Dare to Believe?

Inspiration ...

Next Sunday's Gospel from Matthew speaks about 'your virtue' going 'deeper than that of the Scribes and Pharisees.'  This is prompted a very interesting reflection just a while ago, as Sisters in our Community shared a little, the words of this Gospel with which they have been praying during this week.

You will remember that in Luke's Gospel, when the sisters Martha and Mary welcomed the Lord to their home, Mary sat at his feet and listened to Him (cf Lk 10:38-42).

Well, the connection in my head and in my reflection was that Jesus is our virtue - God is our virtue.  We believe and we know that the source of all goodness is in God ... in fact is God working in us, with our free desire to be and to do good.  We are not by any means puppets or marionettes!  But the thought that came to me was simply that Goodness, and consequently virtue and wisdom, along with all that we associate with God ... is a Person: is personified in God Himself.

How amazing!  Jesus, then, is telling us that He is our virtue and more .. He who is God wants us to possess this virtue - to possess Him.  Almost as though He would like to be a marionette for us, 'our puppet.'  He wants to dwell very deeply within us, within YOU ... you are as essential as that to Him.  

Why?
LOVE.  The love of the Lord is utterly mind-boggling, that He would make Himself small enough to fit inside us. 
It is a very amazing gift to have been called like Mary, to sit at His feet and listen to Him.  And when we listen, sometimes what we hear is overwhelming.

Maybe it would be worth giving Him a little extra thought ... who knows?  He might whisper that He loves you; and from where we are here, in the monastery, it seems as though there are not enough of us giving Him the chance to do just that:  and very very very many of us need to hear it. 

Who doesn't like hearing how precious they are?

22nd Sunday - Year B

 

“In Him we live and move and have our being” – these words spoken by St Paul to the people of Athens in the Acts of the Apostles came to mind as I reflected on today’s Mass readings.

In the first reading Moses asks the question: “what great nation has its gods so close as the Lord our God is to us when we call upon him?  and what great nation is there that has laws and customs to match this whole Law that I put before you today?  Moses invites the people to listen and to put this Law into practice and he gives the reason why - so that they may have life! and may enter and take possession of the land which the Lord is giving to them.  For the Israelites we know that this land was Canaan or Palestine but for us Christians its meaning has been expanded beyond all imagining – St James in the second reading gives us a clue as he re-echoes a similar message: “it is all that is good, everything that is perfect which is given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all light.  By his own choice he made us his children by the message of the truth” …. And then he invites us to “listen and submit to the word which is planted in us and can save our souls.” Possession of the land in the Old Testament can now be translated as possession all the graces and blessings which have come to us through Christ – in a word the gift of Salvation – belonging to the family of the Trinity – sharing in the very relationship of the Son to the Father.   In the Gospel Jesus warns us against lip-service while our hearts are preoccupied with values contrary to his law – and invites us to listen saying: “listen to me all of you and understand.”

 

All three readings in one way or another invite us to listen - to look beyond the letter of the Law to what God is offering – to enter our hearts and reflect on the nearness of our God – to reflect on what we have received – the treasure which we carry in our hearts often without our being consciously aware of it.  Each and every human being has come forth from the hand of a loving God and is sustained in existence until we return to Him – “His is the breath that is in us and at his own bidding will He take it away.”  But for those of us who are baptised and receive the Eucharist - we live by the very life of Christ - as we have been hearing in the Gospel these past few weeks: “he who eats my flesh and drinks by blood lives in me and I live in him.”  And again “if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you will not have life in you.”  The life which Moses promised the Israelites in return for obeying the Law was only a shadow of the real life which God had in store for his people through Christ.  All growth in prayer and in our relationship with God implies that we become more and more aware of this treasure we carry within us and claim it as our own. 

 

With Moses we too can exclaim: “what great  nation has its gods so near as the Lord is to us” – “for in Him we live and move and have our being”.

Palm Sunday

During the past week as I reflected on St Mark’s Passion narrative,(Ch 14 &15) which we heard at Mass this morning, my attention was drawn to the woman who broke the jar of ointment and poured it out on Jesus’ head – a very good symbol of our monastic contemplative way of life. St Mark tells us that she broke the jar and poured out the precious ointment while the disciples murmured and criticised her action as being wholly foolish and wasteful: “why this waste? Ointment like this could be sold and the money given to the poor! And they were angry with her.” We hear similar comments regarding our way of life: “why waste your life away within an enclosure apparently doing nothing while there is so much need in our modern world.” However Jesus praised the woman’s action saying: "leave her alone ……. You have the poor with you always …she has done what was in her power to do ….. wherever the Good News is proclaimed what she has done will be told also in remembrance of her."

Jesus and the woman were looking at life from a different perspective, both understood each other, they had a deep contemplative vision which penetrated beyond the external appearances to the heart - in a word they were seeing from God’s point of view.

Later in chapter 14 Jesus is present at another meal when he will take bread saying: “take it, this is my Body” and he will take the cup saying: “this is my Blood which is poured out for you”.

The woman breaks the jar and does ‘what was in her power to do’ – she gives all! Jesus gives all he has – his Body and Blood – his very all and pours it out – ‘this is all I have and I give it.’ So too with us whatever we have it is enough for Jesus to take and transform. We remember the boy with the five loaves and two fish with which He fed the multitude. What Jesus seeks above all is my heart’s love - for if he has not got my heart, then no matter what else I give, He has got nothing!

As we enter into this Holy Week accompanied by Mary and the whole Church following Jesus on his way to Calvary and beyond to the Resurrection we may ask ourselves: “what do I have that I can break open and pour out?. This pouring out of our lives becomes Gospel and Good News - there are no limits to love. A monastery is a place where the Paschal Mystery is lived out and becomes a ‘Holy Preaching’ when our lives become Gospel and Good News for others – many of whom we will never meet or know in this life.

With the Prophet Isaiah in this morning’s first reading may we too be able to say:
“Each morning he wakes me to hear
to listen like a disciple.
The Lord has opened my ear”. (Is 50:4)

Second Sunday of Lent

Mass Readings

1st Reading: Gen 15:5 - 12;17 - 18
Psalm 26
2nd Reading: Phil 3:17 – 4:1
Gospel Lk 9:28 – 36

Reflection 1

In the letter to the Ephesians, St Paul prays for all of us ‘that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, the length, the height and depth of the mystery of Christ Jesus, the Beloved Son’ ……….

In today’s Gospel what can we learn, experience in faith and in love about the Person of Jesus? St Luke in his account of the Transfiguration has a telling phrase ‘as He (Jesus) prayed ….the aspect of His face was changed and His clothing became brilliant as lightning.’ This is the one moment in His life that Jesus allowed His Divinity to show in His Person. The joy and celebration of that moment are signified by the white and dazzling garments which we will see again after the Resurrection on the Risen Christ.

The mysteries of Jesus are ours as much as they are His because we are one with Him through Baptism. God the Father chose us in Christ, St. Paul tells us. Each time the Father looks at Christ He sees and loves us as He loves Christ. Faith alone can receive this message as love alone has given it. Our gratitude and response of love are unbounded.

How does Jesus grace us in this particular mystery? Three times only in the Gospels does the heavenly Father cause His voice to be heard by the world and what does He say? ‘This is my Son the chosen one. Listen to Him’. From this declaration we can discern the wonderful graces granted to us in this mystery.

Our faith, the mysterious participation in the knowledge that God has of Himself, is strengthened. Jesus is declared God’s Son. Divinity shines powerfully through the veil of His humanity. The eternal glory of Jesus, our Master is fully revealed to the apostles and to us.

If by our baptism, we are one with Christ, we become the adopted children of the Father by grace. But to be transformed, like unto the Son, we must be conformed by following Him who is our Way, our Truth, our Life per crucem ad lucem. Here below by grace we are God’s children, ’but it has not yet appeared what we shall be.’ St Paul tells us in the second reading of today’s Mass: ‘The Lord Jesus Christ will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of His own glorious body’.

Jesus, we thank you for giving us the hope of seeing your glory in our true homeland of heaven and of sharing for all eternity in the very life of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our hope is firm and anchored deep in our hearts because of You and what You have done for us, sinners.
Thank you

Reflection 2

Last week’s liturgy presented us with a picture of Jesus alone in the desert struggling with Satan and overcoming very subtle temptations.

Today’s liturgy invites us to join Jesus and the three apostles, Peter, John and James as they go up the mountain to pray. We can only guess how awesome this experience must have been for the apostles. All three synoptic Gospels recount the incident. St Luke (whose Gospel we follow this year) tells us that as Jesus prayed “the aspect of His face was changed and His clothing became brilliant as lightning” – revealing Who He really was – the Eternal Son of the Father, become man for us and our salvation.

Christian prayer has its source in the fact that we are ‘in Christ’ through Baptism and share in Jesus’ relationship with His Father – able to cry ‘Abba, Father’! When we pray we believe that we too are changed as Jesus was on the mountain - although now this happens in the darkness of faith, yet it is a reality.

According to Luke Moses and Elijah speak to Jesus about “His passing (His Exodus i.e. Passion) which He is to accomplish in Jerusalem” – after the Resurrection, in Chapter 24 of his Gospel, Luke will have Jesus tell the disciples on the road to Emmaus that the Law (symbolised by Moses) and the Prophets (symbolised by Elijah) had foretold that He should suffer and so enter into His glory. (Lk 24: 25ff).

Peter misses the point of what is happening – he is so caught up with the sight of Jesus’ glory that he pays no attention to the conversation of Moses and Elijah. Then the cloud (symbol of God’s Presence) comes and covers them in shadow and from the cloud they hear the Father’s voice: “This is my Son, the chosen One. Listen to Him!” We can learn a lot from this scene – are we too inclined to seek after ‘good experiences’ in prayer? and feel that we are wasting our time when we experience the darkness – which is part and parcel of most of our prayer? It was in the cloud that the voice of the Father was heard. So let us be encouraged to persevere in the darkness of faith and listen for the voice of the Father and the voice of Jesus who speaks to our hearts if we allow all the other noises to be silenced.

I asked myself what could this ‘voice’ be saying to me today? What could it be saying to all of us Christians in today’s world - surrounded as we are by so much suffering (caused by men and women as well as natural disasters), violence, war, hatred, betrayal, sexual immorality, hurt, resentment, revenge, broken hearts and broken bodies ……the list is endless and there seems to be no solution. As I reflected on all this pain and suffering, I remembered Jesus’ words on the Cross “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”.

How different our world would be if all of us could try to listen to these words of Jesus and act upon them – it would seem that many of us have forgotten that forgiveness and mercy are at the heart of the Christian Gospel. After all Jesus has told us that he came “to seek out and save those who were lost” (Lk 19:10).