Mary.  May she who is the Mother of the mystical Body help us her children to achieve that unity so desired by her Divine Son.  At 9 o’clock this morning all our tower bells rang for 10 minutes to signal the beginning of the Council.  We could hear the echo from the Conception Abbey bells and though our hands were busy with the 65 bushels of pears needing attention at the canning, our thoughts were in Rome, praying the Holy Spirit to hover above all the proceedings.

Our community has talked about some things we might want to do for the Year of Faith and I’m so glad one of them was NOT that we get up at 3am like we did 50 years ago!  :)  One of the first things we are going to do is watching some footage from the opening and have our elder sisters share what it was like for them to live through that time.  In various discussions before the Council actually convened, Pope John XXIII often said that it was time to open the windows of the Church to let in some fresh air.  Those of us who are post Vatican II will never be able to quite comprehend the impact it had on our church and the excitement it generated at that time.  

It has also been a walk in faith as I recover from my back injury 3 weeks ago.  I have faith that it WILL get better but it just isn't happening as quickly as I want it to!   My physical problem is peanuts compared to what a lot of people go through.  It is surely an act of God's grace when people can retain their faith in the midst of incredible suffering and tragedy.   As we begin this Year of Faith I'm going to strive to be thankful for the gift of faith I do have and ask for perseverance in the midst of this sometimes crazy world.