Third Sunday of Advent

This 3rd Sunday of Advent is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday - The Latin word 'Gaudete' means rejoice! On the Advent wreath the pink candle is lit - there is an air of expectancy that the Lord's coming is near.

The entrance antiphon for the Mass of this Sunday invites us:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near.

1st Reading - Zephaniah 3:14-18
Responsorial Psalm: Isaias 12:2-6
2nd Reading Philippians 4:4-7
Gospel: Luke10-18

Each week we, as a community share our reflections on the Sunday Mass Readings - having spent the whole week prayerfully reflecting on them during lectio divina - here we share two reflections from this evening:

Reflection 1

Last week John the Baptist had "proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" - This week we meet John again in the Gospel. Today there is a feeling of expectancy in the air as the people approach John and ask what they must do? nobody is excluded - all are invited to repent and to show their repentance by their lives i.e. share with the needy, act justly, no imtimidation, be content with our lot etc.

John points beyond himself to Jesus who is coming with His "winnowing-fan in his hand to clear his treshing-floor". When reflecting on these lines of the Gospel I was led to see my own heart as the 'threshing-floor' and the 'winnowing-fan' as the loving breath of the Holy Spirit. God stands at the door of my heart during these last days of Advent and waits for my reponse as He waited for Mary of Nazareth's reponse for His Word to take flesh in her womb. Mary's reponse was a whole-hearted 'Yes' - "Let it be done to me according to your word" and "the Word became flesh and He lived amng us"

In my reading during the past week I came across the following lovely quote from Caryll Houselander's The Reed of God

For what is conversion but the fiat of Our Lady echoed again and the conecption of Christ in yet another heart?

May this Advent be a time of true conversion for all of us.




Reflection 2

The words that were given to me from the first day of my lectio were ‘Be content’. I could not make much of these words at all, especially in the present climate of the Child Sexual Abuse Scandal in the Church. What was there to be content about? In the other Readings what was there to rejoice about?

There is most certainly nothing in our human behaviour to rejoice about but everything in ‘God’s Behaviour’ to rejoice over and so, after the whole week of struggling with the meaning of these words for me, I was led to focus on the Lord – on His Presence in the Readings, His nearness to us in our repentance and misery. This is a time of repentance not only because of the sins of others but because of our own sins too – for none of us can judge another, and all of us are implicated in these sins in one way or another - for are we not all part of the One Body Of Christ? Yet it says: ‘The Lord has repealed your sentence.’ God’s forgiveness is there for all of us, no matter what we have done – this is the only reason for rejoicing.

The passage at the end of the first Reading gives us a beautiful description of God’s Joy – a bit incredible that He could rejoice over us frail creatures. It is worth quoting:

The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior.
He will exult with joy over you,
He will renew you by his love;
He will dance with shouts of joy for you as on a day of festival. ( Zeph 3;16-18)

Personally I need the grace of the Holy Spirit to believe this and accept this truth of God’s personal love for me! May God help my lack of faith.

I am much more comfortable praying the lines in the Psalm :

Truly God is my salvation
and
He became my saviour

And I am also more comfortable praying the beautiful opening prayers – both of them but especially the second one, as it says:

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
ever faithful to your promises
and ever close to your Church: ( even amid the scandals)
the earth rejoices in hope of the Saviour’s coming and looks forward
with longing to his return at the end of time.
Prepare our hearts and remove the sadness
that hinders us from feeling the joy and hope
which His presence will bestow,
for he is Lord for ever and ever. Amen

So I now see in these words: ‘Be content’ to mean for me – that I am to be content to continue to pray as is my vocation and as the 2nd Reading encourages us to do. I realise just that if one is really content to pray then one is not anxious or worried, as St. Paul says;

There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus. ( Phil 4: 5-7)

The needs of the Church and of the world are great and are our responsibility as nuns of the Order of Preachers. May we all, accept this word from God and ‘be content to continue to pray’. Perhaps that is what John the Baptist would say to us were we to ask him:
What must we do?’ !

Second Week of Advent

The readings for this Sunday are full of hope and enouragement - as we all know, we, Irish people are greatly in need of such hope in our present crises.
One can almost feel that these readings were selected specially for us!!!

The entrance antiphon which we sing in our community for the Mass of this Second Sunday of Advent expresses very well these sentiments of hope which God's loving providence provides:

People of Zion, the Lord will come to save all nations, and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice. The people of God will sing songs of joy, like songs in the night. They will have gladness of heart. People of Sion the Lord will come to save all nations and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice. On every high mountain streams will flow and there will be light - as you are healed by the Lord. Yes on every high mountain, streams will flow and there will be joy, for your are loved by the Lord

In the Gospel this Majestic voice - the Word of God - came to John the Baptist in the wilderness. So too with us God's word comes to us in the wilderness - in the ordinariness, of our own lives and in bewildering circumstances - if only we have an open ear and an open heart to listen and hear His message. John's message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is one of hope. No matter how far we may have strayed from God, He is always there at our side - for we cannot escape His all seeing eye - waiting for us to return. Like the father in the parable of the prodigal son (Lk 15) our heavenly Father is always ready to embrace us once we repent of our sin and turn back to Him.

Recently I came across the following poem by Péguy - perhaps it may speak to you, our readers, as it did to me?

You may wonder, you may ask yourself: but how is it
That this fountain of Hope flows eternally,
Eternally young, eternally pure.
Eternally fresh, eternally flowing.
Eternally living.....
My good people, says God, it is not tricky....
If she wanted to make pure springs out of pure water
If she wanted to make springs of pure water,
Then she would never find enough of it in the whole of my creation.
Because there is not a whole lot of it.
But it is precisely with the impure water that she makes her springs of pure water.
And that is the reason she never runs out.
but that is also why she is Hope...
...and that is the most beautiful secret in the garden of the world!

And so we pray with St Paul in the second reading:

May our love for each other increase more and more and never stop improving our knowledge and deepening our perception so that we can always recognise what is best and so become pure and blameless and prepare us for the Day of Christ when we will reach the perfect goodness which Jesus Christ produces in us for the glory and praise of God.

ADVENT

Advent is one of the most beautiful seasons of the Church's year. On this first Sunday of Advent we are united with the whole Church throughout the world in praying and longing for the coming of the Lord. We are familiar with the cry of the Prophet Isaias:

O that you would tear the heavens open and come down - you are our Father - we the clay, you the potter; we are all the work of Your Hand

Indeed for over a week now we have seen the heavens open and torrents of rain descend on many parts of our country. Those of us who go to daily Mass have been listening to the readings describing the horrors of the end times. In addition we have been all shocked, saddened and bewildered by the revelations of scandals in our Irish Church. No doubt we carry all this pain, anxiety and bewilderment in our hearts as we begin this season of Advent - which is a season of Hope as the Entrance Antiphon of the Mass for the first Sunday expresses so beautifully:

To you, my God, I lift my soul, I trust in you; let me never come to shame. Do not let my enemies laugh at me. No one who waits for you is ever put to shame.

In the Gospel Jesus warns us about "signs in the sun and moon and stars.... nations in agony, bewildered...... men dying of fear....for the powers of heaven will be shaken" but He does not leave us without hope for He adds that it is then that the Son of Man will come. He advises us: "When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand."

Advent celebrates three comings of the Lord
1) His first coming at Bethlehem
2) His final coming at the Parousia - the end of time
3) His coming in grace to each individual

Like a silver thread running through these thee great themes of Advent and uniting them is a cry of the heart from the depths of human poverty to the infinite God who alone can bring us wholeness and completeness.

The history of the Jewish people was one of longing for the coming of the Messiah who would deliver them from all their enemies.
The cry of the Church throughout the ages is "Come Lord Jesus, Maranatha" as she struggles amidst human sin and misery and persecution.
Again the deepest cry of the human heart is one of longing for God as St Augustine says: "You have made us for Youself O God and our hearts are restless until they rest in You."
Throughout the pages of history God seems to delight to be in the midst of His people - a Mighty Saviour - He rejoices over them with gladness and renews them in His love. The God of power and love can produce anything from nothing so long as people are sincere enough to acknowledge their need of Him and lean upon Him in truth.

Mary is our model of one who depended totally on the power of the Lord and surrendered herself unconditionally to Him. Her fiat: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to Your Word" was one of complete openness and trust in God. At every moment she met Him with whole-hearted surrender. This is what He asks of all of us on this first Sunday of Advent when we hear Jesus addressing us in the Gospel:

Watch yourselves or your hearts will be coarsened ....Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man."

WORD OF LOVE?

The Readings for this Sunday’s Eucharist could be said to be difficult – difficult to understand and difficult to accept – at least the Reading from the Book of Daniel, and the Gospel from St Mark.

Here is just a little ‘piece of my mind’ that I would like to share, on the Gospel, as I tried to see a little more than what at first meets the eye.

I reminded myself that as I hear: ‘This is the Gospel of the Lord’ I must remember that this is a word of love - so if I can’t find the ‘love’, then I must take a closer look. As we were reminded here during the week, we must not only accept the words of Scripture which appeal to us – all Scripture, every syllable, is a communication of the love of God to each of us. So I looked again, and the words which caught my attention were there in the parable of the fig tree:

‘.. know that he is near; at the very gates’..

With the help of our community sharing on the readings for today, what came to me was the conviction and the promise of Jesus, that he is with us – always – to the end of time. The Gospel opens, giving an idea of the end of the world almost, a great depression, a great sense of hopelessness and of nothing to live for – even the stars and the sun and the moon will fail. But why are we told this, if not to be invited to keep our eyes open – ‘see these things happening’ and ‘know that he is near’. Don’t be afraid!

As one of our sisters reflected last night – at the foot of the cross, all these things did happen – Jesus, God himself gave up his life for us – ‘there was darkness over the whole land’ (Mk 15:33); ‘the earth quaked, the rocks were split..(Mt 27:51). All of his followers, his disciples and friends, all but his mother, a few women and the beloved disciple had deserted him in fear – what could be more hopeless?

Where is the word of love in all this? If I look again, the word ‘see’ catches my attention, and I remember that Jesus is constantly inviting me to follow him, to keep my heart set on him, to trust him and to love him. In all this he is asking me to seek HIM, and I remember the first words I noticed – ‘know that he is near; at the very gates’.

Jesus asked his own mother to wait with him at the foot of the cross – to watch her only son die – would you wish such pain on anyone? And she loved him enough to be there, to want nothing other than to be there where he needed her to be. There was Love – His first, because before she existed, He loved her; but hers too, Mary’s pure love – at the worst time you can imagine, the two greatest loves we will encounter, were there in the darkest darkness.

We people who hope in God, and who believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord and Redeemer, we need to keep our eyes open to Him always, and if we do – truly and with the humility to acknowledge that it is not always easy – if we call on Him when we are left with nothing, we will discover that he IS near – ‘at the very gates’.

Think about the gates too – things you pass through to get out of one place and through to another. Jesus – He is there, in the place you are leaving behind and already there where you are going – always waiting for you.

Always waiting for YOU.

Vocation Weekends

We are very sorry for neglecting this blog in recent weeks. We had been busy preparing our Dominican Family Calendar for 2010 - which will be available in our Dominican priories throughout Ireland.



In addition the vocation promoters of the Dominican Family Ireland (friars, sisters, nuns and lay) have been meeting here, in our monastery, to plan a joint vocations event next Spring. The date chosen is the 20th March - the venue (in Dublin) will be confirmed later.

Mid October we hosted a vocations weekend here in our monastery - which proved to be very helpful to those who attended. These weekends at regular intervals throughout the year are informative and informal in nature - some talks on our monastic contemplative life with time for questions, opportunity to participate in the celebration of the Liturgy and Eucharistic Adoration, time for personal prayer, reading and reflection. Meeting the young sisters and sharing vocation stories are always a welcome part of the weekend.

Our next weekend is scheduled for November 20th - 22nd.

“Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him”

Last Sunday’s Gospel (the story of the rich young man, Mk ch 10) is a very rich one for vocation discernment. Every vocation grows from an awareness that, just as He did with the young man in the Gospel, Jesus is looking at me with love and saying, “come, follow me”. It is also important to see that a religious vocation is given to those who “lack” something – a religious vocation is not given to one who is holy but to one whom God wishes to make holy. Jesus looks at each one, just as we are, and loves us and calls us to follow him. It is out of that deep love that he says, “there is one thing you lack” – he loves us so much that he wants us to be complete and whole, loving God and our neighbour with our whole being. And so he calls us and says, “there is one thing you lack … come follow me”. Jesus is not saying we must be perfect to be called to religious life but He is calling us to religious life because He knows that this is the best way for us.

A vocation is not so much what we do for God as what God is doing for us. The particular vocation to which Jesus calls each one of us is intended to help us to overcome what we are ‘lacking’. Many people speak of the ‘feeling that something was missing’ in their everyday life before they discerned their vocation. For me personally I experienced this sense that something was ‘lacking’ during my discernment regarding where the Lord was leading me and which Order I should to enter. As I searched I kept feeling that there was something missing until I discovered this community of Dominican Nuns.

Jesus continues to guide us and to say, “there is one thing you lack”. We must be willing to listen to Jesus speaking in the depths of our hearts, helping us to see what we lack. And as we grow and become more open to God’s loving action in our lives we will see more clearly what Jesus is telling us and correct it with His help, until at last, in heaven, we will lack nothing.

Moniaibus - International Bulletin of Dominican Nuns

Monialibus is an international bulletin which is published twice a year- in January and July - by the international commission of Dominican Nuns. Its primary aim is to create links between the various monasteries of Dominican nuns worldwide and help us to become more aware of the joys, the difficulties and challenges facing our sisters in other regions of the world.

For those who wish to know more about how Dominican Nuns live in the various parts of the world you can read Monialibus here