Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

Lent

Fourth Sunday of Lent

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There are so many fake news stories nowadays that it can be very difficult to know truth from fiction.  I don’t blame those Pharisees for being overly cautious.  We need to be very careful.  Like my mother always said, “If a story is too good to be true, it probably is.”

Everyone is drawn to sensationalism but spreading such a story could really upset things, to the point of creating chaos.  Unfortunately, much of what is reported is commentary disguised as factual news coverage.  And there is an abundance of fake news stories that mislead well-intentioned people.  With all this inundating us, it is easy to become overly skeptical of anything we hear, or cause many to simply turn a deaf ear to all news, fake or real.  Of course, once you cut away all the junk you can find truth out there.

In living out our faith, we are dependent on knowing the truth.  Yet too often we act like the facts of our faith story are up for debate.  We begin to see the account of Jesus in the Gospels as just another series of tales written for grocery store check-out lane gossip rags.

The story of the healing (in this Gospel) of the blind man tells of an encounter with Jesus that leads to freedom and healing.  Jesus was and is real and the fact that he can heal us should be undisputed.  But too often we live our lives in desperation and despair, seemingly unaware that we can take our burdens to Jesus.  We act like the Bible story is just a nice tale to be told at church and not one that exists to change our lives.  It requires good insight and keen powers of discernment to sort fact from fiction.

The secret to having clear inner vision is found in prayer; spending time with God trying to see things as He sees them.  If you take this route, you may have some wonderful surprises.  You’ll begin to see beauty in others, a beauty that others, and we ourselves, often miss because we have eyes to look but not to really see.  In spending quiet time with God you begin to see God’s gifts in life.  An old proverb comes to mind: “None are so blind as those who refuse to see.”  We might add: None are so blind as those who are too busy to see.”

After all, scripture isn’t simply factual news.  It is the GOOD news.

[Inspiration for this reflection was borrowed mainly from a Reflection by Tracy Earl Welliver]

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

Two “big feasts” coming up this week: St. Joseph Day is transferred from Sunday to Monday.  St. Benedict’s Day is celebrated as usual on March 21st … since it is Lent, we will celebrate without the Alleluias in our song …  but in our hearts, they will ring.   Both of these saints are considered patrons of a peaceful death.  Through the intercessions of Joseph and Benedict may all will die today be received into glory.  And, God bless with eternal peace all our deceased family and community members, friends, oblates, and donors.

 

First Reading:   Samuel 16:1b,6-7,10-13a      Second Reading:  Ephesians 5:8-14
Gospel:   John 9:1-41
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Third Sunday of Lent

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The most startling aspect of this famous conversation is that it happened at all. The woman herself alludes to the break from tradition: “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”  What a turmoil of feelings must have muddled her mind!  Here she was a Samaritan.  And not only a foreigner but a WOMAN at that!  Was she embarrassed, ashamed, confused, amazed, or afraid when Jesus spoke to her?  Not only did Jesus converse with the woman, he also asked to share her drinking vessel, an action that makes him unclean according to Jewish law.  Has he thrown caution to the wind?  Is he the only person who hasn’t heard she’s known to mix with the wrong crowd?  What does he mean: bring your husband?  Surely, he must have heard she’s been married five times and man she’s living with now is not her husband.  The thing is it doesn’t matter to Jesus.  Nor does it seem to have mattered to the Evangelist John or else he wouldn’t have included this story.

This woman is like so many other female figures in the Scripture.  She’s only identified by her gender, her ethnicity, and her place in society.  She’s an outcast.  Why would she come to the well in the heat of the day?  Only one thing could explain that.  She has no friends among the women who come to the well in the cool of the day.

Don’t you just love Jesus?  He’s out in the hot sun.  He’s thirsty.  He’s pondering how to get some water out of the well.  Then along comes this woman with a jug.  Maybe it sparked a memory of this mom going to the well, chatting with friends and, when her bucket is full, how she’d beckoned him to help her lug the water back home.

He strikes up a conversation with the woman.  Slowly, slowly he stirs her interest.  To her relief he was not fresh with her – she did not feel intimidated.  He offers her living water as he gently starts talking about her personal life.  The two of them have the longest 1:1 conversation recorded in Scripture.

It was COOL!  The woman recognizes his specialness.  She thinks: “This man must be a prophet.”  The high point of the conversation is when Jesus reveals himself to her as the Messiah.  She abandons her jug and runs through the streets telling her story to every person she meets.  She knows she does not have all the answers.  She does not demand that they believe her tale.  She lets her hearers arrive at their own conclusions about Jesus.  And they do: “This is indeed the Savior of the world.”

For centuries after this day, this woman’s encounter story will be told and retold.  This one day Jesus shared time, a conversation, and the gift of himself with another.  The woman went home that day from the village well with a tale to tell.

The story offers us, I suggest, a model for hospitality and friend cultivation.  As Benedict says, guests may arrive at odd hours.  Take time with the guests; engage them in conversation.  Notice that the woman did not just sit on the edge of the well every day waiting to see who might happen by.  She may have been friendless and lonely, but she did not sit with her skirts spread prettily around her hoping some thirsty visitor would drop by.  She was doing an ordinary chore, her daily chore of getting water.  She may have been wary but she did not run when the stranger approached.  She shared her good fortune: “Come and see” who I bumped into at the well.

Each one of us spent the first 9 months of our existence in an environment surrounded by water.  Likewise, we were baptized in water and we are nourished daily by the Living Waters.  This woman’s story and her encounter with Jesus show us that grace, living water, is within our reach to refresh the parched earth and its peoples.

The setting the of this Scriptural story is casual (a village well); the exchange, intimate and deep.  Our lesson: we can’t sit on the front doorstep or the backyard swing and wait for guests to show up.  We have to step into “scary places”.  We have to venture out to the “village square at high noon”.  If we offer the richness from the source of our life together, like ripples on the surface of the water in the well, one by one strangers will become friends.

Jesus tells us: “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will become a well-spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  We pray: “Sir, give us of this water; that we may not be thirsty again.”

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 Have an enjoyable St. Patrick’s Day! Our bishop has granted a dispensation for “Fish Friday” with the stipulation that we choose another day this week to abstain from meat. Do you know why we “don’t eat meat on Fridays”?? You may quickly reply: Jesus died on a Friday.  But, why refrain from meat???

Looking forward to next week when we will celebrate St. Joseph on Monday and St. Benedict on Tuesday 😊 and the Annunciation of the Lord on Saturday (the 24th)

 

First Reading:   Exodus 17:3-7       Second Reading:  Romans 5:1-2,5-8
Gospel:   John 4:5-42
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Second Sunday of Lent

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“Jesus took Peter, James and his brother John off by themselves and led them up a high mountain.”  This transfiguration account appears just after Jesus has reminded the disciples, “Whoever loses your life for My sake, and the gospel –  will save your life.  Then Jesus lets these remarks soak in and take root for six days before he sets off up the mountain with Peter, James and John in tow.

The story (I believe) calls each one of us to examine what mountains we must climb to see God’s glory.  We could apply the story to death or a near-death experience, but if we do that, we miss the everyday mountains that we must scale.  Call those mountains what you will, we must climb them to witness God’s glory: hurdles, challenges, enticing temptations, near occasions of sin, quirks of personality, Lenten resolutions, pet peeves…. Some days they are like a little pebble on our path.  Or, they can be like a grain of sand inside your shoe.  Other days, they are like boulders for which we need a backhoe to lever them inch by inch.  Everyone’s mountain is different. But, to witness God’s glory, we must each climb our own “mountains”.

As we become aware that we are nearing a mountaintop, we must relax and rest, and keep our eyes open to see God’s glory.  We must stay alert, careful not to misread the signs; have the insight to know that we are at the top.  We gaze on the God of the Revelation.  In awe we may wonder: Why did God choose me?  Why does God love me so much?

What causes you to miss the “small miracles”, the “everyday transfigurations”, the “Emmaus” moments along the path to Life? Gently remind yourself, that Jesus and the disciples also went back down the mountain.  Thank God when you get to top and do not be distracted with worry over “what’s going to happen next?”

Jesus did not become “more God” that day on the mountain.  I don’t think the change was so much in Jesus, as it was in the disciples.  They were ready.  They had climbed the mountain.   And their eyes were open to witness the miracle of the moment.   What are the miracles of the moments of your life?

When you have had a “mountaintop experience” you don’t forget it!  When the veil was removed from your eyes and you beheld Jesus as He really is, you can recall every detail of the moment.  Maybe it was while you were on retreat, or a day of recollection, during adoration or Stations of the Cross, or out of the blue.  Maybe it was in the privacy of your own room or in a crowd.  Maybe it happens at the Consecration of the Mass or when you look across the dining table or at a confrere across the aisle in chapel.

God is already there; is right here NOW.   Jesus invites us up the mountain and leads the way.  We must open our awareness to witness the transfiguration. God reveals the Son little by little to those who take the time and interest to stay with Him.  When we follow His lead, stay with the experience, do what it takes to build our relationship, foster life with the Other; in essence we live out our vow of stability.

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 Have a good week.

 

 

First Reading:   Genesis 12:1-4a        Second Reading:  Timothy 1:8b-10
Gospel:   Matthew 17:109
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First Sunday of Lent

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This weekend’s Gospel tells us that Jesus fasted 40 days and then the intense temptations began.  First about food – about self; then, about stones – the temple, Jesus’ immediate surroundings, His community.  The third temptation was related to political power, the kingdom, the whole world.

Jesus enjoyed good food, a good meal with friends.  Walking through fields of grain, he savored the wheat kernels.  In Cana, He supplied first-rate wine.  He sent his disciples ahead to arrange for supper the night before He died.

Years ago …  many years ago, a retreat master from Atchison told this story – at least this is my memory of the story.  Why I remember this particular story from among all the spiritual wisdom our retreat directors have offered – I have no clue.  The story goes that a certain monk wanted to do something really heroic for Lent.  From his earliest years, this man relished a good piece of sausage.  He savored it, his mouth watered when he thought about a full breakfast with eggs and sausage.  So, for Lent he decided to give up sausage.  It was not too hard because they rarely had sausage in the monastery, and certainly not during Lent. So, he put a small sausage link in his room where he could smell it everyday.  After a while, he hardly noticed the scent, so he hung the sausage head-high just inside the doorway so he’d run into it each time he entered his room.   As that became commonplace to him, he decided to hang the sausage over his bed where he would see it last thing at night and first thing in the morning.

As the days of Lent went by, he gradually lowered the sausage until it was just above his nose.  In a few days even that was no challenge, so on Palm Sunday he started lowering the sausage into his mouth for a few seconds – dreaming of the taste of sausage on at Easter Sunday breakfast.  All through Holy Week, he lowered the sausage into his mouth for a few more seconds every day.  Until on Good Friday this now holy, self-disciplined monk – ate it!

In Jesus’ first temptation, the devil is trying to entice Him away from his mission so he can avoid suffering and death.  Aren’t we, too, sometimes tempted to turn aside from our Lenten mission?  When we are tired, hungry, feeling drained of energy on many levels, it is then that the devil is grinning with glee at the prospect of getting us to throw in the towel on all our good resolutions. Beware the wiles of the devil – he is cunning.

In the second temptation, the devil insists that Jesus is entitled to divine safety and protection.  Whenever you are tempted to amaze people with your grand ideas, remember Jesus’ reply: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

In the third temptation, the devil wants Jesus to compromise good by using the wrong means.  We too, can be tempted to meet legitimate human needs using the wrong means.

The Gospel story of Jesus’ temptations occurs at the outset of his ministry, so to speak his first day on the job. He is confronted with three major enticements but he outfoxes the devil and goes on to win His crown.  You know the saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”  Did you see the story about the deputy who landed his first job?  A local sheriff was looking for a deputy, and one of the applicants, who was not known to be the brightest academically, was called in for an interview. “Okay,” began the sheriff, “What is 1 and 1?” “Eleven,” came the reply. The sheriff thought to himself, “That’s not what I meant, but he’s right.” Then the sheriff asked, “What two days of the week start with the letter ‘T’?” “Today & tomorrow,” replied the applicant. The sheriff was again surprised over the answer, one that he had never thought of himself. “Now, listen carefully. Who killed Abraham Lincoln?” asked the sheriff. The jobseeker seemed a little surprised, then thought really hard for a minute and finally admitted, “I don’t know, Sir.” The sheriff replied, “Well, why don’t you go home and work on that one for a while?” The applicant left and wandered over to his pals who were waiting to hear the results of the interview. He greeted them with a cheery smile, “The job is mine! The interview went great!  First day on the job and I’m already working on a murder case!”

On Tuesday this coming week we (the Benedictine Sisters of Florida) will celebrate the 134th anniversary of that day in 1889 the “interview went great!”  Those 5 Sisters hit the floor running their “first day on the job.”  And, we’ve been running ever since.  The heritage of our five founding Sisters has been our inspiration for good works.  God bless them and all who have gone before us on their faith journeys – those who came as academy and prep school students; those who came and stayed awhile; those who discovered their life path elsewhere and those who spent their lives as life-members in our community.

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

First Reading:   Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7         Second Reading:  Romans 5:12-19
Gospel:   Matthew 4:1-11
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Ash Wednesday

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Ashes of death on our foreheads,
seeds of hope in our hearts. 
As we begin the journey, beyond the cross,
let us remember,
God prepares us for life, not for death,
for resurrection and not for crucifixion,
for love and not for hate.
In a world where death holds us bound, and violence seems to reign
in thought and deed,
may this journey of Lent get us ready
to be God’s good news
of hope and wholeness,
peace and reconciliation,
and resurrection life.
Christine Sine

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Be Perfect

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That last line is quite a challenge, isn’t it??  “Be perfect.”

In his book: Be A Perfect Person, Stephen Manes writes:
Congratulations!  You’re not perfect!  It’s ridiculous to want to be perfect anyway.  But then, everybody’s ridiculous sometimes, except perfect people.  You know what perfect is?  Perfect is not eating or drinking or talking or moving a muscle or making even the teensiest mistake.  Perfect is never doing anything wrong – which means never doing anything at all.  Perfect is boring!  So, you’re not perfect!  Wonderful!  Have fun! … You can drink pickle juice and imitate gorillas and do silly dances and sing stupid songs and wear funny hats and be as imperfect as you please and still be a good person.  Good people are hard to find nowadays.  And they’re a lot more fun than perfect people any day of the week.

So, if we believe Manes’ assertion that we can never be perfect, and perhaps we should not even try to be, what do we do with this difficult word from Jesus?  It’s helpful to learn that the word most often translated as “perfect” actually comes from the Greek word telos, which means goal, end, or purpose.  Jesus is not urging us to be what most people think of as “perfect,” but rather to be more like what God intends for us to be.  You are a child of God, made in God’s image.  Now live like it!

Now, that may not make things any easier, but it does help put the challenge into a more useful context.  The only way we can possibly live as Jesus is asking – repaying evil with good, forgiving and praying for those who harm us, walking the extra mile – is by living into our God-given identity as beloved children.  You know you can’t give what you don’t know; what you’ve never experienced.  Only those who have known God’s love can possibly hope to share it with others.  Jesus isn’t asking us, like some demanding parents, to make all “A’s,” get lots of trophies, be named “member of the year.”  Jesus is nudging us to live the God-given identity you received at baptism: You are a child of God!

It is Jesus who gave us the greatest example – He was the perfect model – he talked the talk and walked the walk.  Is it easy to follow His example?  Certainly not.  We struggle to overcome past disappointments, to overcome old grudges, deep-seated prejudices, smoldering resentments.  It’s our greatest challenge … not to be perfect, but to be mindful of what is getting in our way and preventing us from being the people God wants us to be.  So I ask …What is blocking you?  What fears or memories or resentments keep you from being the person God wants you to be?

What is it that keeps us from living into our identity as a child of God?  Lent is the time to remove the impediments so that you can truly embrace our God-given identity as citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom.

Recall the lines credited to Saint Teresa of Calcutta:

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.

Be kind anyway.

If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you.

Be honest and sincere anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.

Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.

Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.

Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it was never between you and them anyway; it is between you and God.

 

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

Lent is coming …  may you have good, prayerful, spiritual experience … 

 

 

First Reading:   Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18         Second Reading:  1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Gospel:   Matthew 5:38-48

 

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