Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

Advent

Rejoice! The God of Peace is at Work among Us!

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I don’t mean to slight or undervalue the testimony of John the Baptist that was just read (in John’s Gospel).  After all, he’s “The voice of one crying out in the desert.”  He was the star of the show last week with his cry: “Make ready the way of the Lord!”  This week let’s turn our attention to the admonitions of St. Paul – in our second reading – in his Letter to the people of Thessalonica about how to prepare the way of the Lord.  Paul says: “Rejoice always.  Pray without ceasing!  In all circumstances!”  IMPOSSIBLE!   You say.  Always?  Without ceasing?  In all circumstances?  Who can possibly do that in today’s world with all the violence, discord, illness and death?  But Paul has an answer for us.  “THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD.  DO NOT QUENCH THE SPIRIT.  Test everything; retain what is good.  Refrain from every kind of evil…..  the One who calls you is faithful, and will accomplish it.”

With his solicitous instructions, Paul sounds like “helicopter parents” as they drop their children at a new neighbor’s: “Remember what I’ve told you: Always be respectful. Listen closely.  Put away the toys you play with.  And, if you forget everything else, remember: ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ go a long way.  Call me if you need anything.”  Most times the kids know the spiel by heart, “Okay, Okay!  See yah Mom.”  Many of us may have memorized Paul’s exhortations.  Maybe our ears will perk up this round when we hear tomorrow’s reading proclaimed.

You may be surprised, if you consciously look for good, at all the positive things, all the surprises that God sends you each day – making Paul’s words ring true when he says: “The one who is faithful, will accomplish it.” In the 1950s the number one book on the New York best sellers list was Norman Vincent Peale’s: The Power of Positive Thinking – for 48 weeks – that’s almost a full year.

Peale said he wrote the book “with the sole objective of helping the reader achieve a happy, satisfying, and worthwhile life.”  His techniques were simple and, the best part, if you are serious about it, they were achievable.  For example:

  • Believe in yourself and in everything you do
  • Break the worry habit and achieve a relaxed life
  • Improve your personal relationships
  • Be kind to yourself

Bet you’re thinking, that sounds like advice of someone I know?  Like maybe John the Baptist, the Proverbs, my mother or grandmother… and certainly Jesus!

Perhaps one of the most reassuring statements in history is “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”  I have not examined my Bible to prove it, but “Siri” tells me that the phrase “Do not be afraid” can be found 365 times in the Old and New Testament.”  Think about it: that’s one time per day, for a full year that the expression is recorded in Scripture.  Goodness only knows how many times in the short span of our own lives someone has said words meaning: “I’ll be with you; you don’t need to be afraid.”

Simple reminders like those given to a child before a first piano recital, or acting in play, or the first day at a new school.  Or right here in this house, assurances to the first-time table reader, or Lector, or cantor.  Sometimes the advice is silly, at other times, simplistic.  But, if we let it soak in, it works.  “Keep your eyes on me, I’ll be the one smiling.”  Sometimes it’s hard to believe …  like the person who says: “This dog doesn’t bite – I’ll hold him.  “Don’t be afraid!”  This one is from a movie but could have been heard in our back yard.  Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are pushing their way through a tall grass short-cut.  She says: “Watch out for snakes.”  He: “I don’t like snakes.”  She: “Then walk nice; snakes won’t get you.”

Now – here it is the 3rd week in Advent – rose candles and vestments to remind us: “Be joyful!”  The church offers us once again for our consideration – Paul’s admonitions as we await the celebration of Jesus’ birth and His final coming.  Paul is insistent that Christ will come again!  Pandemics, death, pain, suffering, turmoil, sadness do not get the last word.  We await a Savior who has conquered Death.  This period of waiting, though, is not a time to twiddle our thumbs.  The words, the phrasing that Paul uses are all active verbs (nothing passive about it).  Rejoice!  Pray!  Give thanks!  Test EVERYTHING.  Retain!  Refrain!  Model what is good and peaceful!  Allow God’s Spirit to shine in your midst.”  And why?  Because: “The God of peace is really at work among us.”

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress

 

First Reading: Isaiah 61:1-2a,10-11             Second Reading  1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Gospel John 1:6-8, 19-28

 

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The Best is Yet to Come

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The Best is Yet to Come

To quote Notre Dame theology professor, Ralph Martin: “The page of a modern book that first catches our interest is the title page … Ancient books had no dust covers or words printed on the spine to arrest attention.  So the first page—or even, as here in (Mark’s) first sentence, (it) had to convey the writer’s main message.  This is exactly what Mark’s opening verse is trying to do: to alert the reader to what is to follow.  It is both his “table of contents” and title page brought together in a bold statement; “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.” 

I suspect we’ve all had occasion to say, or hear, “You think this is great?  This is only the beginning.  The best is yet to come.”  Part of the surprise for us could be heard in this morning’s (Saturday) proclamation by the prophet Isaiah: “The harvest will come: rich and abundant; the towers will fall, the light of the moon will be like the sun and the light of the sun will be seven times greater like the light of seven days; the Lord will bind up the wounds of his people.”

While the opening line in Mark’s gospel points to Jesus, the first person he introduces is not Jesus, but the fiery preacher who came out of the desert resembling the Old Testament prophet Elijah.  Andrew Greeley observes that an important influence on Jesus was John the Baptist, whose ascetic lifestyle he continued to imitate.  John was no fashion plate, with camel hair clothing, leather sandals, and leather girdle around his waist.  His vegetarian diet was very simple: locusts (grasshoppers) and wild honey.  This information must have been important to the evangelist, or it would not have been noted.  So what might it symbolize?  Well, you cannot wear anything more fundamental in the way of clothing, or eat a more basic diet.  Could it be representative of John’s ministry of simple beginnings.  Like Mark says: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

And what a simple message John preached: “Don’t look to me for answers beyond what I have already told you.  Anything else will come from another, who is coming right after me.  He is so much greater than I that I am not even worthy to loosen his sandals straps.  (Remember, this was his younger cousin that he was talking about!)

John began his ministry in the wilderness, the worst possible place.  BUT IT WORKED!  Mark says: “all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem” came out to hear John.  What attracted them to trek 20-30 miles through the wilderness to listen to a man preach?!  That is all he did!  He never said how it would work, or why; he just announced it.  John’s preaching and charisma could bring people to God, but he could not take them beyond that.

How fitting, it strikes me, that we have John’s message of forgiveness and repentance as a prelude to our Penance Service this coming Wednesday evening.  God offers us, once again, an opportunity to sincerely repent.  To discern what it is that keeps “me” from being an effective channel of God’s compassion?  What are the “barnacles and burrs … the personality sandspurs” that keep others from seeing the God-image our Maker intended?  The reconciliation service will give us a chance, once again, to be our own critic and say, “You know what, God?  I’ve finally realized it’s not those others, it is just me.  This is just the way I’ve become — and I need help.”  In the quiet of your own heart, where God alone hears and listens, you can say, “I repent, send me your Spirit.”  The responsorial psalm (Psalm 85 adapted) promises us: “The Lord will give his benefits; kindness and truth shall meet; near indeed is God’s salvation.”

In the meanwhile, be mindful of Habakkuk’s prophecy (2:3).  “God may delay; He may tarry” … but God has a plan – God will not forget, but it will be done on God’s time.  Indeed, that is what the readings help us proclaim today, that the Holy Spirit has called each one of us to this place, at this time, for a divinely ordained purpose:  to embody the Benedictine charism and live out a specific mission – personally and communally.

~ Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress

 

Readings:  Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11     2 Peter 3:8-14     Mark 1:1-8

 

 

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Advent is Upon Us

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Advent is Upon Us!

Today, this year, Advent has already dawned, the sun is up in the east.  It arrived in a world in the midst of a pandemic in a way that reminds me of Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fog.”

Here, in our country, it seems, more so than usual, that Advent is being eclipsed to begin celebrating Christmas…. TV ads, house and yard light displays, Christmas music (What happened to the plaintive Advent songs?).  Others are experiencing anticipatory dread of a holiday separated from loved ones.  Thousands of heavy hearts daily grieve the loss of family members, neighbors and friends.  Circumstances have left many without work, no dependable source of income or the means of providing food and life’s necessities.  A pale of depression and loneliness hangs over people aching for a human touch, a phone call …  any sign that someone is aware of their pain.

Every Advent we have to delve into the Scriptures in order to feel the sense of the messages of hope, peace, love, and joy.  Our nighttime darkness will continue to lengthen until December 21 and the winter solstice moving us ever closer towards the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  The advent hymns we’ll sing – and the antiphons used at Morning and Evening Praise – keep impressing upon us the need to pray for “comfort for those who sit in darkness” and those whose “hearts yearn for the light of Christ.”  We must announce to a “world that waits in silence” that “our souls in stillness wait.”  We believe the words of the prophet Habakkuk:  The message I give you waits for the time I have appointed. It speaks about what is going to happen.  And all of it will come true.  It might take a while.  But wait for it.  You can be sure it will come.  It will happen when I want it to.

While Advent is certainly a time of waiting it is also a time of anticipation and celebration in its own rite.  It is the between-time that Karl Barth speaks of: “Unfulfilled and fulfilled promises are related to each other, as are dawn and sunrise.  Both are promise and in fact the same promise.  If anywhere at all, then it is precisely in the light of the coming of Christ that faith has become Advent faith, the expectation of future revelation.  But faith knows for whom and for what it is waiting.  It is fulfilled faith because it lays hold on the fulfilled promise.  This is the essence of Advent.”

We’ve all had experiences of waiting … that’s part of all our lives.  The season of Advent reminds us that waiting is often the cost of love.  In waiting for someone, our own everyday business becomes almost meaningless as we anticipate, worry, and prepare for a loved one’s return, or an estranged family member or the unknown visitor who becomes the friend we had just never before met and now recognize as Christ personified.  In waiting, we realize our own powerlessness; we realize our deepest hopes, and needs and yearnings.  People and events we didn’t know we missed until we encounter them.

More than ever, this year, in the midst of the pandemic, I suspect the spirit of Advent will pale in the face of the hurry to put up decorations and play some Christmas music.  People can’t wait for Christmas to come with the promised vaccine.

May our waiting for the coming of the Holy One this Christmas help us understand and carry on the mystery of compassionate and generous waiting.  Don’t expect a dramatic vision but do try to become more conscious of the Christ coming through our doors, in one another as each   enters our community room or are seated to “break bread” at mealtime.  In our corporate commitment we pledge to be the embodiment of the compassion of Christ.  And it is obvious from our visitors’ comments that this is one of our signature ministries.  Our guests, and we who live here, know that our companions care for us …  the question at times may be: “do we care about each other?”  One litmus test: “Until you know what hurts me, you cannot truly love me.”

In his 2020 Advent letter, Pope Francis reminds us: “Advent, a time of grace, tells us that it is not enough to believe in God: it is necessary to purify our faith every day.”  We pray: “O Holy Spirit, fill our hearts with Advent hope so that we may learn to cope with the delays and disappointments we encounter with patience and wisdom.  May a spirit of gratitude and humility guide us on our journey to your dwelling place, enabling us to endure, with joy, the costs of waiting for love, reconciliation, and peace.”

Ask yourself as you turn off the light each night…

+ To whom did I offer a word of hope, affirmation or comfort today?
+ How was I a ray of light to someone who felt the darkness of loneliness?
+ Tomorrow, how will I prepare for Christ to be born anew in my heart?

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress

 

First Reading  Isaiah 63:16b-17,19b;64:2-7                Second Reading 1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Gospel Mark 13:33-37

 

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Meaningful Advent

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So, it’s Advent again.  Among the general populace, Advent remains an opportunity that is too often little appreciated, little understood and commonly ignored.  Advent is about learning to wait.  It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow.  Advent teaches us the difference between expectation, anticipation and waiting; suspense, eagerness and “twiddling your thumbs to pass the time.”

Advent is about the power of emptiness and the spiritual meaning of smallness.  We strive to live with the basics rather than hoard what, in God’s eyes anyway, after all is not ours.  When we have little to begin with, we have even less to lose.  When we have fewer possessions, fewer clothes in our closets and fewer books (even the holy ones) and papers that we MIGHT need someday, we spend fewer minutes caring for them.  It means that we have less to protect or to fight over and even less to boast about.  We can be more open to possibility.

Our conversations can turn to stories and concerns focused outward, on the other rather than the self.  There is a rare sprinkling of “I” and “my” and “mine.”  Attention is directed away from the self to shine our light on others.  We radiate the blessings of life, not the gloom of sadness, sickness, tiredness and woe.  We become more fully human, full of compassion and full of consciousness.  Our community Advent practices help hone the attitude of prayerfulness, almsgiving and compassion.

Take a stroll down memory lane and feel again the anticipation and impatience you felt for the night Santa Claus would come.  That’s the feeling we still need to be filled with as we await the coming of Christmas – the commemoration of the night Jesus opened His eyes and beheld the tender love of his earthly mother and his foster father Joseph; heard the voices of the angels singing praises and felt the warmth of the breath of curious animals.

I invite you to live again, the moment you discovered the reality of the Santa myth.  You’d probably had plenty of hints for a long time from older siblings or classmates.  In fact you might have known from the beginning that there was no one who was “Santa.”  But, you were slow to relinquish the fantasy of the jolly fellow enjoying the cookies you’d left for him and emptying his sack of toys to find the gift with your name on it.  Even children who are aware that their families are “dirt poor” cling to the dream of a Santa figure.

As we mature, so do our hopes and dreams.  The final line of the selection from Matthew’s Gospel reminds us first: we do not know what day the Lord will appear.  Then, “You must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”  That does not refer only to the hour of our death.  Remember the story of the Abbot who visited his Rabbi friend who shared with him a valuable lesson: “the messiah is among the ranks of your community.”  We are challenged to be Messiah to each other.  To treat each other, those who walk through the door, with gentleness and courtesy – that one may be the Messiah among us.  Now, in place of eager children looking forward to Santa bringing us gifts, we conger ways to be “Santa” to others.

So, we pray: “May the God of Israel increase our longing for Jesus our Savior and give each and all of us the strength to grow in love, that the dawn of Jesus’ coming may find us rejoicing in his presence and welcoming the light of Truth.”

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, O.S.B., Prioress

 

Isaiah 2:1-5                   Romans 13:11-14    Matthew 24:37-44
Intention:  Meaningful Advent
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Mary and Elizabeth Rejoicing

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It is appropriate in the season of Advent that we consider the role of Mary in God’s plan of salvation.  Mary’s faith enabled her to recognize the work of God in her people’s history and in her own life.  Her openness to God allowed God to work through her so that salvation might come to everyone.   Because of this, Mary is a model and symbol of the Church.

The story on the fourth Sunday of Advent is about two pregnant women, the first one 6 months along is already experiencing the movement of the child in her womb.  The baby leaps when her cousin calls out to her.  This is a story of utter delight of a meeting of mothers and infants.  The babies, John and Jesus – both of whom got their names directly from angels of God.  They were to be friends and fellow prophets, recognized each other when they were still in the womb.

First, we hear about Mary and her journey.  When left her Mary eagerly goes dancing over the hills (well, maybe not quite “dancing” after all the distance she traveled was close to 50 miles).  Did she tell anyone on her way about the angel, the message or why she was hastening to her cousin?  I’m guessing she might have shared her experience and her concerns with her mom, Anne.

Rushing to share her secret with her cousin, Mary found another surprise: old Elizabeth was expecting a child of her own!  God was up to something big here!  Elizabeth greets Mary with full recognition of the roles that they and their unborn children will play in God’s plan for salvation.  If we were to continue to read the verses that follow in Luke’s Gospel, we would hear Mary respond to Elizabeth’s greeting with her song of praise, the Magnificat.  Both women recall and echo God’s history of showing favor upon the people of Israel.

To me, in this part of the Nativity story, Elizabeth is the star of the show and we do well not to overlook the significance of Elizabeth’s role in our salvation history.  She is the “amazed saint.”  She is exemplary in her response to her baby’s movement in her womb.  She is so in tune with her own body, she appreciates that something new and wonderful is going on here.  Elizabeth then broke out in joyful exclamation!  “Why am I so favored?”  Hers is humble amazement at being able to participate directly in God’s plan.  How muted Zechariah must have wished he, too, could sing with his wife over Mary’s news!  We who have a role in God’s plan should share this wonder.

Some of you may recall Fr. Simeon sharing a one-minute nugget of a Fourth Sunday of Advent homily in which you’ll find these lines:

 

Two women, cousins.

Girls giggling gladness, dancing delirious dream,

Marveling mystery, barely hearing –

 

He ended with this question: “Can God enter earth if there are no women?”

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress

 

First Reading  Micah 5:1-4            Second Reading   Hebrews 10:5-10
Gospel Reading  Luke 1:39-45              Intention   Christmas Novena
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Four Weeks Suspended in Kairos

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In her book, THE LITURGICAL YEAR, Joan Chittister makes the comment: “Advent, more than any other season of the church year, calls us to live simultaneously in the past, the present, and the future.  She elaborates: “We learn in Advent to stay in the present, knowing that only the present well-lived can possibly lead us to the fullness of life.  It takes an overview of the three-year cycle of Advent readings to make clear the multiple meanings of Advent.  Many of our Advent hymns keep this idea before us when we sing “Mara – natha – two words – The Lord has come … God of, and in, our) past, present and future are all lived together … soul.” (Chittister)

We eagerly await the coming of Christ as a baby in Bethlehem (the past), we are invited to welcome him into our hearts now (the present), and we look forward to his future coming as king of glory.  For four weeks of Advent we are suspended in kairos — God’s time — when expectations and reality are held in tension with each other.  We must hold on to a vision of what challenges the church (that’s all of us) should be dealing with today.  Dwelling in the past or wishing for a perfect future can keep us from hearing the will of God in our today.  Many recognize in Pope Francis a voice that is, like John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness … urging us forward in the present to mend the past as we confront the ills of today.

This Gospel introduces us to the man: John.  The opening lines in Mark’s gospel are “the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” but the first character he introducers is not Jesus, but John the Baptist, the fiery preacher who came out of the desert where he lived on honey and locusts.  And, he is no fashion plate, with his camel’s hair clothes, leather sandals, and leather girdle around his waist — very much like Elijah.  His diet was very simple: locusts (grasshoppers) and wild honey.  This is important, or it would not be here.  It is symbolic. But what does it symbolize?  Well, you cannot wear anything more fundamental in the way of clothing, or eat a more basic diet, than John did.  In other words, it is representative of his ministry — one of simple beginnings.  It is not the end; it is the beginning.  The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God is all about repentance.  This is the place to begin.  Even John’s clothing and his diet helped convey that message.

His diet, by the way, was balanced.  Food fanatics will quickly recognize that grasshoppers are protein, and honey is carb.  John’s diet was in perfect balance, so that he was a healthy man.  It was a simple sort of diet, just as his ministry was – nothing elaborate.  Furthermore, he’s very honest.  He says, “Don’t look to me for answers beyond what I have already told you.  Anything beyond that must come from Another, who is coming right after me.  He is so much greater than I that I am not even worthy to untie his shoes.  Remember, this was his cousin he was talking about!  John could bring people to God, but he could not take them beyond that.  John began his ministry in the wilderness, the worst possible place. But it worked!

The people of Jerusalem and Judea left their cities, their recreations and pleasures, and trekked through a howling wilderness to listen to a man preach.  They probably had to walk twenty or thirty miles to hear John, but did so willingly and in such increasing numbers that Mark records, in only slight exaggeration, that “all the country of Judea, and all the people of Jerusalem” came out to hear him.  Something drew these people into the desert to listen to this strange and rugged young preacher proclaim good news.  That is all he did!  He never told how it worked, or why; he just announced it.

How fitting it is that we have this message of forgiveness and repentance as a prologue to our Penance Service on Tuesday evening.  Then, as now, people need to know they can begin again.  God offers us, once again, an opportunity to truly repent.  We can change our attitude and stop defending ourselves and trying to blame everything on others.  There’s a saying: the whole world’s a critic.  Tuesday’s reconciliation service gives us a chance to be our own critic and say, “You know what, God?  I’ve finally realized it’s not those others, it is just me.  This is just the way I am — and I need help.”  In the quiet of your own heart, where God alone hears, you can say, “I repent, send me your Spirit.”

But keep in mind what the prophet Isaiah said about John’s message – this business of reconciliation will resemble a great bulldozer, building a highway in the desert.  John was God’s bulldozer to build that highway.  You know how roads are built – we see the process almost any direction we go on the highway.  Isaiah says: “Every mountain shall be brought low, and every valley shall be lifted up; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places plain.”  And, that is what repentance does.  It bulldozes down all the high peaks of pride that we stand on and refuse to admit we’re wrong.  It takes the depressed areas of our life, where we beat and torture and punish ourselves, and lifts them up.  It takes the crooked places, where we have lied and deceived, and straightens them out.  And it makes the rough places plain.  Then, there is God!  God comes to us so that we can come to God.

Our hope is in the promise of God, and God of the Promise… a promise that was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  It is a hope that will not be disappointed because God may delay, He may tarry but He will not forget His promise.  He will not let us down.  Praise be God!

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress

 

Readings:      Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11               2 Peter 3:8-14              Mark 1:1-8
Intention:       Peoples of Central America
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