An eventful Month

We have had quite an eventful month.

 

First we had a visit from Cardinal Brady:

Then on the 24^th of May Fr Viktor Hoffstetter OP came to preach our annual 8-day Retreat. Immediately after that Sr Barbara Beaumond OP came to give us a week of lectures on the history of the first Dominican Nuns. Below are some photos from our Community celebration with Fr Viktor and Sr Barbara on Corpus Christi Sunday:

with Fr Viktor (left)

with Sr Barbara (right)

 

 

Credo Series - 5 to 7

Our brothers' series on the Creed, continued:

This fifth talk looks at the phrase: "and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man."


This sixth talk deals with Christ's crucifixion: "for our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried."


 This seventh talk looks at the Resurrection: "and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures."

Credo Video Series - 1 to 4

Our Dominican brothers have prepared a very good series of talks on the Creed. They are well worth watching.

This first talk gives a brief history of the Creed.



This second talks looks at the first article of the creed: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty".



This third talk looks at God as "maker of heaven and earth".


This fourth talk looks at the article on Christ: "I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father."

Corpus Christi - 2013



Corpus Christi, (Year C) 

‘Jesus made the crowds welcome …

… we are in a lonely place here.’ (Lk (:11-17)

 

It seems strange to put those words together: to speak of welcome and loneliness almost in the same breath.  JESUS in the midst of it all. 

And so, what can it mean?

Loneliness is a peculiar ‘friend’ – always somewhere on the horizon and sometimes much more nearly present to us.  When  we are small we can be too busy learning and growing to be conscious of it.  But then life begins to settle down … into ‘maturity’ and we discover that we are a mystery to ourselves; that we misunderstand and are in turn misunderstood, and thus we are exposed to this loneliness – never far away and often too too close to bear.

JESUS.  Yesterday was the feast of the Body and Blood of JESUS.  The Feast of thanksgiving to our bounteous Father and His co-eternal Son, for leaving us this gift.  Strange that it should call to mind welcome and loneliness.  JESUS gives Himself to us in a lonely place.  He welcomes us here to loneliness.  Seems strange … what is it that He wants us to see?

In St Matthew’s Gospel, while on the Cross, we read that JESUS ‘yielded up his spirit:’ in the loneliness of the Cross, having surrendered everything to the Father in love, He even had to give up, surrender His very breath, the Holy Spirit – so that it might be ours.

We are never alone.  Loneliness after all is a divine gift that we are invited to welcome.  What happens when we cannot?  It seems as though the consequences are potentially destructive.  By denying or trying to run away from this reality, I cut myself off from others; I become isolated; I become the centre of my own existence and there ceases to be any space in me to welcome others; my thoughts torment me and deceive me into believing that nobody knows me, nobody cares, nobody understands.  What happens?  I persuade myself that nobody experiences this emptiness that is at the core of my being .. this is a lonely place .. and now … I have become alone in it. I cannot face the loneliness, cannot accept it, but .. neither can I fill it – no matter how hard I try.

But JESUS wants us to see that here in this ‘lonely place’ He has preceded us; it is a place where He is … waiting to feed us with His very flesh and blood … welcoming us to be here.  We are not alone.  There is One who knows us intimately; knows how fearful a place this is, because we cannot see Him. … But.  … is it a fearful place?  Maybe after all, … it is a place of purity – a place of truth.  If JESUS is already there before us, waiting there to welcome us … and JESUS is Love … then this ‘lonely place’ is a place of love … and unconditional acceptance.

The feast of the Body and Blood of JESUS:  JESUS is our very life: it cost Him His own life and breath that you might truly and freely live; truly and freely love.  Do not be afraid.  Every time you come to Him to receive the gift of His life and His love in the Eucharist – then: every time .. He reaches and touches that loneliness within you, gently speaking to your heart:

‘I know you;

I love you;

Let me walk with you;

I am only longing to show you the way;

My precious, most beloved child …

Do not be afraid.’

 

St Thomas wrote of this Blessed Sacrament that ‘it was the greatest of the miracles he worked; and he left it as a unique consolation to those who were desolate at his departure.’  Remember in your moments of loneliness and desolation to come to Him here, and feast on His life, who is our strength and our song.

 

 

Pentecost Sunday – 2013

In the Gospel for Pentecost Sunday, we hear the words “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name” – I would like to share an extract from a recent homily of Pope Francis on praying in the name of Jesus – and as it is only through the Holy Spirit that we can do that, it is surely applicable to this great Feast.  The quotation is taken from last week’s L’Osservatore Romano:

‘Jesus’ wounds are still open on this earth.  If we are to recognise them we must come out of ourselves and reach out to our needy brothers and sisters, to the sick, the ignorant, the poor and the exploited.  Pope Francis pointed this “exodus” out in his homily at Mass on Saturday morning, 11^th May, in the Chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

“It means coming out of ourselves”, made possible by prayer, “to the Father in the name of Jesus”.

The prayer that “bores us” is always within us, like a thought that comes and goes, but true prayer is…coming out of ourselves made “with the intercession of Jesus, who shows his wounds to the Father”.

But how can we recognise Jesus’ wounds?  How can we trust in them if we cannot identify them?  The Pope was explicit: “Unless we can come out of ourselves towards those wounds, we shall never learn the freedom that brings us to the other way out of ourselves, through the wounds of Jesus”.

Hence the Holy Father’s image of the two “ways out of ourselves”.  The first is “towards the wounds of Jesus, the other is towards the wounds of our brothers and sisters.  And this is the path that Jesus wants us to take in prayer”.  “If you ask anything of the Father he will give it to you in my name”(Jn 23-28).  Jesus is disarmingly clear.  In these words there is something new, the Pope said: “in my name”.

What does “in my name” mean?  It is a new element that Jesus reveals at the Ascension.  Jesus, in rising to the Father, left the door open.  Not because “he forgot to close it”, but because “he himself is the door”.  He is our intercessor, so he says: “in my name”.  “His wounds are his prayer of intercession to the Father”, asking us to trust in his victory over death.

 And now I will conclude with a recent Tweet from the Holy Father.

TRUST IN MERCY  “The Holy Spirit brings to our hearts a most precious gift: profound trust in God’s love and mercy”.  This was written by Pope Francis in a tweet posted Thursday, 9^th May, on the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord.

 

Icon Writing

 

 

 

 

Recently Mikai Cucu conducted a week long course on icon writing for our sisters who are interested in this special art. Six sisters in all participated - some who are already quite proficient in the art and others just beginners. All in all it was a wonderful week for all. One sister expressed her appreciation as an opportunity to "swim in deep waters.  We had a wonderful week, resting on Mount Tabor, contemplating the rising of the Light, emerging from the darkness (of our souls).  The experience was intense, wholesome - affecting our souls, our hearts, and our bodies - and most rewarding.  A special word of thanks to Mihai who gives himself totally to this ministry"

 

Here we share with our readers some glimpses of the work - and all agreed that it was an intense week of work bearing much fruit in the beautiful icons shown in the picture above.

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Novena to St Catherine - Day 9

 

The theme of ‘newness’ is woven into the Mass Readings for this 5^th Sunday of Easter – ‘a new heaven and new earth; the new Jerusalem, a new creation’ and in the Gospel Jesus speaks of a ‘new commandment’.  At the Episcopal Ordination of our new coadjutor Archbishop on Sunday last, both he and Cardinal Brady commented on Archbishop Eamon’s motto: ‘Sing a new song to the Lord.’  To quote Archbishop Eamon “the new song is a song of love, that God unconditionally loves each one of us, despite our sinfulness and imperfections, and that the Lamb of God, who suffered and died to take away the sins of the world, has mercy on us.” But we must ensure that “it is the Lord’s song that we are singing, and not simply our own composition” and “we must sing in harmony with one another”  and our “new song must never dilute the strength of Christ’s message but must capture faithfully the timeless truth of the Gospel. And that can only happen if we live in communion with Christ and with one another”

 In The Dialogue, Chapter 64 Catherine outlines what the Heavenly Father taught her about love of God and love of neighbour and provides us with a recipe for putting into practice this new commandment of love.  I quote:

“If you have received my love sincerely without self-interest, you will drink your neighbour’s love sincerely. It is just like a vessel that you fill at the fountain, if you take it out of the fountain to drink, the vessel is soon empty. But if you hold your vessel in the fountain while you drink, it will not get empty; indeed it will always be full. So the love of your neighbour, whether spiritual or temporal, is meant to be drunk in Me, without any self-interest.

I ask you to love Me with the same love with which I love you. But for Me you cannot do this, for I loved you without being loved. Whatever love you have for Me you owe Me, so you love Me not gratuitously but out of duty, while I love you not out of duty but gratuitously. So you cannot give me the kind of love I ask of you. This is why I have put you among your neighbours: so that you can do for them what you cannot do for Me – that is, love them without any concern for thanks and without looking for any profit for yourself. And whatever you do for them I will consider done for Me.

So your love should be sincere, you should love your neighbours with the same love with which you love Me. Do you know how you can tell when you spiritual love is not perfect? If you are distressed when it seems that those you love are not returning your love or not loving you as much as you think you love them. Or if you are distressed when it seems to you that you are being deprived of their company or comfort, or that they love someone else more than you.

From these and from many other things you should be able to tell if your love for Me and for your neighbours is still imperfect and that you have been drinking from your vessel outside of the Fountain, even though your love was drawn from Me. But it is because your love for Me is imperfect that you show it so imperfectly to those you love with a spiritual love.

All this comes from a failure to dig out every bit of the root of spiritual selfishness. That is why I often permit you to form such a love, so that you may come through it to know yourself and your imperfection in the way I have described.”