Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

Lent

2017 Fourth Sunday in Lent

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First Reading   1 Samuel 16:1b,6-7,10-13a   Second Reading   Ephesians 5:8-14
Gospel John 9:1-41 (shorter form: John 9:1,6-9,13-17,34-38)

 

Today’s headline above the fold … and TV scrolling Breaking News:

It’s a Miracle! Man Born Blind Can Now See!

Earlier today a man, blind from birth, encountered the man they call Jesus of Nazareth and apparently now he can see! It was Jesus who stopped and spoke to the man, rubbed clay on his eyes, and then instructed him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. Like magic, the blind man then could suddenly see! Of course, some of the authorities spoke out in dismay since this so-called healing took place on the Sabbath. Even his parents had very little to comment out of fear of repercussions. However, what’s the bottom line? Man born blind now can see!

Fake news for sure!  Like my mother always said, “If a story is too good to be true, it probably is.” There are just so many fake news stories nowadays it can be very difficult knowing truth from fiction. We need to be very careful.

I don’t blame those Pharisees for being overly cautious. Someone spreading such news could have really upset things to the point of creating chaos. But of course, everyone is drawn to sensationalism.

There is an overwhelming flood of news and information that can wash us away if we are not careful. Unfortunately, much of it is commentary disguised as factual news coverage. Then there is the phenomenon of fake news stories that so often mislead well-intentioned people. With all this inundating us, it is easy to become overly skeptical of anything we hear, or even simply deaf 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 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 like they were written for a grocery store aisle magazine.

The story of the healing 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.

My fear is that too many Christians hear the stories of Jesus but they don’t listen to them. When we hear something we take in sound and physically react. When we really listen we internalize what we hear and then form a real opinion that can motivate us for a response. Indeed, in our world we are lacking a good bit of response to the Gospel.

These Gospel readings of the three weeks in which we find ourselves, from the Samaritan woman at the well to the raising of Lazarus, are proclaimed every year at the liturgies that feature Scrutinies for those in RCIA. They are meant to truly form and change the person who listens to them. They tell of a Jesus who offers us new life in him. Our Savior offers living water, dispels the darkness, and conquers the power of death. These are not simply the climaxes to good stories. This is real truth.

The Son of God is alive and well and we are all called to testify to that truth with our lives. We must step out of the shadows and be bold in our testimony. We must proclaim to a world in dire need that Jesus is Lord. We must take seriously the call to evangelize all who can hear and to spread the good news to the ends of the earth.

After all, it isn’t fake news. It isn’t alternate facts.   It isn’t even simply factual news. It is the GOOD news.

Borrowed mainly from LPI Reflection by Tracy Earl Welliver
Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB, Prioress
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Soul-shaking Change

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2017 Third Sunday in Lent

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

This unnamed but well-known woman experienced a major change in her life.  She was engaged in the longest recorded conversation with Jesus.  The most starting aspect of the conversation is that it happened at all.  Jesus, an observant Jew, was expected to avoid conversation with women in public.  Move than that, to begin with, the animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans would have prevented the conversation in the first place.  The woman herself mentions it, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” Yet Jesus not only converses with her, he also asks her to share her drinking vessel, an action that, according Jewish law, makes him unclean.

The high point of the conversation is when Jesus reveals himself to her as the Messiah.  As this, the woman becomes a disciple.  She, an outcast and not a Jew, returns to her town to round up people to come meet Jesus for themselves.  This personal encounter has both a social and an educational dimension.  The woman became an evangelist to her own people and Jesus uses the incident to incident to teach the disciples a lesson in mercy.

Don’t you love how Jesus gently converses with this woman!  In the view of his disciples she was the wrong gender, from the wrong place, and lives a wrong life.  But, this day, Jesus is tired and thirsty.  Then, this lady (though her neighbors would never have called her a lady) approaches.  No one went to the well at high noon – it was just too hot.  She is skittish at the sight of a strange man.  She had to get her water when she thought no one else would be around.  She’s grown accustomed to suffering two extremes:  guys’ catcalls as she walked down the road or she’d been ignored.  Her defenses were up.  She wasn’t going to take any guff (she may have thought another word for it).  But, she wasn’t stupid; she was gutsy.  Despite the taboo of tradition, she talked back to Jesus.  And Jesus in the words of Psalm 34 “watched over the righteous and listened to her cry; He rescued her from her troubles and drew near to this one who was discouraged; He saved her who had lost hope.”  “Give me a drink.”

The exchange continued between the two of them.  He offered her living water.  This must have sounded GREAT!  She wouldn’t have to go to that well anymore!   She wouldn’t have to suffer the jeers, the whispers, the stares and finger-pointing.  She took in all Jesus said, pondered his words, digested it and then insisted the townspeople listen to her.  It was such an amazing, remarkable experience she couldn’t keep it to herself.  She ran shouting: “Come, see a man who told me everything that I did.  Can this be the Christ?!“    In the end, they answered for themselves, “This is indeed the Savior of the world.”

In Joan Chittister’s blog this week there is an excerpt from her book ILLUMINATED LIFE.  Joan reminds her readers that there is a lot more involved than may at first appear in making a soul-shaking change in our lives.  In Joan’s words:

Changing the way we go about life is not all that difficult. We all do it all the time. We change jobs, states, houses, relationships, lifestyles over and over again as the years go by. But those are, in the main, very superficial changes. Real change is far deeper than that. It is changing the way we look at life that is the stuff of conversion.

Metanoia, conversion, is an ancient concept that is deeply embedded in the monastic worldview. Early seekers went to the desert to escape the spiritual aridity of the cities, to concentrate on the things of God. “Flight from the world”—separation from the systems and vitiated values that drove the world around them—became the mark of the true contemplative. To be a contemplative in a world bent on materialism and suffocated with itself, conversion was fundamental. But conversion to what? To deserts? Hardly. The goal was purity of heart, single-mindedness of search, focus of life.

We do not need to leave where we are to become contemplative. “Flight from the world” is not about leaving any specific location. (Remember the Samaritan woman didn’t leave town – she ran back to the villagers. Joan continues:)  “Flight from the world” is about shedding one set of attitudes, one kind of consciousness for another. We simply have to be where we are with a different state of mind. We have to sit at home … with the good of the whole world in mind…

What needs to be changed in us? Anything that makes us the sole-center of ourselves. Anything that deludes us into thinking that we are not simply a work in progress… all of those professional degrees, status, achievements, and power are no substitute for the wisdom that a world full of God everywhere, in everyone, has to teach us.

To become a contemplative, a daily schedule of religious events and practices is not enough. We must begin to do life, to be with people, to accept circumstances, to bring good to evil in ways that speak of the presence of God in every moment.

[from Illuminated Life by Joan Chittister]

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Palm Sunday 2016

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palm-sunday1There’s a saying you’ve surely heard:  “something just has to be said.”  In our Palm Sunday readings we discover those who are eager to say it, those who would say it if no one else did, and we see those who were determined that it not be said.

Let’s start with those who were eager to say it. The crowds who had seen Jesus’ ministry, his miracles, heard his teaching, even partially comprehended the meaning of what he was saying. Their lives had been touched and they were eager to speak and cry out “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  Their words were an acknowledgment that they were placing their hope in Jesus – their future, their security, their salvation.  They expressed that hope by throwing their cloaks in front of the donkey Jesus was sitting on. Loud words were on their lips in acknowledgement of Jesus as the Chosen One, the Messiah come to deliver them.   The palm branches that padded the path were, in and of themselves, but a symbol; their worship was in their words and actions.

We know there were also those in the time of Jesus who were determined that some things not be said – those who just had no stomach for acknowledging that Jesus was the Messiah – the one who deserved what they considered a bunch of “hoopla.”

That spirit is in our culture today to. We hear voices that say “Just keep your religion to yourself. And, whatever you do, don’t be loud about it.”   We hear it expressed in choices to ignore history, disbelieve the evidence of global warming, choose to turn their backs, or worse their hearts, against persons of other cultures, upbringing, and color. Modern-day Pharisees have learned not to listen to it; to remain silent – to let the chips fall where they will as long as they don’t land in their back yards.

Thank God for the Thomas Mertons and the Joan Chittisters and Pope Francis in our day; for websites and blogs like “Climate change” and others that keep us alert to issues of injustice and crimes against humanity and the very earth itself: immigration and trafficking and fracking and the list goes on.  If those who are divinely gifted with the ability to speak remain silent, then the voice-less gifts of creation will cry out in “silent speech.”   We recall that Scripture tells us that when Jesus died on the cross, the Pharisees did not want it acknowledged that this Jesus they’d crucified was the Son of God. Even the disciples had turned silent, fled and hid.

But, what did happen? The Sun cried out the only way it could – by becoming dark from the 6th to the 9th hour.  The rocks cried out the only way they could, the earth shook, graves were opened and saints arose to give glory to God.  The temple cried out in the only way it could by tearing in two, top to bottom, the curtain that separated the holy from the unholy rendering it a useless monument to a ministry that was no longer valid.

Even the cross on which Jesus was hanging spoke out, proclaiming to all who saw it:  “This is the king of the Jews.”  Now unbelievers like the Centurion would cry out “surely this was the Son of God

The point is this: If we remain silent, as they say: “to keep the peace” – if we refuse to put our faith into words, creation will have to speak out. Some things just have to be said, and they will be said even if we do not say them.  Will those who are gifted with words use that gift, or will the rest of creation have to do it the only way that it can, by upheaval?

Palm Card PicWhen you participate in the Palm Sunday procession, pray for those who have no sense of who Jesus is and what marvelous things He has done for us.  We’ll wave our palms: We’ll sing Hosanna and look ahead to the Easter miracle.  Keep the palm and use it to remind yourself of who you were on Palm Sunday.

Gaze on your palm frond this week as you take assessment on your personal Lenten resolutions.  Note its color, its tapering shape, its flexibility – think about what it can become: a decorative cross, a floweret or hat to shield us from the sun’s penetrating rays.  Did you see a difference this year in your participation in our community activities?  Was it as whole-hearted as it might have been?  Did you make generous donations to our collections for Daystar and AIM?  Did the Corporal Works of Mercy get a little more attention this Lent?  How do you foresee yourself carrying forward the changes that, with the help of God’s grace, you have practiced for 6 weeks – that’s how long it takes to form new habits.  So the question is: Did it take?  Will it be a lasting change?

When times get tough, gaze at your palm frond to remind yourself of who you could be. Not the person in the crowd who yells out what everyone else is yelling, but that person who believes what she said on Palm Sunday, and who will follow Christ on the journey wherever it leads.

~Reflection by Prioress, Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB
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Are You In Danger of Becoming a Pharisee?

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It’s pretty easy to spot a Pharisee, and we might not like it to admit it, but we can all behave like a Pharisee if we’re not careful.   How will you knowPharisees if you’re a Pharisee?

If your official title is longer than your given name.

  • If you’re willing to be merciful – once.
  • If you feel your rules are the REAL rules.
  • If everyone outside your immediate circle, and most within it, are always wrong.
  • If God’s still small voice… sounds exactly like your own.
  • If you feel all the apples are spilled out of your cart when a rule is bent.
  • If you know the Word of God, but not the God of the Word.

You see, the Pharisees of Jesus’ day had started out wanting TO PLEASE God. They began in a day when Israel was deeply tainted with immorality and unrighteousness and somebody needed to stand in the gap. And the Pharisees stepped up to fill that need. And in an era where many Jews had abandoned the law of God, the Pharisees became like prophets to their people pointing them back to the Law of Moses and obedience to God’s will.

The Pharisees were THE religious people of the day and they took their “faith” seriously. Any time people take their faith seriously, it’s not a big step over the line from pleasing God to disobeying God.

So we want to be careful WE don’t do that too.  You see the Pharisees didn’t set out to make God angry.   They wanted to obey every one of God’s commands. They didn’t wake up one morning saying: “I’m going to make God mad today!”  It was just that their thinking was warped.  Rules had become all-important – People were UNIMPORTANT.  When the Pharisees brought this adulterous woman to Jesus… they didn’t care about her. A rule had been broken. She needed to be exposed.  She was only a tool – an object lesson they wanted to use to get at Jesus. They really hated Jesus.

In their warped thinking, God’s agenda was what they decided. And, they believed as long as they kept the rules their personal sins could be covered up. In reality they had no intention of stoning the woman … she was just a prop.  In fact, they couldn’t stone her. Once Rome conquered Judah, Judah became a Roman territory, and under Roman law, only the Roman governors had the authority to condemn people to death. You only have to look at the Crucifixion of Jesus to see that truth.  Do you remember who’s approval the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law needed to have Jesus executed? That’s right – Pilate. He was the Roman Governor at the time.

It was a perfect trap.  They didn’t care about the woman. And they didn’t care about Jesus. In their minds both of them had broken their rules… and both needed to be destroyed.

You need to understand, these Pharisees saw Jesus as an enemy of THEIR god. Their god was on THEIR side… and so anyone who opposed them was opposing God.

We can end up making Jesus our enemy by substituting our personal agenda for His. And if you’re not careful… you’ll not even know you’ve done it.  BUT there is one symptom of this dangerous attitude. It should be like a road sign saying “Don’t go there.”

When you get mad people don’t listen to you. Your opinion is being ignored. Things aren’t going YOUR way.  That can make you really angry. YOUR agenda is obviously the right agenda.  If you’re right it follow the other must be wrong.  If you feel that’s happening, pay attention. It’s a sign that you’re in danger of becoming a Pharisee.

The Pharisees had convinced themselves that if they could “look” good on the outside, that was as good as “being good” on the inside.  They fooled themselves into thinking that obeying certain rules was just as good as being righteous before God.  In fact they got most of the rules right.  By contrast, a Pharisee could tell you were going to hell – and you could tell they were thinking “got what you deserved – glad you are on your way.”

As this true story illustrates, warped thinking can lead you down a Pharisee-like path:

A 4-year told his mother” “Mom, I’m not gonna be like those bad guys Jesus was talking to; I’m not going to sin anymore.”   “Well, that’s very nice,” (she said). “What made you decided not to sin anymore?”  He answered: “Cause Jesus said if you don’t sin, you can throw the first stone and I want to throw the first stone.”

Reflection by Prioress, Sr. Roberta Bailey, OSB
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The Prodigal Son

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prodigalIf you were around before Vatican II for long Latin choir rehearsals, you may recall the melody of the antiphon that announced the Fourth Sunday of Lent.  It’s one of those that stays with you … (sing) Laetare translates from Latin to English “Rejoice”.   This is also known as “Refreshment Sunday” – a day when the austerity of Lent is relaxed a little, and the violet vestments of Lent can be replaced with rose-colored ones.   A special kind of fruit cake was often served on this Sunday modestly breaking the Lenten Fast.

According to another old tradition, although it probably is not on anyone’s list of approved feast days, is “Laugher Sunday” or “Holy Humor Sunday” – a day celebrating the big joke that God pulled on Satan.  Thus the name: God’s Joke or the Easter Laugh – a day to lighten up, relax, and recall the joy and the goodness of the Lord.  (We anticipated it a bit with our Hoedown!)  In honor of Laughter Sunday, here’s one to tickle your funny bone.    During a lesson on Easter, a religious education teacher asked the class, “What did Jesus do on this day?  Getting no response, she prompted: It begins with R. “I know!” blurted out a child: “Recycle.”

But on a more serious bent … The context of today’s Gospel is not to be made light of.  Sinners and social outcasts were “all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to say”. The Pharisees and Scribes, who were the “good and religious” people, were shocked and disturbed. “This man welcomes sinners and [even worse] eats with them.” By their standards, a “good” person avoids “bad company”. To be quite honest, don’t we think the same? If so, then we are not thinking like Jesus.

We typically title this Gospel story the “Prodigal Son” but, in fact, the emphasis is less on the son than on the father, who clearly represents God and Jesus.

No one can deny the appalling behavior of the younger son in this Gospel. He took all that his father generously gave to him as his inheritance and used it in leading a life of total debauchery and self-centered indulgence. Eventually, he had nothing and was reduced to living with pigs, something utterly abhorrent to the Jewish mind, and even sharing their slops, something even we would find appalling. “Served him right,” might be the reaction of many, especially the good and morally respectable.

This, however, is not the reaction of the father, who has only one thought in his mind – how to get his son to come back to where he belongs. The father does not say: “This son has seriously offended me and brought disgrace on our family. He better not come crawling back here.  I disown him!”  Instead he says: “My son went away, is lost and I want so much to have him back.” He stands in the doorway of his house many long hours, watching, waiting, longing … His love for his wayward son has not changed one iota.

There is no force involved. The police are not sent out. There is not an “Amber” alert. Servants are not instructed to haul him back. No, the father waits. It is up to the son himself to make the crucial decision: does he want to be with his father or not?

Eventually he “came to his senses”, that is, he realized the wrongness of what he had done. He became aware of just how good his father had been. The process of repentance had begun. He felt deeply ashamed of his behavior and then, most significant of all, he turned around to make his way back to his father.

The father, for his part, filled with compassion for his son’s experiences, runs out to meet him, embraces him and brushes aside the carefully prepared speech the son had prepared. If the son had known his father better, he would have realized that such a speech was unnecessary. Immediately, orders are given to bring the very best things in the house and a banquet is laid out.   This is forgiveness on the part of both the father and the son – a return to where each ought to be in relationship to the other.

This is where the elder son comes in. He simply cannot understand what is happening. “It’s just not fair!” How many times have we heard this spoken or, be truthful, felt in our hearts?  “It’s not fair, just because she’s the baby; you didn’t let me stay out that late when I was her age!”  And the litany grows.  We challenge our parents and one another’s generosity, operating from the perspective of limited resources. If she gets it, perhaps there won’t be enough for me.

Jesus wants his hearers (us) to understand that this is not how it is with God’s mercy, love and forgiveness. God offers love to all of us in abundance. The forgiveness of the father in the parable is an image of God’s love for us: generosity beyond measure!

By our standards, even God is unjust.  In fact, he is corrupted by love! That’s fortunate for us!  Supposing we went to confession one day and the priest said, “Sorry, that’s it. No more forgiveness, no more reconciliation. You’ve used up your quota. Too bad! ” Of course, it’s not like that.  Thankfully there is no limit to God’s forgiveness, mercy and love.  God has a deep desire to forgive – to be totally reconciled with us when we’ve severed the bond of relationship.  There is always a place in God’s company for us.  The question is: Do you truly believe that God acts this way towards us?  Can we humbly accept divine mercy without jealousy, knowing that God’s love for another does not diminish the love shown and showered upon us?

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Trying Not To

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boy-eating-cookieI think we all understand what temptation is.   Imagine there’s a little boy in a grocery store who walks by an open pack of peanut butter cookies. The clerk notices him eye the cookies.  “What are you doing there?” “Nothing,” replied the boy. “It looks to me like you’re trying to steal a cookie.” “No,” said the boy, “I’m trying not to.” That’s temptation!

We understand that temptation leads to trouble.  Such was the plight of the man that I read about in Reader’s digest.  This man said he was shopping in the mall with his wife when a shapely young woman is a short, form-fitting dress walked by.  He followed her with his eyes.  Without looking up from the item she was examining his wife asked, “Was it worth the trouble you are in?”  That’s the trouble with temptation.

How many of us have shrugged and said, “The devil made me do it!” and used that as an excuse when caught doing something we weren’t supposed to?  It’s a convenient defense.  But there’s one problem: the devil can’t MAKE us do anything.  He may be clever, but he’s not all powerful.  It may feel that way, however, when we’re dangling on temptation’s hook, because the devil has a tried and true strategy for luring us into his net.  First, he lays out the bait.  He knows us like a skilled fisherman knows fish.  He notes our habits, observes our hangouts; then he drops a custom-made lure right in front of our noses.

Then, comes the appeal.  He can’t make us bite, but he does know what happens when we catch a glimpse of the tantalizing bait … like the snapshot promo on TV.  We’re drawn in, we linger over it, we toy with the idea, roll it over in our minds until it consumes our imagination … we just HAVE to know what the gossip tid-bit was we overheard is all about.

Now the struggle really begins.  Our conscience jabs us in the ribs, the red flags go up, the warning sirens go off but the invitation looks so delightful.  What do we do?

Benedict knew about this, didn’t he?  Remember in chapter 43 where he warns if the monastic comes late for chapel, if though ashamed, she should still come inside lest she be tempted to return to bed and sleep.  Or, worse he says, settle down outside and engage in idle talk, thereby giving occasion to the Evil One.  They should come inside so that they will not lose everything and may amend in the future.”

Either we will resist or yield, swim away or swallow the temptation whole.  When you give in you know the feeling of emptiness and the pain that sticks in your neck.  But, be alert when you do resist – be ready for the temptation to come from a different direction.  However, when you’ve resisted you will know a feeling of freedom that envelopes you.

It seems there are three general kinds of temptations that our adversary still uses. He often tries to work his wiles on the heels of a spiritual high point in our life.  Or it may come at a time of physical weakness, or when we’re are alone and are more susceptible to temptation – then be prepared for a major attack.    Jesus experienced the devil’s temptation, just after his baptism and the Father’s affirmation; when he was hungry following his 40-day fast, when he was alone in the desert.  Thus he could sympathize, no, –  empathize with us,

This Gospel lesson alerts us to the dangers – the allurement of the devil – to be tempted to be independent – like a two-year-old’s “I’ll do it myself.”  Or we may give into temptation to take the easy way out.  It will be less suffering, no struggle, no sacrifice … why work to conquer our self-will when the world could be handed to you on a silver platter – give you a free ride?

The one thing common to all three of the temptations described is that Satan attempted to distract Jesus from his mission and to destroy his relationship with his Heavenly Father.  You may have to fight the battle more than once to win it.  Don’t give up!  There is truth in the story of what Martin Luther said when he was asked how he overcame the devil.  “When the devil comes knocking at the door of my heart, asking who lives there,” Jesus comes to the door says: “Martin Luther used to live here, but he has moved out.  Now I live here.”  When Christ fills our lives Satan just has no entrance.

You may have learned this little ditty of a prayer as a child.  It’s still a good one for nightly protection:  I liken it to a child’s compline (evening prayer) –

“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless this bed that I lie on.
Before I close my eyes in sleep,
I give my soul to Christ to keep.

Four corners to my bed,
Four angels ’round my head,
One to watch, one to pray,
And two to bear my soul away.

I go by sea, I go by land,
The Lord made me with his right hand,
If any danger come to me,
Sweet Jesus Christ, deliver me.

For he’s the branch and I’m the flower,
Pray God send me a happy hour,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

 

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