Benedictine Sisters of FL

Holy Name Monastery
Founded 1889

Pope Francis

Good Shepherd Sunday

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In the earliest Christian art, the only depictions of Jesus are of Him as a Good Shepherd. That image of Jesus persisted until about 500 AD.   By that time eighty-eight frescoes depicted the Good Shepherd on the ceilings of the Roman catacombs because artists had run out of space of the walls of the churches of Rome.  The image of the Good Shepherd speaks to us about the protection, intimacy, security, and compassionate care.  If one looks carefully in many of those first paintings the Good Shepherd is a woman.  Yes, the ladies stayed close to the home to keep an eye on the flock and stir the all-purpose kitchen pot in preparation for the for the mid-day main meal.

In some images we see Jesus holding a lamb around his neck, over his shoulders, holding the two front legs of the sheep in one hand and the two rear legs in the other. Our minds naturally begin to wander and we realize it holds personal meaning for us. We are that lamb who is being carried by Jesus. It’s reassuring for us, in the dark days of our lives, that although we may feel empty and alone, we are never abandoned.

The image of the Good Shepherd is symbolized in a beautiful way by the Pallium which the pope and archbishops wear over their shoulders while celebrating Mass. The Pallium is made from lamb’s wool from sheep raised by the Trappist monks on the outskirts of Rome.  When mature, the sheep are taken to the Pope for a blessing and then cared for by Benedictine Nuns at St. Cecelia’s (where Benedict lived while he was going to school in Rome) until they are sheared on Holy Thursday.   The lamb’s wool is meant to represent the lost, sick or weak sheep in the desert which the shepherd finds and places on his shoulders and carries to the waters of life.

At night a shepherdess can walk right through a sleeping flock without disturbing a single one of them, while a stranger cannot step foot in the fold without causing pandemonium.  And when several shepherds and their sheep are at a watering hole and it is time to leave all the shepherds have to do is call and their flock separates itself and follows their shepherd.

This is what we need to do when confronted with a cacophony chorus of conflicting opinions … but we can only do this if, as Pope Francis frequently reminded us, “it is essential in order to cope with complexity and change, that we have developed the ability to withdraw for quiet reflection.  Only then will we truly know the voice of our shepherd, heed His voice and follow wherever God calls.”

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

 

 

First Reading:   Acts of the Apostles 13:14, 43-52         Second Reading:  Revelation 7:9, 14b-17
Gospel:   John 10:27-30
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Receive the kingdom of God like a little child

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Isn’t it a shame that pastors have the option of omitting the last portion of this Gospel  – the part about the children.  I hope they don’t exercise that option especially after Pope Francis’ many displays of affection and regard for children.

In this Gospel the people were bringing their children to Jesus, much like they do today to Pope Francis.  It is the children (urged on by their parents) who can manage to break through security the lines, past the preoccupied patrols and approach Pope Francis.  But the disciples just don’t get it.  Jesus has summed up the lesson pointing out the value and importance of these “little ones” in the Kingdom of God. Jesus offers the children as an example of the kind of complete trust and dependence upon God that ought to be the attitude of all believers.

There is a subtle pressure in church and society to remain a dependent child.   Who is it (in life) that truly challenges you to liberate yourselves from immature dependencies to acceptance of the burdens of a responsible adults?

How can we heed Jesus’ injunction to accept the kingdom of God like a child?  Or risk never entering it?  What does it mean to be childlike, and not childish?  What qualities is Jesus asking us to hang on to in order to enter the kingdom not only beyond the “pearly gates” but right here on earth, in our community, where God’s kingdom exists?

A few qualities I think he might encourage would be:

  • Live Spontaneously – taking in every moment and the opportunities in unplanned instants.
  • How about never letting a lack of qualifications deter you –If you’ve never done something before, be fearless like a child who pulls out a kitchen drawer to scramble up to the cabinet to get the peanut butter.  Isn’t this how Olympic gymnasts start?
  • Kids Know Exercise Can Be Fun –It’s just a matter of finding an active, healthy activity we actually enjoy doing.
  • Keep an Open Mind –  Keep a childlike wide open mind and you’ll learn something new every day – maybe more than one thing.  Don’t let force of habit slow you down.   Ask questions: you’ll never get an answer if you never ask.  So, she might say NO – but did you give her a chance to say YES?
  • Express your feelings – nurture and value relationships – Open, honest, direct face-to-face expression of feelings makes communication easier, maintains sincerity and integrity in your life.  Children like nothing better than to “hang out” with their friends.  Do you look forward to unstructured time with community members – your “sisters?”
  • Use Your Imagination –  Robert Kennedy got credit, but Walt Disney said it first::  If you can dream it, you can do it!  If you have a creative idea, share it.  If it’s faster, smarter or better and see what happens.  You’ll never know unless you try.
  • Learn by Imitation – have you ever seen a little boy walking behind this father, trying determinately to imitate his father’ stride?  Or the little girl “clack-clacking” in her Mom’s high heel shoes.  St. Benedict was a firm believer in the axiom: “fake it til you make it.”  Live monastic traits until they become part of you.
  • Play  – Sometimes it’s healthy to fool around and engage in recreation for the sole purpose of having fun.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says: When I was a child I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became an adult, I put away with childish things.  Jesus will applaud you saying: Yes, put away child-ish ways but hang on to the delightful child-like traits that are the keys to the kingdom.

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

 

 

 

First Reading:   Genesis 2:18-24         Second Reading:  Hebrews 2:9-11
Gospel:   Mark 10:2-16
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National Sanctity of Human Life Day

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Be Clever, Be Astute

Since before Christmas, most of our Sunday scriptures have taken us through the beginning of Matthew’s gospel.  It started with the lineage of Jesus, traced not through the expected first-born sons, but through a hodge-podge of misfits of every kind.  It has shown us that the birth of Jesus took place under some very unusual circumstances.  We’ve seen, in fact, that Jesus’ life began in exile and continued out in the wilderness of the desert, where Jesus responded to the message of John the Baptist and received the assurance of God through a voice that pronounced him “beloved.”

In today’s Gospel the power of Jesus’ call is immediately evident – Peter, Andrew, James and John dropped everything to follow Jesus immediately.  Jesus doesn’t have to pitch the idea nor persuade these individuals.   Each has little reason to leave their current way of life.  Each seemingly has a steady job.  Most importantly they have familial ties to their vocations as family men and fishermen.  Now, in this new lifestyle Jesus is offering them their security would come from life in a mutually supporting community, where the needs of each one is considered before one’s own.  Jesus moved quickly and determinedly from one place to another … planting dreams, raising expectations, and opening doors of possibility.

The former Speaker of the House “Tip” O’Neill related a valuable lesson he’d learned early in his career.  During his first political campaign, one of O’Neill’s neighbors told him: I am going to vote for you tomorrow, even though you didn’t ask me to!  O’Neill was surprised and said: Why, Mrs. O’Brien, I have lived across from you for eighteen years, I cut your grass in the summer, I shoveled your walk in the winter; I didn’t think I had to ask for your vote!  Mrs. O’Brien replied: Oh, Tommy boy, let me tell you something … people like to be asked!

A vital faith community will always be asking … inviting followers just as Jesus did.  It is never enough to simply welcome people when they happen to visit. We must also invite them to join us in worship and ministry and witnessing our way of life.  My mother spoke with great admiration for the Benedictine Sisters in Wilmington Delaware who had been her teachers in elementary school.  When I asked her why she didn’t become a Sister.  Her reply? “None of them asked me – so I figured I wasn’t worthy.”  (Of course, I would not be here telling you this story if she’d been asked and said YES.)

We are now midway in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  It is also WORD of GOD Sunday and National Sanctity of Human Life Day.  This is annual observance when the church leads us in prayer for the sanctity of all life: to honor, respect and love all God’s people without reservation.  Pope Francis reminds us:

“We don’t have the luxury to be fools because we have a very beautiful message of life and we’re not permitted to be fools.  For that reason, Jesus says, ‘Be astute, be careful.’  What is the astuteness of the Christian?  In knowing how to discern who is a wolf and who is a sheep.” 

And when … a wolf disguises itself as a sheep, (the Christian) knows how they smell. “Look, you have the skin of a sheep but the smell of a wolf.” And this, this mandate that Jesus gives us is very important. It’s for something very great.  Jesus says “Look, I come to bring life and for that life to be in abundance, and I am sending you so that you can advance that life, and so that it will be abundant.’

How beautiful is caring for life, allowing life to grow, to give life like Jesus, and to give it abundantly, not to permit that even one of these smallest ones be lost.  That is what Jesus asked of the Father: “that none of those whom You have given me be lost, that all of the life that You gave me to care for, might be cared for, that it might not be lost.”  And we care for life because He cares for our life.

Caring for life from the beginning to the end. What a simple thing, what a beautiful thing.  Father, is that why there are so many wolves who want to eat us?  Is that why, tell me?  Who did Jesus kill? No one.  He did good things. And how did he end up?  If we go down the road of life, ugly things can happen to us, but it doesn’t matter. It’s worth it.  He first opened the way.”

Pope Francis continues: “So, go forth and don’t be discouraged.  Don’t be fools, remember, a Christian doesn’t have the luxury of being foolish, I’m going to repeat this: An idiot, a fool – you can’t give yourself that luxury.  You have to be clever, be astute!  Care for life. It’s worth it! “

~Reflection by Sister Roberta Bailey, OSB

 

 

First Reading:   Isaiah 8:23-9:3               Second Reading:  1 Corinthians 1:10-13,17    
Gospel:   Matthew 4:12-23
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Keep the Creche in Christmas

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Keep the Creche in Christmas, Pope Urges

 

By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service

December 5, 2022 (CNS) — Stopping to gaze at and perhaps pray before a Nativity scene is one of the best ways to remember the real meaning of Christmas, Pope Francis said.

“In its genuine poverty,” the pope said, “the creche helps us to rediscover the true richness of Christmas and to purify ourselves of so many aspects that pollute the Christmas landscape.”

Pope Francis met Dec. 3 with the artisans who carved the 18-piece Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square; the donors of the white pine Christmas tree; the residents of a psychiatric rehabilitation center who, along with a group of students and grandparents, created the ornaments; and with representatives of the government of Guatemala, which set up another Nativity scene in the Vatican audience hall.

“Simple and familiar, the Nativity scene recalls a Christmas that is different from the consumerist and commercial Christmas. It is something else. It reminds us how good it is for us to cherish moments of silence and prayer in our days, often overwhelmed by frenzy,” Pope Francis told them during a midday gathering.

The group was scheduled to gather in St. Peter’s Square in the evening for the official unveiling of the Nativity scene and the lighting of the Christmas tree. But a major rainstorm with a forecast for more caused the Vatican to move the evening festivities indoors, although hundreds of people still were in the square for the lighting.

Meeting with the donors, Pope Francis encouraged everyone to find some quiet time to spend before a creche at Christmas.

“Silence encourages contemplation of the child Jesus,” the pope said, and “helps us to become intimate with God, with the fragile simplicity of a tiny newborn baby, with the meekness of his being laid down, with the tender affection of the swaddling clothes that envelop him.”

“If we really want to celebrate Christmas,” he said, “let us rediscover through the crib the surprise and amazement of littleness, the littleness of God, who makes himself small, who is not born in the splendor of appearances, but in the poverty of a stable.”

To truly encounter Jesus, the pope said, people must meet him in the manger, leaving their own vanity and pretense behind.

“Prayer is the best way to say thank you before this gift of free love, to say thank you to Jesus who desires to enter our homes and our hearts,” he said. “Yes, God loves us so much that he shares our humanity and our lives.”

“Even in the worst moments,” the pope said, “he is there, because he is the Emmanuel, the God with us, the light that illuminates the darkness and the tender presence that accompanies us on our journey.”

The lights on the Christmas tree, he said, are a reminder that Jesus came “to lighten our darkness, our existence often enclosed in the shadow of sin, fear, pain.”

But, the pope said, the tree also should make people think about the importance of roots.

Like a tree, he said, only a person who is “rooted in good soil remains firm, grows, matures, resists the winds that shake him and becomes a point of reference for those who look upon him.”

The Christmas tree, Pope Francis said, is a reminder of the need to remain rooted in Christ.

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Pope calls prayers and fasting

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Pope calls for day of prayer, fasting

for peace in Ukraine

 

S. Lynn McKenzie, CIB moderator writes: “There are Benedictine nuns and sisters in Ukraine who need our prayers.  I heard from the CIB Delegate of CIB Region 7 which includes Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania – she has been in touch with the abbess of the monastery of nuns in Zhytomyr Ukraine who said that the military base near them was destroyed by shelling last night.  Some people in the area are coming to the abbey of the nuns to take refuge.  I’m afraid that this will spill beyond Ukraine borders.”

VATICAN CITY | As the threat of war loomed over the world, Pope Francis called on people to pray and fast for peace in Ukraine on Ash Wednesday.

Before concluding his general audience Feb. 23, the pope called on believers and nonbelievers to combat the “diabolical insistence, the diabolical senselessness of violence” with prayer and fasting.

“I invite everyone to make March 2, Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting for peace,” he said. “I encourage believers in a special way to devote themselves intensely to prayer and fasting on that day. May the Queen of Peace protect the world from the folly of war.”

In his appeal, the pope said he, like many around the world, felt “anguish and concern” after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized the independence of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The pope said that due to the “alarming” developments in the region, “once again, the peace of all is threatened by partisan interests.”

“I would like to appeal to those with political responsibilities to do a serious examination of conscience before God, who is the God of peace and not of war, who is the father of all and not only of some, who wants us to be brothers and sisters and not enemies,” he said.

He also urged world leaders to “refrain from any action that would cause even more suffering to the people, destabilizing the coexistence between nations and discrediting international law.”

Putin’s recognition of the two breakaway regions’ independence was seen by Western leaders as a violation of international law protecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and as a move that could pave the way for a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine.

In the wake of the Russian president’s actions, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union announced sanctions against several Russian banks and institutions.

In a statement released Feb. 22, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, said Putin’s recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions has caused “irreparable damage” to the “logic of international relations.”

He also said the Russian president “destroyed foundational principles for a long-term process of restoring peace in Ukraine” and “created the path for a new wave of military aggression against our state.”

~Article by Catholic News Service posted on Florida Catholic Media
February 23,2022
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Pope Francis encourages participation in Season of Creation

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Pope Francis encourages participation

in Season of Creation

The Season of Creation is a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together. During the Season of Creation, we join our sisters and brothers in the ecumenical family in prayer and action for our common home.

Pope Francis encourages participation in Seasons of Creation: “Now is the time for all people, especially Catholics and Christians, to increase their commitment to our common home by doing more than ever to protect God’s creation.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed September 1 as a day of prayer for creation for the Orthodox in 1989. In fact, the Orthodox church year starts on that day with a commemoration of how God created the world.

The World Council of Churches was instrumental in making the special time a season, extending the celebration from September 1 until October 4.

Pope Francis made the Roman Catholic Church’s warm welcoming of the season official in 2015.

The season starts September 1, the Day of Prayer for Creation, and ends October 4, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many Christian denominations.

Throughout the month-long celebration, the world’s 2.2 billion Christians come together to care for our common home. Please join us.

Resources for prayer and action Herehttps://seasonofcreation.org/

 

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