In the Shaking Of Rugs and Washing Of Windows

Sometimes those who are just a few steps outside of our lived reality can out into words what we cannot because we are too close to it.  I recieved the follwing words the other day from a sister I have known for just under a year and yet somehow she captures what my heart feels like at this very moment from 200 miles away.  She writes:

 

I imagine you are NOT counting the days and yet counting the days in two different ways. I think of all of you often. It is not easy to experience the intensity of grace, personal growth, deep faith sharing, unbridled laughter, spontaneity, companionable silence, and sheer wonderment at it all knowing you each want this life so much, so very much - while still listening carefully for the intersection of your dream and God's - and just say "Goodbye".

No, you will be saying something like, "I am full of deep appreciation for you - for what your/our/my future holds and how it holds us together in this Dominican life. Please God we will continue growing, loving, forgiving, honoring, respecting similarities and making room differences in the compassionate life giving we have done so here." It may not be said in words. It will be said in your glances. In your smiles, in your tears, in the tight anxious silences of "do I go into that or not" moments, in the shaking of rugs and washing of windows.

 

I've come to wonder if this week of cleaning we are about to begin isn't really about cleaning but rather about encountering God and one another through the most ordinary of household chores.  Whenever I clean out something (car, sock drawer, a cabinet etc) I am almost always surpised by something I find.  May we learn to be surpised not so much by what we find but by who we find.

 

 

 

 

 

Summer comes

It is so nice,

When one knows why a person cries.

And then they stop,

Thinking  twice.

It is so nice,

To know that everything will turn out alright.

As a dark sky will fly away by a new sunrise.

It is so nice,

To have someone in your life,

Who makes you smile,

When you are far from miles.

It is so nice,

When You are my light in the dark night,

It is sun shining

In the sky and inside my life.

It is so nice,

To know that Jesus Christ,

The source of life,

For all humankind.

                                                                  Land of Dominic, 2015

Put Your Whole Self In

At an ICN workshop earlier this year, we were treated to the presence of Sr. Addie Lorraine Walker, SSND, who opened each session with song and dance.  "Put your whole selves in!" she urged us, as she led us through rousing renditions of familiar songs.  She then extended the metaphor of putting our whole selves at the service of God and neighbor through the vow of obedience, the topic she was facilitating that day.

I have had ample opportunity to practice putting my "whole self in" this year.  From a physical standpoint, I have been privy to a more holistic experience of body prayer each Sunday as I sing and sway with the Gospel Choir at St. Alphonsus, "The Rock," the Catholic church I've been attending where we practice Afro-centric worship with a sort of Southern Baptist feel.  We've practiced body prayer in our ICN sessions and focused on our different energy centers during a day of reflection.  

Perhaps during this contemplative year more than ever, I have learned that physicality is an important part of my spirituality.  My need for both exercise and stillness in a purely physical sense mirrors the need for an action-contemplation balance in all other areas of my life.  I'm still learning this one, and sometimes it still seems easier to run a half marathon than to stay focused during contemplation… but I've come to value the holy tension in it all.

Beyond the physical, however, we have had plenty of other opportunities to practice putting our whole selves in.  Whether it's in conversation with a spiritual director or in a house meeting with community, we have been invited again and again to that "exquisite vulnerability" that true discernment necessitates.  It doesn't mean sharing everything all the time, but it does mean taking the risk to trust at the appropriate times.  It's a decision I must re-make each day, sometimes multiple times a day.

Ultimately, we are all called to put our whole selves in to whatever particular path God has called us.  All of the opportunities I've had this year to practice this have been preparation for the possible discernment of vowed life as a consecrated person; putting my whole self in to love of God and neighbor through vowing obedience, chastity, and poverty.

I think it's safe to say I'll never view the hokey pokey in quite the same way again.

"B" Who You are Meant to "B" and you will set the world on FIRE!

I learned at one of our recent Inter Community Novitiate sessions with Fr. Ron Rohlheiser on the topic of celibacy and sexuality that the greek philosophers used to say "we are FIRED into life with a madness that comes from the gods and that this energy is the root of all love, hate , creativity, joy and sadness." We have had many experiences at the CDN lately that have fueled this FIRE!

 

Kelly and her mom, Cindy, celebrating thier Birthdays

My mom and I are "a couple" years and day apart so we enjoyed celebrating our birthday together at the CDN with the members of our house and a few guests.  We actually had another good reason to CELEBRATE.  All those present at this celebration were part of the Pre-Race Pasta Party the night before the GO! St. Louis Half Marathon that myself, Cindy, Christin and some other young nuns were running in the morning. 

 





Clare, Kelly, Sarah, Symphonie, Cindy, Christin in our matching 13.Nun shirts
(13.Nun is a play on the distance of 13.1 miles)





We were FIRED up for our intercongregational, mutli-vocational run through the streets of St. Louis with a couple thousand others.  Every blister was worth the great memories that were made.

 

   

Butterflies have been symbols of life and joy to many generation in Mexico I learned as I strolled through the butterfly exhibit at the St. Louis Zoo recently.  So parhaps it is the like the flutter of the wings of a butterfly that kindle that FIRE within us each and every day.  Most especially as Spring comes upon on this time of year.

 

Whether we are celebrating Birthdays, nursing our Blisters, or being attentive to the Butterflies that God sends us at just the right moment; let us all remember the words of St. Catherine of Sienna, "Be Who are meant to Be and you will set the world on FIRE!"

 

Happy Spring!

 

 

 

 

Mercy

Last week was Divine Mercy Sunday. The Church celebrates it on the first Sunday after Easter to remind us that God is full of mercy, and mercy is a radical principle for those who desire to follow Jesus Christ. 

             In 1953- 1956, the X communists encouraged people to lie about each other to get their property. There was a man, who lied about his adopted parents. After his adopted parents and most members in their family were killed, the communist government gave him his adopted parents' village and many of their treasures. However, he did not have peace after that. He left home and town. No one knows where he went.

            Among the beggars in front of a church every weekend there was a man.  No one gave him money, no one wanted to talk to him, except for a young man, who dropped money for him any time he passed by to enter the church. After some months, one day a young man did not see that beggar for two weeks. He came to the river bank, where poor often stayed.  A little distance from poor houses, there was a very poor tent in which it seemed no one used. However, when he entered, he recognized that the beggar man was very sick and close to death. This beggar recognized this young man who was only person who gave him money. He cried and shared his life and sins to him. After hearing this, the young man was very pained. He said, I am their son, who was the only surviving person after that event. “Now, I on behalf of my family, I forgive you, and in the name of God I, with the power of consecrated priesthood, “I forgive you, your sins”. How powerful our risen Christ was through this young priest! Is risen Christ powerful in our lives?

            He said, “I returned to see my parents’ house, but I only stood from the other side of the river bank to look at it from afar. I cried there. Although, it happened many years ago, but there were many memories. There was too much pain. I was afraid that I could not stand if I came closer.” When he told me that, his tears were silently running on his gentle face. His hands and his body were still shaken by his inner pain. I knew, it was the deep and big pain which followed his life. However, through him, I saw an image of Jesus Christ in my time.

            Look at him, I understood Paul’s words, “I live, but not I live, it is Jesus who lives in me.” Yes, the resurrected Jesus Christ lived in this musician professor priest who respected by many people, even communist government members. However, there were only some who knew his painful past. Writing his story today, I want to send it as my Easter greeting and love from the earth to him in heaven where he sees God and his family.

The Paschal Paradox

Can you sing "Alleluia!" through tears of agony?

If it's possible, then that's what the people of Kenya are doing this Easter.  So are the people of Syria, Iraq, the DRC… and far too many corners of our world.  This thought weighs heavy on my heart this Easter evening as the "Alleluias" of my own Paschal celebration are still fresh on my lips.

It is a truly a paradox, this faith we profess.  Even as we proclaim that love has triumphed over hate, wars are raging.  Even as life emerges from death this day, people are dying.  We sing joyfully of Resurrection in a world that is still full of crucifixions.

Are we just naive?  Ignorant?  Out of touch with reality?

I think not.  Our Gospel readings these days tell us that the Resurrection didn't seem like clear-cut joy at the beginning, either.  As they struggled to understand what had happened, the early disciples experienced not only joy, but also fear, confusion, and disbelief.  What was a mystery to them is still a mystery to us.

Pope Francis, in his Easter Vigil homily, spoke of this:

We cannot live Easter without entering into the mystery.  It is not something intellectual, something we only know or read about… It is more, much more!

“To enter into the mystery” means the ability to wonder, to contemplate; the ability to listen to the silence and to hear the tiny whisper amid great silence by which God speaks to us (cf 1 Kings 19:12).

To enter into the mystery demands that we not be afraid of reality: that we not be locked into ourselves, that we not flee from what we fail to understand, that we not close our eyes to problems or deny them, that we not dismiss our questions…

The women who were Jesus’ disciples teach us all of this.  They kept watch that night, together with Mary. And she, the Virgin Mother, helped them not to lose faith and hope.  As a result, they did not remain prisoners of fear and sadness, but at the first light of dawn they went out carrying their ointments, their hearts anointed with love.  They went forth and found the tomb open.  And they went in.  They had kept watch, they went forth and they entered into the Mystery.  May we learn from them to keep watch with God and with Mary our Mother, so that we too may enter into the Mystery which leads from death to life.

So I pray that our Easter rejoicing brings us closer to our hurting brothers and sisters.  I pray that we do not run from that which we do not understand, nor that we run to easy answers.  Instead, let us extend our hearts and our prayers to those for whom "Alleluia" is not such an easy word right now.  Let us keep watch with them.  Let our joy be a cushion within which to hold their pain.  

And in the face of death, division, and pain, let us proclaim an alternative.
Let us sing even more boldly: 

Christ is risen! 

Love has triumphed!

Alleluia!

JUMP!

 

Fresh from a Lenten Retreat during the later half of this last week, I find myself filled with encounters of God as numerous as the birds in the sky that I could blog about.  We journeyed to Springfield Illinois to the Chiara Center where  Fr. Stan Drongowski, O.P. and Sr. Teresa Tuite, O.P. journeyed with us and our inter-community novitiate in a Parable retreat. 

 

On the Feast of the Annunciation Fr. Stan preached about God's encouragement to Mary:

DO NOT BE AFRAID.



 Now for me jumping out of a perfectly good airplane was rather easy and something I did with little fear and with confidence that I would land on my feet in the end.  I put total trust in that gentleman strapped to my back to operate our parachutes and to get us to our destination (the ground) safely.  I had a prayer card of the Blessed Mother in my pocket just in case!

 

And yet when God says: JUMP I cling tightly to the familiar, the safe, the certain, say Oh, No not me Lord, are you NUTS!  Often times every part of me wants to do God's will with reckless abandonment but fear going SPLAT keeps me tethered at times!  Perhaps I need to remember who is operating my parachute.....









 

 

Afterall, that parachute is full of desire to do the will of the one that propels me each day.  Sr. Teresa encouraged us to approach God with not just open hands but hands FULL OF DESIRE.  Only when I approach God with arms wide open can I totally surrender to all the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that prevents my parachute from opening to the loving embrace and will of God.

 

Only when, like Mary, I step out and BE NOT AFRAID and JUMP will I land wherever God calls me.  For in the end the WILL of God will not take me wherever the GRACE of God will not carry me.

 

Whether we go SPLAT or stick the landing all our JUMPS are full of GRACE!