Reflections » A Reflection For Lent 2014

A Reflection For Lent 2014
“To be Seekers of God”

*

Everyone is seeking something – something more – in life, for life, always! In our often fragmented world today we see people seeking all of the time and yet so often the seeking is misplaced in material, passing goods. The result of such seeking can lead to more emptiness rather than life-giving, life-generating meaning. The season of Lent provides us with a special time set aside for deepening our seeking and searching in life.

Perhaps I find myself in a difficult place or in a time of uncertainty, loss, boredom, mediocrity, joy, hope or longing. Lent is a time to bring my feelings, questions and longings to God in the very place in which I find myself. For God is a Seeker also! God is seeking me, God is seeking you. Always! God invites us into the Divine Presence with all of our feelings, our joys, our struggles, our everyday “grind”, our hopes and our desires for life. God asks us in the depths of our hearts: “What and whom do you seek”?

What and whom do you seek this Lent? What is in your heart? Like us, Jesus was a seeker of meaning in his life. In his humanity he didn’t know all the answers for his unfolding life and vocation. He too needed clarity to live out his call. So like his ancestors, the People of Israel, Jesus went into the desert to fast, to pray to search for the fullness of his meaning. In the desert, Jesus listened, he struggled, he was tempted, he risked, he was emptied and precisely because of the experience he came to know more clearly his call. Jesus emerged from the desert strengthened. He emerged from the desert to live a life of love and service to the end and then beyond to resurrection. Will I risk the desert this Lent, accompanied by Christ, to seek meaning in my life and the nature or strengthening of my call? In this graced season, what and whom do I seek that I might live fully into life, to love and serve to the end and in the hope of resurrection?

Reflections » A Reflection For Pentecost 2013

A Reflection For Pentecost 2013

* Sister Anastasia Young, SSS

Pentecost brings the Easter season to its fulfillment and closure. The promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit by Jesus has once again been fulfilled in living out the Christian mysteries in our daily lives. How well have we done or how have we neglected to do this?

When we say “Come, Holy Spirit” we had better know what we are asking. In both the Hebrew and New Testament Scriptures there is nothing gentle or soft about the Spirit. Stupendous power accompanies the Spirit of God at any time or place remaining as vigorous as ever even if the Spirit is interior. At Pentecost it was a fiery wind that descended like tongues upon the disciples of Jesus huddled together in the upper room resulting in bewilderment and confusion. They were endowed with various gifts and, in different languages, proclaimed the wonderful works of God. Accompanying this there would be challenges and confrontations along the way because what the experience of Pentecost did NOT do was remove problems. It only caused more difficulties than as it does today.

This is the way it is with the outpouring of gifts by the Spirit. The two go hand in hand: the presence of the Spirit and gifts given. While gifts are used to build up a strong church community of talented people, they can also turn against us making us competitive, jealous, defensive – even aggressive. For this reason, Jesus also gave the apostles the power to forgive sins. We have to be big enough to be ready to forgive others when somehow the excess of the use of their good gifts can become their worst sins. Our glory is to follow Jesus` way of the cross when the going gets tough. If we are united in prayer and shared ambitions we do not need to fear the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The gospel calls us to conversion and change. It requires trust and confidence in something much more powerful than our own human resources. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, getting us fired up, pushing us into the future. We can`t always see the Spirit coming and we may, at times, feel queasy about that powerful inner urge that beckons us to action. However, we can see the fruits at work with the eyes of faith. The transformation Jesus invites us to bring about is to continue, with courage, to ask for the coming of the Holy Spirit, to enkindle in us the fire of his love so that the face of the earth will be renewed.

The mystery remains the promise!

Reflections » A Reflection For Easter 2013

A Reflection For Easter 2013

*Christ is risen Alleluia! As we come to the great feast of Easter it is sometimes tempting to think of it as an ending – the ending of the Lenten season. It may feel especially like an ending if we have “given up something meaningful for Lent.” But as N.T. Wright the Anglican Bishop and Scripture teacher reminds us, “it’s just the beginning”! It is a celebration of the “first day of God’s new creation.”

How will we celebrate this year? How will we enter into all the hope and promise that God gives us in the resurrection? Perhaps a good starting point is to prayerfully read the Gospel for Easter Sunday morning (John 20: 1-18). It’s the lovely story of Mary Magdalene coming to Jesus’ tomb and finding it empty. Mary is beside herself with loss so much so that when the risen Jesus appears to her she can’t recognize him. Perhaps there are things in my life that are making it hard for me to recognize Jesus. Maybe Mary Magdalene can teach me something about what to do now. She simply stays, just as we are invited to when we pray – even if sometimes it’s hard to find Jesus in our prayer. Then Mary begins to question – questions are good. They remind me to keep searching! At last Jesus appears to Mary and she knows him when he speaks her name. So here’s a suggestion for reflection. Allow yourself to be quiet, “inside and outside”, close your eyes and imagine yourself in the garden – then listen – listen to Jesus calling your name because he is always CALLING YOUR NAME! Do you hear it? What is Jesus calling you to?

When Mary Magdalene heard her name she ran off to tell the story to the disciples and so it all began, the joyful telling of the story of Jesus, of hope, freedom and promise to all. When I hear my name how will I tell the story in my world? How am I being called today? Let’s celebrate the first day of God’s new creation!