Novena to St Dominic - Day 5: St Dominic and Body Language

My reflection is on the significance and importance of bodily posture in St Dominic’s prayer. As we know from the ‘Nine Ways of Prayer,’ St Dominic used his whole body when he prayed: bowing, prostration, reaching up to heaven.

It struck me as odd that in our time, when there is so great an awareness of the importance of body language in interpersonal communication and of how much of what is communicated is through bodily posture etc., that there should be such a widespread dismissal of any significance of our bodily posture when we pray. It is said that bodily posture doesn’t matter because God looks at the heart.

I think that this ignoring of bodily posture gives rise to a number of problems, largely because it fails to consider the impact that my body language has on my own perception of, and response to, the person that I am talking or listening to. To give an example, if at a lecture I am slouched and looking off out the window my body is telling my mind not to pay attention. If, on the other hand, I sit up straight, keep eye contact and watch expectantly, my body is telling my mind to pay attention.

Our bodily prayer postures act in a similar way: blessing ourselves as we enter a Church reminds us that we are entering a holy place and is also a sort of trigger (as is kneeling) that we are about to pray (like the way insomniacs are advised to develop a ‘pre-bed’ physical routine that will trigger the mind to prepare to sleep). Similarly, genuflecting before the tabernacle is the bodily expression that Jesus (God) is truly present here. Kneeling and prostration likewise remind us of God’s greatness and our littleness.

This means that ignoring or removing bodily posture from our prayer-life actually makes it harder for us to pray and also makes it harder for us to relate to God as a real person, since by removing body language from our communication with him we are no longer communicating as we would with a real person but only with a thought in our head.

May we continue to follow St Dominic’s example and pray with our whole selves (body & mind).

Novena to St Dominic - Day 3: Dominic a man of prayer

As we continue the novena to our Father St Dominic, I’d like to read an extract from the book “15 Days of Prayer with Saint Dominic” by Alain Quilici O.P.

All of those who knew Dominic, either from near or far, as close friends of just acquaintances, attested to the intensity of his prayers. Dominic prayed like he breathed. He was not one of those who had time to write books, not even books on prayer, he just prayed. He spent the majority of his time in prayer. He entered into a state of prayer as naturally and rapidly as others fell asleep. To spontaneously fall asleep is a childhood grace. Dominic was a child according to the gospel, a child who dove into prayer whenever he had a moment, most especially during the night. For him, the night was made for prayer.

Even when he was just a young religious, he already appeared to be a man specially gifted for prayer:

Night and day, like the olive tree that produces fruit or the cypress that reaches to the heavens, he used the floor of the church, devoting his time to contemplation, never appearing to leave the monastery. God had given him the special grace of prayer for sinners, the poor, the afflicted: he carried their maladies in the intimate sanctuary of his compassion; and the tears that came boiling from his eyes manifested the ardour of the feelings that burned within him. It was his habit to spend his nights in prayer. With the door closed, he prayed to his Father. During and at the end of his prayers, he uttered moans which came from his heart. He couldn’t hold back, and these cries, coming spontaneously, could clearly be heard up above in heaven (Libellus, 12).

Dominic, like a beacon of light that burns in the night, realized the Lord’s precept: “Be alert at all times, praying …” (Lk 21:36).

Novena to St Dominic - Day 2: The paradox of the Cross

Novena to St Dominic

31^st July 2018, Day 2

“For everything there is a season,

and a time for every matter under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; …

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; …

A time to mourn, and a time to dance; …

A time to love, and a time to hate …”  (Ecclesiastes, cf 3:1-9)                        

There is never, however,

a time to despair, and no matter how challenging or

God-less the time in which we find ourselves seems to be,

we are called at all times to be creatures of hope.

St Dominic’s time was not more desperate than ours, yet more than anything it could be said of him that he was a man of hope because of his amazing confidence in God and of his reverence for the length to which Christ went, in order to save us.

The paradox of the Cross:

A place of failure and of triumph;

A place of horror and also of indescribable love.

Pope St John Paul II frequently spoke and wrote of JESUS as the answer to all the questions man seeks an answer to, in order the better to know and understand himself and how to be human.

We could say that the shape of all the answers we seek, is the shape of the Cross.  … … … Difficult to gaze upon, and difficult to understand, and extremely difficult to reconcile with love – especially with divine love.  It is, nevertheless, the shape of all the answers we seek, and St Dominic knew and understood this so well, from the many hours he spent contemplating it. For the Cross is, among other things, also the shape of wisdom, which, when we put it on, becomes the shape of the freedom which is so essential to enabling us to be truly human.

To know that we are children of God is wisdom.  To have the courage to live according to this knowledge is holiness and a grace that we have only to ask for, to receive it. 

St Dominic embraced this truth all his life and lived it in union with the Lord whom he served so devotedly in his preaching and in his unceasing prayer.

The book of Ecclesiasticus encourages us with the following ‘thought’:

            “… wisdom is like her name, and is not manifest to many.

            … Put your feet into her fetters, and your neck into her collar.

            Put your shoulder under her and carry her, and do not fret under her bonds.

            Come to her with all your soul, and keep her ways with all your might.

            Search out and seek, and she will become known to you; and when you get hold of her, do

                                                                                                                                    not let her go.

            For at last, you will find the rest she gives, and she will be changes into joy for you.

            Then her fetters will become for you a strong protection, and her collar a glorious robe.

            Her yoke is a golden ornament, and he bonds are a cord of blue.

            You will wear her like a glorious robe, and put her on like a crown of gladness”

Cf Sir 6:22-31 (RSVCE).

This is the Cross Dominic wore: a Cross of wisdom and of truth; of triumph and of glory; a Cross of Divine power and love: the Cross of Christ.

Our New Card Catalogue is now available

Our Card Catalogue for 2018/19 is now available. It features a number of new cards; including, to mark the celebration of the World Meeting of Families in Dublin this August, a 'Holy Family Icon Card' by one of our Sisters.

Please click here to download the full catalogue.

'Who touched me?' - A reflection on today's Gospel

“Who touched me?” (Mk  5:31)

Seeing this wonderful cross in the sky above our monastery reminded me of these thoughts in Pope Benedict’s ‘Spe Salvi’ (par. 27-28):

Whoever is touched by love begins to perceive what “life” really is. He begins to perceive the meaning of the word of hope that we encountered in the Baptismal Rite: from faith I await “eternal life”—the true life which, whole and unthreatened, in all its fullness, is simply life. Jesus, who said that he had come so that we might have life and have it in its fullness, in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10), has also explained to us what “life” means: “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3). Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we “live”.

Yet now the question arises: are we not in this way falling back once again into an individualistic understanding of salvation, into hope for myself alone, which is not true hope since it forgets and overlooks others? Indeed we are not! Our relationship with God is established through communion with Jesus—we cannot achieve it alone or from our own resources alone. The relationship with Jesus, however, is a relationship with the one who gave himself as a ransom for all (cf. 1 Tim 2:6). Being in communion with Jesus Christ draws us into his “being for all”; it makes it our own way of being. He commits us to live for others, but only through communion with him does it become possible truly to be there for others, for the whole.  

The Visitation of Our Lady to St Elizabeth - 31st May

Today is the Feastday of two of the most courageous women who have ever lived.

Today is the feast of the inviolable dignity of motherhood.

Today is a feast of the celebration of the beauty and the gift of womanhood – and all that it can be.

Today, in the Church, we rejoice and share in the joy of the whole host of heaven, at the visitation of Our Lady to St Elizabeth.

Picture it:

A young girl and an old woman: both of whom are offered and accept the gift of motherhood in the most extraordinary and incredible circumstances.  Who could believe that it should be God’s will to allow these two – Mary and Elizabeth – to be subjected to the scorn and derision of neighbours and community who may well have been scandalized at what had happened to them.  And all for the sake of His glory?

Behold, Mary.

Until this point in her life, she had been a precious and beloved child of her parents.  They trusted her implicitly; delighted in her goodness; were impressed by the depth of her faith and the way that her friendship with God guided all her actions – so much so that even defined her.  It was a joy and a privilege for Saints Joachim and Anne to be her parents.  She was truly a gift to them from God.

And now this.

A child – little more than a child – with a plan and a dream for her life, in an instant taken from her.  What will people say?  How they will talk!  And when they hear how it happened … … …

Behold, Elizabeth.

An old woman.  Her dream all her married life; her hope and that of Zechariah was that their love and fidelity to each other and to God, would bear fruit in parenthood.  To be given the chance of bringing a child into the world and to share with that child the beauty of faith.  And it never happened.  Through years of disappointed hope, they had at last accepted their fate and were now too old even to wish or to believe.

And now this.

Old enough to be grandparents!  And to have to begin: to be entrusted with the care of a life so new and so dependent.  What will people say?  How they will talk!  And when they hear how it happened … … …

In the chaos and complexity of emotions they must have experienced, they nevertheless knew and understood the joy of the truth.  God had extended to these two women, and to Joseph and Zechariah – an invitation to consent to His will and to be sharers in His divine joy, by accepting the invitation and gift.  They trusted in His mercy: trusted that He was the source of the grace they would need – and the courage and love they would need.

And the world was made new.

At the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, two women found in one another the word of hope and comfort and of strength they needed to hear.  They found understanding, support and consolation and renewed faith in the Lord’s words, ‘Do not be afraid.’  They were not alone. 

The LORD is my strength and my song.

As we draw near to the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, this feast of the Visitation seems to have an even more powerful message for us, who have been baptised and have received the sacrament of the Eucharist. 

When we were presented to the Lord to be baptised, it was almost as though we were being offered to the Lord as bodies that would be His very own.  This is my body, offered for you.  We were offered to the Lord to receive the gift of faith – and in so doing we, as it were, gave ourselves to Him in order that He might be able to claim us for Himself, and say of us ‘This is my Body.’ 

The wonder of our faith is that in being claimed by God, we did not lose our identity: we did not cease to be ourselves.  Our baptism incorporates us into the body of Christ, as ourselves, so that it is as you and as me that we are made to be a place for Christ to call ‘home.’

Do we dare to believe?  Do we have the courage and insight to be able to say with Mary, that ‘He who is mighty has done great things for me?’  Dare we even imagine the truth that we have within our grasp, the ability to say ‘yes’ to the invitation to believe that our very presence in the world has within it the seeds of enhancing its beauty?

Through the Window of a Dominican Monastery

Last month there was a little reflection on the beginning of our Constitutions.  A further word on it this month seems like a good idea and given the way the world is turning so rapidly from faith and from God – it seems even necessary to pose a question or two about the same article.

We are called to ‘live in harmony …’

The question is:           Do we in fact know how to live? 

Do you know how to live?

Do you have a desire to actually live rather than merely exist?

Entering a monastery is a real ‘shock to the system’ – especially in today’s world (which sounds a bit like a cliché).  Nevertheless, so it is.  No iPhones, or smart-phones or ready access to social media … no radio or television except occasionally.

What are the benefits of that?  It’s a very relevant question for people who spend so many hours a day tuned into what people are saying ‘socially’ or ‘virtually.’

What do you discover when you turn off the noise; and stop filling your head with technological, non-stop communication?  What might happen?

…

Maybe … and in fact it is something that we here would all agree on.  TRUTH.  If there’s one thing you can be sure of, when you give yourself to the Lord in quiet and seeming emptiness (remember it actually isn’t emptiness) the truth bubbles up and speaks to you.

We are nuns of the Order of Truth – Veritas is our motto – so we bear witness in our silence and by our lives that TRUTH MATTERS.  More than that, it can be known and lived.  You can live the truth.  And the invitation is that you neither have to, nor are you expected to live that truth alone. 

What did the Lord promise His disciples before His ascension?  He said to them:

“Know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.”

KNOW – so it’s not simply a question of feeling.  He invites us to use our heads and our intelligence.  Know the truth.

I am with you.  There again are the famous words which for the Jews were too holy to be spoken, because they expressed God’s very name:  I AM.

And ‘with you’ remember, is what the Angel Gabriel told Mary was the meaning of Jesus’ name:  Emmanuel – a name which means, ‘God is with us.’

And He said, ‘always.’  That simple sentence is absolutely loaded with meaning.  And when the chaos around us seems to be too much to bear, He reminds us that He is ‘always’ with us. 

Do you have the courage to believe Him???