Vocation Weekends 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single young women attracted to our Dominican Contemplative way of life are very welcome to attend any of the following vocation weekends in 2103

 

 

15 - 17 February

8 - 10 March

26 - 28 April

17 - 19 May

13 - 15 September

25 - 27 October

 

or at other times by arrangement

 

Please contact Sr Mairead OP

Monastery of St Catherine of Siena

The Twenties, Drogheda, Co Louth

email: siena3@eircom.net



 

 





Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

 

For the past 6 weeks we have been reflecting on the coming among us of the Son of God – the Word was made flesh and pitched his tent among us (Jn1)  The Eternal Word of the God took on our human nature in all its beauty and frailty - sin excepted – in Mary’s womb and was born as a baby.

 Today we meet Jesus, the fully grown man, at prayer after having been baptised by John the Baptist.  John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance – the people who came to him acknowledged their sins and were baptised as a sign of their repentance.  Jesus, the sinless and all holy One, did not need baptism – yet he accepts John’s baptism as a sign of his solidarity with sinful men and women.  This act of humility - of total self-emptying – caused heaven to open and the Holy Spirit to descend and the voice of the Father declares: “You are my Son, the Beloved, my favour rests on you.”  Here we have a great mystery: that at the very moment when Jesus stands in solidarity with sinners the Father should declare him as his beloved Son on whom rests His favour – (and by inclusion all of us) - and we have the revelation of the Holy Trinity.  As St Paul tells us in today second reading: “When the kindness and love of God our saviour for humankind were revealed, it was not because he was concerned with any righteous actions we might have done ourselves; it was for no reason except his own compassion that he saved us by means of the cleansing waters of the Holy Spirit.” (Titus 3:4)

In the waters of the Jordan, Jesus stands in solidarity with sinful humankind while in the waters of Baptism we are incorporated into Him and the voice of the Father addressed to Him is also addressed to each of us: “You are my Son, the Beloved, my favour rests on you.” 

 

As Jesus experienced the opening of heaven when he had fully embraced the poverty of sinful humanity and was at prayer – so too for us – in prayer we become aware of the depths of our own poverty and wretched sinfulness.  Somehow in direct proportion to our honesty and humility we grow in awareness of God’s great merciful love and of our true identity in Christ – beloved children of God and brothers and sisters of each other and of Jesus our Brother.  When we are really present in the depths of our heart, God cannot resist us for He says through the Prophet Isaiah “My eyes are drawn to the one of humbled and contrite spirit” (Is 66:2)

1st January - Solemnity of the Mother of God

As I reflected today on the idea of New Year’s Day, what came to me was an image of a DOOR – something similar to a door opening into a beautiful Castle or an old Country Home or the magnificent Concert Hall in Vienna where the Concert was held this morning viewed on T.V. – a world of wonder, beauty and art at its best.

So starting a New Year is something like that today and in the days ahead. We are opening a door on a whole new world – a world of joys and sorrows, surprises, and disappointments etc.

In the bigger world out there, there are huge Financial problems like the Fiscal Cliff the United States is facing at the moment – here at home in Ireland the aftermath of the Austerity Budget, new taxes, house tax, water tax, car tax increase and insurance also, cuts in children’s allowance and in Carer’s allowance, etc. All very real and very difficult for many or most families. So with all these pre-occupations, it is important that we look at the very deepest part of ourselves as we move into the unknown space of this New Year of 2013.

As I said above, the image that came to me was the door and I thought of that famous and most beautiful picture of Holman Hunt’s' painting of “The Light of the World”. It is the ideal picture to view at the beginning of the year – the time when we are called and invited to open our door, and step forward into a new meeting with Christ.

When this picture was first shown to the public, the Artist’s attention was drawn to a serious flaw. There was no handle on the door. This was very deliberate because it represented the reality. The door is the door of the human heart and there is no handle on the outside. Jesus cannot enter unless I open the door and invite Him in. “I stand at the door and knock and if anyone opens the door I will come in and sit down and share his meal” (Rev.3:20).

The Feast we celebrate today – Mary, the Mother of God, is a great example and model for all of us to open up to the Lord and let Him in. As St. Bernard so beautifully put it in a homily – “Open, O Blessed Virgin, your heart to faith – open your lips to speak – open your bosom to your Maker – Behold the desired of all nations is outside knocking at your Door” and Mary said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word”. If only I, and indeed all of us, could imitate Mary and say the same and live it for the coming year.

Because Mary said ‘Yes’ we now have Jesus with us, among us, one of us, as God made man. He is in us at all times to help us each day of 2013, if only we call on Him.

The beautiful lines of Louise Haskins, which many of us are familiar with, says this more beautifully than ever I could:

And I said to the man

who stood at the gate of the year

“Give me a light

that I may tread safely

into the unknown”

And he replied,

“Go out into the darkness and

put your hand into the hand of God.

That will be to you better than light,

And safer than a known way”.

So I went forth

and found the hand of God,

and trod gladly into the light.

He led me toward the hills

And the breaking of the day

in the East.

So heart, be still!

What need our life to know

If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife of things

both high and low,

God hideth his intention.

We ask Mary, our Mother in one of the Collects for today’s Feast to intercede for us:

Father, source of light in every age,
the virgin conceived and bore your Son
who is called Wonderful God, Prince of peace.
May her prayer, the gift of a mother’s love,
be your people’s joy through all ages.
May her response, born of a humble heart,
draw your Spirit to rest on your people.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.

Happy Christmas

 

 

 

 

“God made Himself small

 

so that we could understand Him,

 

welcome Him and love Him” Pope Benedict XVI

 

We send all our readers our greetings and best wishes for Christmas and the coming New Year.  Remembering you in our prayer.

 

Christmas Reflection

 



“The people that walked in darkness

has seen a great light;

on those who live in a land of deep shadow

a light has shone…….

For there is a child born for us

a son given to us”  (Isaiah Ch 9).

This theme of ‘light dispelling darkness’ is like a silver thread woven into the Advent and Christmas liturgies.  As we look around our world we become aware of a great darkness – a lack of faith and hope as is evidenced by the violence and corruption, poverty and hunger, sickness and suicides – so many people wandering aimlessly searching for happiness which always eludes them.  No doubt we need go no further than our own heart to become aware of the darkness – after all the heart is the battleground between darkness and the light and to the extent that the light triumphs in the hearts of individual men and women there will be light in our world at large.

Tonight we celebrate the breaking onto our world of darkness of a Light which is eternal as we sing at the Day Mass “Today a great light has shone down upon the earth.” The “glory of the Lord” shone around the shepherds when the angel brought them “news of great joy – a joy to be share with all the people”

Our God who is Love and who lives in “inaccessible light” has broken into our world – the Word who is the “radiant light of the God’s glory” (Heb 1:3) has taken on our human nature, sin excepted, and has become a little baby “for us and for our salvation” revealing to us the inner life of God – a life of love beyond all our imagining and we are all invited to participate in this life – a life so totally other from our small, selfish, self-absorbed world - the life which is the light of humankind (cf Jn1:4).  “To all who did accept him he gave power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12)

Pope Benedict reminds us that faith in Jesus is our doorway into this life of communion with God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit and “to enter through this door is to set out on a journey which lasts for a lifetime.”  Each celebration of Christmas is an invitation to expose our hearts ever more fully to the light of God’s love and allow ourselves to be shaped by His transforming grace. (cf Pope Benedict XVI: Porta Fidei).  Our celebration of Christmas ought to be a foretaste of the joy which will be ours when we shall see the Lord face to face, when it will never be night again because the Lord God will be shining on us and we shall live through love in His Presence in endless Day.

Until that day it is our faith which sustains us - faith in God’s Word which assures us that darkness c annot overpower this light (Jn 1:5) which has broken into our world because this light is the fire of love and “Love is a blazing fire, fiercer than any flame which cannot be quenched by any flood.” (cf S of S 8:6,7).

We ask Mary our mother, who was always firm in faith, to intercede for us during this Year of Faith that we may be a people of this light, faithful to her Son that we may bring His life to a waiting world.

"O Emmanuel ..." - Reflection for 23rd December

O Emmanuel, our King and lawgiver – the nations are waiting for you their Saviour.

Come and save us Lord, our God.

In this final ‘O’ Antiphon we reach the climax when we address our Lord as Emmanuel, a name which means “God – is – with – us”.

In the following quotation from St. Augustine, he expresses what “God – with – us” means for us, in a way I never could:.

“For who is Christ unless that which ‘in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’? This Word of God ‘became flesh and dwelt among us’: for in himself he was incapable of dying for us, unless he had assumed mortal flesh from us. In this way the immortal one was able to die, in this way he wished to give life to mortals; he would later make them sharers in himself, since he had first shared in what was theirs. For of ourselves we did not have the ability to live, as of himself he did not have the ability to die.

Accordingly he carried out a wonderful transaction with us through our mutual sharing: he died from what was ours, we will live from what is his.”

What joy and hope these words give us – was joy and hope ever so much needed as in our world today? We need a Saviour – the world is crying out for a Saviour whether it knows it or not. So in the words of our Antiphon we cry out with Mary who gave birth to Jesus, our Saviour:

“O Emmanuel, our King and lawgiver – the nations are waiting for you their Saviour. Come and save us Lord, our God”.

O King - the 22nd December

O King of the nations, and their desire,

the cornerstone who makes both one.

Come and save mankind whom you formed of clay.

Today’s liturgy gives us two possible ways of entering into Mary’s soul. At Mass we heard her beautiful song of faith:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord

And my spirit exults in God my Saviour” (Lk 1:46)

While the O Antiphon proclaims the poverty, the emptiness, the desire and the waiting, the Magnificat manifests the fullness, fulfilment, joy and thanksgiving for salvation. The Incarnation is God’s answer to the longing of human hearts. But Augustine says: "What does it avail me that this birth is happening, if it does not happen in me?”

“So you must be silent, then God will be born in you, utter his word in you and you shall hear it; but be very sure that if you speak, the word will have to be silent. If you go out He will most surely come in; as much as you go out for him He will come in to you; - no more, no less….

When shall we find and know this birth of God within us?

Only when we concentrate all our faculties within us and direct them all towards God.

Then He will be born in us and make Himself our very own.

He will give Himself to us as our own, more completely our own,  than anything we have ever called our own” (John Tauler).

The Kingdom of God is at hand……

The Kingdom of God is within you …(Lk 17:21)

Be glad, find  joy there, gather together and be present to Him who dwells within, since He is so close to you. Desire Him there, adore Him there and do not go off looking for Him elsewhere.

The Kingdom of God is a home for your soul.

We think of the Kingdom in the same way as the Israelites did. Like them we expect it to be a time of plenty. But the Kingdom comes to us in our poverty as we acknowledge truly and freely that we are sinners, in need of a Saviour and as we pray “Lord have mercy on me – I am a sinner!”

Jesus’ power is the power of grace and grace gives us freedom – freedom not from but for God, for life, - for life directed by the truth. Freedom to be different, more compassionate and understanding. Freedom to be more empty so that we may receive His present, His gracious gift to us which is His own very Presence.

Come Lord Jesus

Come into my emptiness that emptiness may be filled.

Come into my wilderness that the clay may bloom.

Come into my heart that I may live.

O King whom that peoples desire

O come and save us whom you made from clay.

O Rising Sun – 21st December

O Rising Sun, you are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice, O come and enlighten those who sit in the darkness and in the shadow of death.

Through the loving mercy of our God the Rising Sun has come to visit us.  Daily the sun rises.  All peoples everywhere, take that for granted.  Very few lie down at night wondering if the dawn will come.  In a world of few certainties and much doubt people are still confident, sure that tomorrow the sun will rise again, there will be a new day.

The Word of God tells us that Christ’s coming is as certain as that dawn.  Are we in fact as certain that He is coming, as we are that in the morning the sun will rise?  Is that the kind of confident hope we give to our world – a word to cheer the hearts of all peoples and disperse the gloomy shades of night?

How do we become people who are absolutely sure of Jesus and who speak about Him with authority and power – a power, a conviction that changes lives.

Today’s ‘O Antiphon’ five lines long, gives us I think a very profound insight and practical help as we grapple with this question.  In these short five lines, six Scripture passages are quoted.  This prayer is the fruit of someone living deeply with the Word of God and eventually perhaps even unconsciously, returning prayer to God in God’s own Words.  So deeply is his consciousness formed and transformed by God’s Word.

There are so many voices in our world today all clamouring for attention.  People are being formed by the T.V., the internet, the media, advertisements, popular opinion, their own selfish whims – a whole secular culture that has ceased listening to God’s Word and is lost in a labyrinth of confusion, racing this way and that, seeking happiness and meaning where it cannot be found.  So many minds are darkened, lacking vision their judgement is clouded.  They cannot see the light because they are looking in the wrong direction.

Our Antiphon today calls us to be people who look toward the East – that is in the right direction of the coming of Christ, the dayspring, the rising sun who dawns upon us from on high, to give light to those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death.  He is the splendour of Eternal Light, the brightness of God’s glory and the figure of His substance.  He reveals the face of God.  He tells from whence we have come and to where we are going.  He brings clarity.  In His light we see light.  Our faltering steps that have been fumbling about in the darkness, stumbling , are given a spring.  We can march forward in confidence because His Word lights up our way.  We know where we are going and how to get there.  He is the way.

The music of today’s antiphon conveys this so beautifully.  Today’s ‘O Antiphon’ departs from the familiar pattern of the last four days.  Up until now the ‘Veni’ has come from the depths sung on ‘doh, fa, me’, but today our ‘Veni’ has a certitude, a note of triumph, the beginning of jubilation.   It is as if the first rays of the dayspring are already illuminating our eyes.   Today our cry ‘Veni’ is sung on ‘la so’, right after the musical summit of the whole antiphon – this is not a tentative cry of wishful thinking but the cry from some one who has already seen the light, of one who knows His coming is certain as the dawn.

Mary, our Mother, intercede for us.

Loose the bonds that bind us, lost in sins own blindness.

God’s own light, Jesus our Saviour, may guide us.