Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

Jesus

National Day of Prayer

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Today is National Day of Prayer.  It is so easy to forget to pray.  Jesus knows about being human, a soul housed in a human body, a body which needs air, needs water, needs food.  But He admonishes us that we must also nourish our spiritual self not only through the sacraments, but also through private prayer.

Today we have the opportunity to join with all people of faith in prayer for ourselves, our communities, and our world.  We can go into our personal desert to pray alone as Jesus did while on earth.  But prayer is an anywhere, anytime, activity.  We can pray in the car, in the shower, while we walk, during the commercial breaks while watching television (the mute button is useful here).  Jesus is always ready to hear us.

Today, let us join all who pray.  Let us raise our souls to God, if only for moment, if only to say “Here I am.  Thank you for life.  Thank you for now”.

~by Sister Eileen Dunbar

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Good Shepherd Sunday

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These two brief parables in the Gospel reveal Jesus as our unique means to salvation, our Good Shepherd.  He is the “sheep gate,” the gateway to eternal life, and the selfless, caring “shepherd” who provides protection and life itself.  Jesus presents a comparison between a concerned shepherd and a hireling who is there only for the paycheck.  The good shepherd is willing to pay any price to protect the sheep, even if it means that he has to give His very life for them.  Christ, the Chief Shepherd, knows our individual weaknesses and failings and watches over us with discerning love and sympathetic understanding.  With infinite concern He notes the doubts, fears, trials, conflicts, and defeats that disturb our peace, and He swiftly comes to our aid Jesus is warning his hearers and reminding us, “don’t be scammed” – only thieves and robbers seek to enter the sheepfold by any means other than the door.

Tony Campolo loved to tell the story of a particular census taker who went to the home of a rather poor family in the mountains of West Virginia to gather information.  He asked the mother how many dependents she had.  She began, “Well, there is Rosie, Billy and Lewella, Susie, Harry and Jeffrey.  There’s Johnny, Harvey, and our dog, Wille.”  The census taker interrupted her: “No, ma’am, that’s not necessary.  I only need the humans.” “Ah,” she said.  “Well, there is Rosie, Billy, and Lewella, Susie, Harry, and Jeffrey, Johnny, Harvey, and…”  At this the exasperated man he said, “No, ma’am, you don’t seem to understand.  I don’t need their names.  I just need the numbers.”  The woman replied, “But I don’t know their numbers. I only know them by name.”

In today’s gospel Jesus, the Good Shepherd, says that he knows his sheep by name.  Although there may be several flocks sharing the same sheepfold, when the shepherds walk up to the gate and call their sheep, each one instantly recognizes the voice of its own shepherd.  When he calls, they instinctively follow (they are led and they follow, they are not driven, that’s for goats).  They will ignore the voice of any shepherd other than their own.  We will hear many voices competing for our attention, but there is a special note to the voice of Jesus that demands our immediate and full attention.

A man in Australia was arrested and charged with stealing a sheep.  But he claimed emphatically that it was one of his own that had been missing for many days.  When the case went to court, the judge was puzzled. Not knowing how to decide the matter, he at last asked that the sheep be brought into the courtroom.  Then he ordered the plaintiff to step outside and call the animal.  The sheep made no response except to raise its head and look frightened.  The judge then instructed the defendant to go to the courtyard and call the sheep.  When the accused man began to make his distinctive call, the sheep bounded toward the door.  It was obvious that he recognized the familiar voice of his master.  “His sheep knows him,” said the judge.  “Case dismissed!”

There is no question that Jesus is our Good Shepherd.  The only question that remains at this point is this: Do you know the Shepherd?  Do you recognize His voice?

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

 

 

First Reading:   Acts 2:14, 36-41         Second Reading:  1 Peter 2:20-25
Gospel:   John 10:1-10
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On the Road to Emmaus

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Two of the disciples of Jesus were on the road that leads to Emmaus. They were low because their Master had been crucified like a common thief. But now they’d heard reports that their Master was not dead at all. Reliable sources have told them that he had appeared to some of their most trusted friends. Was he really alive? Should they believe the good news or the bad? And that’s our dilemma, isn’t it? DO WE BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS OR THE BAD? The good news is that Christ is alive. The bad news is how little impact that event is having in our world.

The Jewish custom required that the two disciples invite Jesus to a meal. Hence, they invited Him for a night’s rest in their house–and Jesus accepted the invitation. During the meal, when Jesus broke the bread, the disciples realized that this stranger was not a stranger after all – this was Jesus, the Risen Christ. Later they said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us when he opened up the Scriptures to us?”  Hidden for a time, Jesus took delight in revealing himself in the breaking of the bread.  Mangiare! Eat up! It’s good for you!

You will recall on Easter morning, Jesus told the disciples to “go home” – this time they “go back” -walking 7 miles to Jerusalem to share their story.   They were probably pondering all along the way how they, like Mary Magdalene, did not recognize Jesus.  For Mary the revelation (Jesus’ delight) came when she heard Jesus’ voice.  For the Emmaus disciples it was the breaking of the bread.    That continues to this day, Jesus meets us on our way to Emmaus, in the ordinary experiences of our lives, and in the places to which we retreat when life is too much for us. The story warns us, however, that the risen Lord will take delight in coming to us when we least expect him.

In the story of Winnie-the-Pooh, Pooh and Piglet are taking their evening walk. For a long time they walk in the kind of silence good friends can share.  Finally, Piglet asks, “When you wake up in the morning, Pooh, what’s the first thing you say to yourself?” “What’s for breakfast?” answers Pooh and then asks. “And what do you say, Piglet?” Piglet says, “I say, I wonder what exciting thing is going to happen today?”   You and I can’t really plan to meet the Risen Christ because we never really know when or where He’s going to show up. But you can be sure of this: He will show up.  Take delight in his revelation!

Have you heard about the little boy who told his mother, “I’m going out to play ball with God.”  When his mother asked him just how he could do this, the little boy answered: “Oh, I throw the ball up to His sky, and He throws it back to me.”  Jesus will not disappoint you – You can depend on Him – throw the ball up – He will toss it back – be careful it does not land on your head because you failed to recognize him in the unexpected moment.  Consider when an idea comes to you “from out of the blue”.  Might it be God throwing it back to you with the prayer you tossed in his lap?  Might it be God’s way of saying: “Catch!  You can handle this one?”

How about the tale of the young boy walking home through the park after attending a Sunday school class? Somehow, he couldn’t stop thinking about the Bible lesson for that day. What impressed him most was when the teacher said, “You will find the risen Jesus in everyone you meet.” As he continued through the park, he noticed an old woman sitting on a bench. She looked lonely and hungry. So he sat down next to her, took out the chocolate bar he had saved and offered some to her. She accepted it with a beautiful smile.  They sat together in silence, just smiling at each other.  When the boy was leaving, he had gone short distance when he ran back to the bench, and gave the woman a big hug. When he arrived home, his mother asked, “What’s making you so happy today?” He said, “I shared my chocolate bar with Jesus.” Before his mother could ask more questions, he added, “You know, she has the most beautiful smile in the world.”  Meanwhile, the old woman returned to her little apartment where she lived with her sister who remarked, “You seem really happy today.  “I am,” she replied, “I was sitting in the park, eating a chocolate bar with Jesus. And, you know, he looks a lot younger than I expected.”   Isn’t that the lesson in today’s gospel?  We will meet and experience the risen Jesus in unexpected places and persons.  Make someone smile and take care to notice God’s delight in the smiles returned to you.

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

 

Next issue of TIDE is in the mail …  if you are not on our mailing list you can find it on line at www.benedictinesistersoffl.org

  God bless you and your family.

 

 

 

First Reading:   Acts 2:14         Second Reading:  1 Peter 1:17-21
Gospel:   Luke 24:13-35
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Second Sunday of Easter

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The Frailty of Easter  Based in part on a reflection by John Slattery  (adapted)

Easter is all about smallness.  That’s why we are drawn to reading and re-reading the Easter accounts in the Gospels each year.  Despite the ocean of books, songs, sermons, and lectures written about Easter or on Easter-themes, our Scripture includes just four small stories about this Jesus who rose from the dead.  The combined resurrection stories encompass about 3500 words–the equivalent of about 15 pages, the length of an average term paper.

Jesus’ resurrection was such a humble thing.  There were no angel trumpeteers or singers in the skies. It was more like the story in Psalm 119. “Without a word, without a sound, without a voice being heard, the message fills all the earth, resounding to the ends of the universe.”  First, Jesus surprised Mary in the garden.  She told a few other women, then they told a few men and soon Jesus appeared to them.  He spoke about peace, about the Spirit of God, about hope.  He showed his wounds.  He ate some food and then he drifted up into the clouds.  He didn’t march on Rome or lead a rebellion against those who brought him to Pilate.  After his resurrection He didn’t heal anyone else or preach to vast crowds as He had done previously.  He didn’t cast out any more demons, trade barbs with rabbis, or visit the Temple.  The resurrection, in many ways, was a quiet event.

It challenges us to read that Jesus showed his followers his wounds.  “See,” he seems to say, “a broken body is not made whole by erasing the imperfections.  Feel this hole in my side,” he says to Thomas and to each of us.  “See, I have sanctified what the world calls spoiled.  A broken body is made whole not by removing the scars but by embracing the permanence of the wounds.”

We like this small and quiet resurrection where Jesus is not the definition of a contemporary superhero.  He doesn’t return triumphant and knock Pilate off his throne, bringing God’s wrath on the vicious Roman Empire.  He appears to his friends, simply showing his wounds and talking about love and peace.

Today’s story of Thomas illustrates our Christian experience. We are called to believe without seeing.  In fact, all Christians (after the first witnesses) have been called to believe without seeing. Thus, we sing “Without seeing you, we love you; without seeing you, we believe.”  Thomas’ doubt is hardly surprising; the news of Jesus’ appearance was incredible to the disciples who had seen him crucified and buried. Thomas’ human nature compelled him to want hard evidence that the Jesus, who appeared to the disciples after his death was indeed the same Jesus who had been crucified. Thomas is given the opportunity to act on that desire. He is our witness that Jesus is truly raised from the dead.  With him we proclaim: “We have been told, we’ve seen his face, and heard his voice alive in our hearts.”

Jesus wants us to be perfect, but not the kind of perfect that ninjas or Superman display.  Jesus wants us to be perfect “as our heavenly Father is perfect.”  God’s perfection and the message of Jesus’ Resurrection call us to an unconditional embrace of frailty, pain, and brokenness.

It is an embrace that calls us to resist all forms of violence, power, and hatred.  There is growing acknowledgement of that fact that TV and video game violence, like second-hand smoke affects one’s lungs, permanently affects our brains.  Many persons, families, and faith communities refuse to allow TV violence, fictionalized or news reports, to invade their living spaces.  Jesus did not arm his apostles with weapons for revenge — he armed them with prayer and baptized them in a spirit of hope and forgiveness.

We are surrounded today with so much sadness and fear and anger.  We who live in a peaceful community rejoice in the security and sanctity that empowers us to extend open arms in hospitality to those in the world who yearn for that same privilege.

At the end of our Gospel selection we read, “Jesus did many other signs that are not written in this book.  But these ARE written that you may come to believe …and through this belief you may have life in Jesus’ name.

We join the psalmist in singing: “By the Lord has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes.  This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.”

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

 

 

First Reading:   Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47         Second Reading:  1 Peter 1:3-9
Gospel:   John 20:19-31
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Palm Sunday

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The contemporary author Thomas Moore says, “The whole point of a good story is to give birth to other stories and to deep reflection.”  (Thomas Moore Original Self p. 66) The Palm Sunday stories certainly call us to reflection.  There are stories within stories that bring more stories to mind.   We can be tempted to try to reflect on too many details.  In Lectio, as in any of the arts, we can allow the music, the photo, the artwork, the Word to take over.  We, our brain, or attention can overload on details.    So, I suggest a good choice for the Palm Sunday stories may be to simply “sit with” the story.  Together let’s break the Word.    Allow me to share a little of my reflection with you.

Palm Sunday liturgy, it seems to me, is a mixture of themes evoking a potpourri of emotions.  We move from high hosannas and a supper with friends, to an example of loving humility, washing of feet and later washing of hands to a scene of betrayal and mocking.  We meet Simon and Veronica, John and Mary, Joseph and the women.  We are impressed with their loving care and their courage and compassion.  Then we hear the roughness of the soldier’s “Surely this was an innocent man; could he save himself?!.”  We breathe a slow sigh when we hear of the donation of a burial place, the preparation of the body of a loved-one, the watching and waiting … and waiting … and waiting.

Palm Sunday services begin with such glorious solemnity … waving palms, processions, joyful singing of hosanna!  Within about an hour’s time we travel from cries of “Blessed is He who comes in the name of God!” to shouts of “Away with this man – Crucify him!”  I like the Eucharistic acclamation that we no longer use: “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!” We pray for forgiveness and daily bread.   We exchange God’s own peace with each other.  We recall Jesus’ supreme sacrifice and take into ourselves His body and blood.   Then the communion antiphon calls us back to the beginning of the story – to the thread that winds through the whole story: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me: still, not my will but yours be done.”  A few hours later Jesus will utter: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

This same sentiment is echoed in the prayer often used at the Stations of the Cross: “Oh, my God, I love you.  I love you more than myself.  Grant that I may love you always, then do with me what you will.”   When I hand myself over to God, as Jesus did, in a sincere act of self-surrender in the words we (Sisters) sang in our vow ceremony: “Suscipe me”,  I am asking God to accept me NOW, just as I am now, open, vulnerable, powerless.  I am also saying that I am willing to receive whatever God has in store for me in the future: the journey onward, the Palm Sundays, the Good Fridays, the Easters in my life.  “Accept me, accept us, O God as you have promised and I shall live, we shall live; and we shall not be disappointed our hope.”

~by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

May  you have a blessed Holy Week experience and a very Happy Easter!

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Fifth Sunday of Lent

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This story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is so familiar that I’m curious what I may need to hear this Lenten season.  I feel the anguish of the sisters and friends of the deceased as they watch their loved one struggle with a terminal illness, and then watch life drain out of him.  I can feel their frustration when Jesus does not come at their call.  They are hoping against all hope that he would get there in time to keep Lazarus from dying.

We wander into a scene of much confusion.  The two sisters of the dead man had sent word to Jesus that his friend, their brother, was ill. Jesus is said to have loved the three siblings: Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, but he delays responding with the haste we and they might have expected.  To the puzzlement all who were aware of the situation, it is two days later that Jesus finally declares that he will make the journey to Bethany.  Thomas says to his companions: “Let us go with him.”  And he warns that they must be prepared to die with Jesus.

This is the seventh and final sign in John’s gospel.  It appears that the crowd has overheard the exchange between Jesus and Lazarus’ siblings.  It seems obvious Jesus was a frequent “drop in” at their house.  They seem very comfortable with chiding Jesus, weeping in his presence and engaging in a verbal back and forth with him.

Jesus’ delay heightens the drama.  We know the end of the story, so we can recognize that the delay was deliberate.  Jesus had to wait until Lazarus had succumbed to his illness for Jesus to glorify His father through Lazarus’ resurrection.

Can’t you see Jesus?  He elicits from Martha a profession of faith, probably amid many nodding heads of the bystanders, “Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”  (Do you hear the “but” coming?)   Then she runs for Mary – why?  Perhaps she thinks that Mary’s special friendship with Jesus will win his favorable response to their request to “do something!”   Touched by Mary’s tears, Jesus wept!  Then there is a preview of what will happen in a short while: Jesus asks that they roll aside the stone – sign of resurrection.

Don’t you love what happens next?  Raising his eyes Jesus says “Thanks, Father, for hearing me.  I’ve tried with this crowd. I need a little help here – that they may believe that you sent me.”  Then he says in a loud voice: “Lazarus! Come out!”  When Lazarus appears at the mouth of the cave, his burial place, Jesus orders: “Untie him and let him go.”

All through Lent this is what Jesus has been doing for us and calling to us:  He says in a loud voice “Come out!  Be your true self!  Let me untie you, and let you go.  I know you, I love you! And, I know what you are capable of doing and who you can be.  I have a special niche carved out for you.  You are in the palm of my hand.  You have a unique role I have carved out for you to play in the work of creation.  If you stay in the cave of your selfishness and self-interests, hidden behind your mistaken concept of humility, reluctant to respond to the call of my poor ones, the job will not get done.  I need YOU to be my hands on this one.  You say you believe my words.  Now it is time for you to COME OUT.  Let me untie the binding cloths (this is something you can’t do yourself), uncover your face – and let the world see the person that has existed in the mind of God for all eternity.  Don’t worry about the stench from the “four days” you’ve lain in the tomb of resistance to my call.  I invite you again, COME OUT!”

 

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Reading:   Ezekiel 37: 37: 12-14       Second Reading:  Romans 8: 8-11
Gospel:   John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45
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