Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

God

Trinity Sunday

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Pray over this Memorial Day weekend for prudence and safety for all those celebrating the holiday in the company of large crowds. 

Remember and pray for the our deceased military service personnel and military families coping with their loss and often with lingering mental health and other conditions that plague retirees and their loved ones. 

  God bless you each with good health, much happiness and abundant peace.    

 

Start Where You Are

I ask you the same question Moses asked the people in Sunday’s first reading: “I ask now, did anything so great ever happen before?  Was it ever heard of?  Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking as you did?”  “This” Moses says: “is why you must now know, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.  I enjoin this upon you today that you and your children after you may prosper, and you may have long life on the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you forever.”

Is there any greater reason, and motivation, found in Scripture than these words to prompt us to take stock of what we have and where we are going?  If you need another nudge, just read the Gospel passage for this weekend.  “The disciples gathered with Jesus and worshiped him, BUT they doubted!”  Jesus stepped closer to them and reminded them: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  Then, in so many words, Jesus told them to put their own hands on the plow and get on with the job.  “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded YOU.”  Then, he reassures them and he guarantees us …“Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the ages.”

That’s a tall directive!  But Jesus is serious!  “Therefore, GO!”  Or as Father Henry said earlier today: “Jesus is saying: No excuses!”  So, where do we begin?  This much I know: we have to start where we are.  Awaken our hearts to recognize and embrace the truth of who we were and who’ve we become; who we are. In the message of a song performed by EMBRACE, an English band: “I’ve been running for oh so long; there’s a light that guides us, I don’t see.  Catch the light, reflect it down on me; show me where I went wrong.  The lies are bad; the truth is worse.  One day there’ll come a time when our questions have all dried up and chance can come back into your life.  Til then you’ll know that it’s all a waste.  Invite the chance back into your life; it’s time to invite all the chance back into your life.”

You’ve probably heard the principle that if a person doesn’t treat inanimate objects with respect, we can predict she/he will have no respect for living things.  Benedict knew this, didn’t he?  In RB 31 he cautions the members, not solely the person given charge of the inventory, “To take care of everything; to regard all utensils and goods of the monastery (that includes the persons) as sacred vessels of the altar, aware that nothing is to be neglected.”  It could not be clearer that as Benedictines we are charged to care of ALL creation.  To practice good stewardship, sound environmental practices, reverence for all persons.  To operate machinery and tech tools; close a door, set a table and push in chairs with the same gentleness we cradle a chalice.  This attitude of devotion and sensitivity starts with our own person and extends to all persons.  It is reflected in our demeanor and decorum; our respect for an atmosphere of monastic quiet.  We move with a touch of gentleness for the environment in which we find ourselves.  It shows in our manner of walking, speaking, acting and interacting.

You’ve heard of the “butterfly effect” – EVERY thing we do or say sends seemingly unending ripples into the environment – affecting and effecting and infecting a circle of influence beyond our imagination.  When we acknowledge this our response must be one prayer for forgiveness any negativity we’ve spewed into the world.  May I suggest we offer a prayer inspired by Servite Sister Joyce Rupp and adapted for this community:

 

A PRAYER FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TOO MUCH

To our brothers and sisters in developing areas of our country and around the world:
  • While I was deciding which of seven cereals to eat this morning, you were searching in dumpsters for leftover scraps.
  • While I was working out in the exercise room or walking the paved track, you were working in the wealthy landowner’s fields under a scorching sun or in teeming rain.
  • When I choose between soda or juice, your parched lips are yearning for the touch of water. When I choose between brands of bottled water, you search in the landfill for something you could exchange for pennies to buy food for your children.
  • While I complain about the poor service in the local restaurant or turn up my nose at the food on our buffet table, I think of you who gratefully accept a bag or box of government commodities from Daystar.
  • When a sudden noise startles me, a shout for a winning team or the ice machine motor interrupts conversation, I think of you who live in fearful threat of unpredictable noise and violence and the frequent eruption of gunfire day and night.
  • When I complain about a lack of connecting speed on my shining laptop, I remember 1000s of children who are losing a year of education because they have no WiFi connection, no Internet service or probably not a computer to use.
  • While I poured my “all-in-one” detergent into the washing machine, you stand in the river with your small bundle of clothes.
  • While I watch the evening news on our wide-screen TV, you are among those I witnessed being terrorized by the dictatorship government.
  • While I scanned the ads for a bargain price on a new shirt, you woke up and put on the same shirt and pants that you have worn for many months, thankful for others’ cast-offs.
  • While I grumbled over the need for more storage space, your family of l0 found shelter in a one-room packing-box hut you call home.
  • When I went to chapel and felt slightly bothered at the length of the prayer service or the silence or a boring homily, you looked out upon the earth and those around you and felt gratitude to God just for being alive for one more day.

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(So, we pray)  My brothers and sisters, forgive me for my arrogance and my indifference.  Forgive me for my greed of always wanting newer, bigger and better things.  Forgive me for not doing my part to change the unjust systems that keep you suffering and impoverished.  I offer you my promise to become more aware of your situation and to change my lifestyles as I work for transformation of our world.

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

Deuteronomy 4:32-34; 39-40              Romans 8:14-17       Matthew 28:16-20
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LOVE

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The theme of this Gospel is clearly love but not the kind of love we see on film or on TV, hear on the radio or a CD.  In church hymns, too, we frequently sing about love.  But, as Oliver sings in the musical based on Charles Dickens’ story, “Where is love?”  We ask: What is love?

Father Andrew reminded us the other day, love is a gift freely given.  If we receive it freely, dare we do anything less.  For just a minute, let’s step aside to look at where John places this teaching.  It fits squarely between the Gospel readings from this morning (Saturday) and yesterday (Friday) and immediately after the Gospel proclaimed last Sunday: the vine and branches where we were reminded that it is only in our union with Jesus that we can render fruitful service.

Sometimes we hear this word “love” used in such a way that we degrade, lessen or weaken its significance.  The way Jesus, or in this case John, uses the word for love just doesn’t apply to chocolate, a long drink or an afternoon nap.  We may like and enjoy those things a lot, but we don’t “love” them in the way we love our neighbor.

It is notable, I think, that Jesus gives us just ONE love commandment.  He does not say, “Love me, love my father or love God as I have loved you.”  No, he says, “If you want to be my disciple, then you must love one another.”  If we really love our brothers and sisters we do not have to worry if we love God.  But, if we do not love everyone unconditionally, then there is no other way we can claim to love Jesus.  We need to love like God loves – without exception.

We have the perfect model in the love between the Father and the Son – selfless giving.  The Father has given all things to the Son.  The Son lays down his life in obedience to the Father.  One scholar writes that, “Love is the will to good…One who loves promotes the good, or wills the benefit and strength, of the beloved – this is the nature of God.”

Deep down, we all want to love and be loved.  We like people to be our friends.  Yet, because of our past experiences, the influence of parents and other people around us, the pressures of our society and our traditions, and plain bad habits, we often do not know how to love, do not know how to forgive, do not know how to be reconciled.  We do not practice the skills we know that promote healthy relationships.

Sometimes people will love us back, sometimes they will not.  People learn to love by being loved.  We learn to share love and communicate our feelings by imitating the models we live with.  Remember your mom coaxing you when you received a gift or a compliment: “What do you say?”

When I genuinely love others, there will always be some who cannot love me back but there will be others who will really respond in love.  And it may be that my love has empowered them to be loving too.  Benedict reminds us in the Prologue to the Rule – we heard it read just yesterday: “See how the Lord in his love shows us the way of life…. What is not possible to us by nature, let us ask the Holy One to supply by the help of grace … while there is still time, while we are in this body and have time to accomplish all these things … we must run and do now what will profit us forever.”  We know, but too often forget, that Jesus never told his disciples to LIKE each other.  He said, “LOVE one another.”  And how does Jesus express love?  We know it is freely and without reserve.  He gives us a “how to” when He says: “I am gentle and humble of heart.”  This is how we are to love one another: in humility with gentleness.  Just as we cradle and carry a precious glass object, we value and treasure our free gift of love with special caring.

It’s a life-long journey, isn’t it?  We may have fleeting moments when “perfect love” rises to the surface of our motivation to action.  I think it was St. Irenaeus who said a very long time ago that “The glory of God is a person fully alive.”  (John Powell)

You see, love is God’s very nature – God cannot not love.  How does God love?  Full hearted and unconditionally.  Jesus gives us just one commandment that encompasses all the others.  He does not say, “Love Me as I have loved you.”  No, he says, “If you want to be my disciple, then you must love one another, as I have loved you.”  If we really love our brothers and sisters, including strangers and even enemies, we do not have to worry if we love God.  In one of our “love” hymns, we sing “Where love abides, our God is ever there.”

St. John does not say to us, “Wherever there are Christians, there is God” or “Wherever there is a Christian church, there is God.”  No, he says, “Wherever there is love, there is God.”  Wherever there is a person filled with love for others, God is there.

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