1. Dear friends, my prayers for a most holy and blessed Christmas! May our good and gracious God bless and keep you, anointing you and your loved ones with his love, peace and joy this Christmas and in the days to come.

    The following are the final points made during the last session on the Advent recollection,     Awaiting… the Child. These were shared on Friday, 21 December. They are now offered for your Christmas reflection.


    For today in the city of David a Saviour has been born to you: he is Christ the Lord (Luke 2: 11).

    The birth of Jesus manifests God’s plan of salvation of humankind within the realities of our finite space and time. We see this fulfilled in and through Mary's maternity—of first bearing Jesus within her and then bearing him forth into the world as God’s Good News.

    On this most holy of nights, let us reflect on God’s gift of spiritual maternity to humankind for we too are invited to let God bring forth Jesus into our lives so we can share Jesus. Indeed, maternity is the basis of the friendship Jesus himself wants to have with us. For as he says to his disciples: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

    Maternity, however, comes to be with labour pains—hopeful yearnings that they are—for a child that is unseen but is expectantly awaited for. Through maternity one grows up in faith and love to become mother. The moment of birth is when maternity is most fully realized: a child's birth is also the birth into motherhood for the one who bears. Christmas is therefore Mary’s anointed time to be Mother to Jesus, God-with-us. Don't our hopes for Jesus to be born into our lives at Christmas give expression to the spiritual maternity Jesus is inviting us to?

    The groans of Creation for the glory of God’s revelation to our broken world are also maternal. At Jesus’ birth, the fulfillment of his mother’s long wait echoes Creation’s longer wait for the Saviour to come to re-create out of a lost, wasted and barren garden the new Eden that will be lush, bountiful and holy again. Truly, Mary’s assent brings Jesus into Creation to perfect it.

    At the moment of the Saviour’s birth, then, all Creation finally finds its voice, silenced for so long by sin and strife. Now Creation can join the heavenly throng to joyously proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest and peace to all on earth.”

    Today’s world also awaits our assent to “give birth” to Jesus in our lives. It waits because it looks to us to help renew the face of the earth in companionship with Jesus.

    At this Christmas time, let us remember then that all of Creation can come alive again in friendship with the Emmanuel, God-with-us. And for this, Creation does indeed wait for us to say, “yes,” like Mary did, to God to bear Jesus into our lives for the good of the world.

    Posted by
    Labels: Christmas
    2

    View comments

  2. The following is an abridged version of the points presented at the last session of the Advent Recollection, Awaiting... the Child. That evening we contemplated the birth of Christ (Luke 2: 1-16). This session was held on Friday, 21 December.

    What can our Saviour’s birth mean for us as Advent draws us closer to Christmas?

    First, it can speak to us of how all things come to be in the fullness of God’s time.

    Since the beginning of time, God deeply desired to have friendship with his people. Even though they repeatedly disappointed, beginning with Adam and Eve, he restored it at the anointed time freely, lovingly and tangibly: for God so loved the world he gave us his only begotten

    Perhaps, God’s restoration of friendship is the reason for Mary’s quiet, joyful realization as she embraced her new born babe and remembered Elizabeth’s words, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Luke 1:45). Isn’t Christmas that moment for us too when God fulfils our Advent pinning for Jesus by gifting us with his Son, a God who is real, enfleshed, one like us and with us, who is now before us gurgling, crying, perhaps, silently in slumber in the manger of our hearts?

    Second, Jesus’ birth can remind us that all things come to be only according to God’s design.

    Mary brings forth Jesus into the stark poverty of a world, not unlike ours today: there is no room for the lesser and the lowly. The only space is a stable that place at the margins of civilized society often shun for its stench and dung. Do we not find the poor and the disenfranchised of today’s society sidelined to similar spaces? Indeed, the long expectant Saviour comes in humility, vulnerability and helpless to inhabit no other space but the forlornness of a manger, the poverty of our world that the lesser of our brothers and sisters, and perhaps, even us, inhabit in daily life.

    And it is precisely in this displacement of majesty by meekness that the poor, the marginalized, the forgotten see first what the learned and the mighty find so difficult to perceive—that God has come, pitched his tent and dwells among us. The shepherds teach us that it is those with simplicity of heart, almost childlike, without taint of pride, honour or riches, who can hear and see, honour and celebrate the Good News in their midst.

    Luke’s description of “the time…for her to have her child” also invites us into a deeper reflection on the person of Jesus at this time in our lives.

    Jesus reminds Mary and the faithful Jews that he is God, the Father’s Love made man. What about us? Who is Jesus for you and me? Indeed, as we gaze upon the manger this year, it might profit us to answer the question, “what child is this in my life?”

    But how can we do this unless we first allow God to bring to birth this child into our lives, filled with as many dreams as they are by disappointments?

    Mary shows us how. Her openness allows her to sense God’s love. Her humility allows her to accept God’s love. Her faithful trust allows her to share in God’s love. And her generosity to God allows her to bear God’s love to the world.

    We too are invited to allow God to bring Jesus to birth in our lives, like Mary. Even at this late stage of Advent, this is timely and fitting for so many of us who really desire peace, joy and justice at year's end. Like Mary, we can do this with trust because we are already embraced by a loving God who deeply desires to give us his love. All he passionately yearns for from us is to receive his love, Jesus.

    When we allow God to bear Jesus into our lives, we enter into friendship with him. Then, like Mary of the Visitation, we can then bring Jesus to this world that is often pained, suffering and groping in darkness. What does Jesus bring that we are asked to share? God’s reign of peace and goodwill to all humankind. Life as we know it can then be transformed: where there is injury, there now can be forgiveness; where there is hatred, there now can be love; where there is doubt and fear, there now can be faith and peace; and where there is despair, there now can be hope abounding.

    Indeed, it this timely in these last days of Advent to ponder on the gift of Jesus in our lives and the life of the world this coming Christmas time, and to ask ourselves, what child is this in my life?




    artwork: stain glass of the nativity by william morris

    Posted by
    Labels: Advent
    0

    Add a comment

  3. The following is an abridged version of the points I shared at our second session of the Advent Recollection, Awaiting… the Child. That evening we contemplated the Visitation (Luke 1: 39-56). This session was held on Thursday, 13 December.

    At this point of our Advent preparations, do we find ourselves preoccupied to some extent with gift-hunting, anxious about finding the right colour, the right shape, the rightness of the gift for the right person?

    This is an opportune situation to consider the meaning of gift-giving at Christmas time. This evening’s contemplation on the Visitation can help us do this.

    “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” As Mary enters into her cousin’s home, these words of welcome by Elizabeth remind her that she is gifted with God’s presence within her, even at this time of uncertainty. In fact, Elizabeth's words give voice to the silent, joyful leap of John the Baptist who, in her womb, recognizes the arrival of the long awaited Saviour. Her words then proclaim the truth that God has indeed come into their midst to dwell among his people, they who are barren and suffering, they who are lowly and in darkness.     Do we not see this truth too in God’s continuing goodness in our lives, his faithful presence with us, his constant labour for our wellbeing, even when we sin?

    If we live, move and have our being in this knowledge of God, it is because we, like Mary, have already been gifted with something that lives and moves and has its being deep within us, loving us immensely.

    Isn’t this something God’s Love that we experience and believe in, and that propels us to share it through the gifts we give at Christmas? Indeed, genuine gift-giving is sharing freely what we had first received and now possess, Love.

    Elizabeth’s words affirm Mary as the mother of her Lord. They are God’s loving and reassuring vocabulary of blessing that allow Mary to rest secure in her mission to bear Jesus to the world as God’s gift of Love manifest. This should remind us that we, who also walk in a topsy-turvy world, are indeed visited, accepted and accompanied by people God places in our lives to remind us that He-is-with-us in good and bad times. When we are visited by another, we are invited to do what Elizabeth does so well in the Visitation: to graciously welcome the gift of God coming through this person, and in doing this, we honour the God who is with her.

    God nurtures Mary’s identity and mission through Elizabeth’s companionship. God nurtures us through the companionship of family and friends, even strangers and enemies, to reclaim our identity as his children and our mission to be his Son’s companions in sharing the Good News. When we allow God to nurture us, and when we also permit ourselves to nurture others in their joys and pains, we become Marys and Elizabeths, whose calling it is to help each other to see that the gift of God, O Emmanuel, is in our earthy midst.

    The Visitation then invites us to appreciate gift-giving. Gift-giving is not the exchange of material goods; it is a sharing of God's love. Gift-giving finds its fullest expression when the gift given directs the gazes of both the giver and the recipient to the loving fidelity of the True Giver of all gifts in our lives, God.

    Mary’s Magnificat closes this scene of the Visitation by celebrating God as the faithful and loving giver of all gifts that does great things not only in her life but throughout Jewish history. Her canticle invites us to do likewise. When we can see moments of radiance and splendour, God’s love, amidst the shadows and darkness of our lives today, we too can sing with gratitude a canticle to God that is uniquely our own.

    If this is so, dear friend, then, isn’t there no better gift to give on Christmas morn than the Love of God that is already dwelling in your heart?





    artwork: stained glass of the visitation at taize

    Posted by
    Labels: Advent
    1

    View comments

  4. I first shared the following thoughts at the Advent Recollection, Awaiting... the Child. With Celina and Jarrod, we are offering this at the Center for Ignatian Spirituality and Counselling. At this first session on Thursday, 6 December 2007, we contemplated on the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38). The next sessions are on 13 and 21 December.

    It all begins with a “yes,” doesn’t it?

    If we look at our lives, the stories of our dreams and the promises they bear and the narratives of who and what we want to become—these begin with a “yes.” Our “yes-es” are a response to invitations that present themselves, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways.

    As much as these “yes-es” trumpet a future that lifts our gazes upward to the hopeful horizon of a new dawn, they also whisper of a past that is preparation. If we honestly look back, we would see that long before we could utter “yes, let it be,” we were in someway nurtured for this moment by the blessings and the struggles in our lives. As believers, we acknowledge a God who prepares us for those "yes" moments we assent to on our journeys of life and faith.

    The story of the Annunciation we reflect on each Advent bears a similar refrain.

    Mary’s “yes” was itself the culmination of many small “yes-es” she would have said in her friendship with God from the time she was conceived without sin. This, together with the upbringing she received from Anna and Joachim, her parents, and the many times she pondered on God in life and in faith, was God’s way of preparing her for the moment of the Annunciation.

    Mary’s “yes” also gave voice to her free response, one enabled by her resolute trust and faith in a God who assured her that nothing is impossible with him. Greatly troubled as she was initially by the Angel Gabriel’s message that she was to conceive and bear the Son of God and call him Jesus, Gabriel’s announcement that God had gifted her elderly sterile cousin Elizabeth with child assured her that she could let go and let God lead.

    Mary’s consent speaks of the true disciple, one who listens to God’s Word and acts on it. This act allows her to bear Jesus not only within her being but also to her community, lovingly depicted when she visited Elizabeth. Truly, she became the vessel through whom God’s love comes to dwell in our midst.

    Mary’s pregnancy is therefore not only preparation for birth. It was a waiting that transforms: her “yes” allowed God to transfigure her from girl to disciple to prophet, who in bearing of the Word of God directs all she encountered—Joseph, Elizabeth, the embryonic John the Baptist—to the God who keeps his promise that he is truly God-with-us. And when Mary’s “yes” came to its fullness in the birth of Baby Jesus, her identity and mission were truly realized: she is Mother of God.

    The story of Mary in the Annunciation, then, can remind us how beautiful and right it is for us too to respond to God with a simple yes. In doing so, we can claim God’s deepest desire of who and what we are, his children who are his Son’s companions.

    I’d like to believe the Church also desires us to embrace in our Advent preparation what Mary heard long ago: God wishes to beget in your human life, my Son, and through you, to bring forth my Beloved Son to lovingly reclaim my people from sin and darkness.

    If this is what we are being invited to ponder on as we move towards Christmas, are we not being challenged to consider our response if the Angel Gabriel said to each one of us, “do not be afraid for you too are God’s favoured child and God’s deepest desire is for his gift of Love to come to birth in your life this Christmas?”

    Indeed, how would you respond, my friend?




    artwork: stained glass of the annunciation by edward burne-jones

    Posted by
    Labels: Advent
    3

    View comments

  5. Today is the first day of Advent, and Christians all over the world begin to spend time and energy preparing for Christmas. But what can it mean to prepare?

    Our preparations will include the frantic buying of presents for loved ones, the trimming of the tree with baubles and fairy lights, the annual spring cleaning of the home and the endless rounds of festive binging and good cheer before December 25 to get into the festive mood. But, more than these, many of us are aware that Advent offers time to spiritually re-examine the friendship we share with God through the person of Jesus, and so await Christmas Day by contemplating the presence of Jesus within us.

    If the latter makes for better Christmas preparation, then the next four weeks are an invitation to prayerfully reflect on the call we intuitively sense, one more palpably at this time. In the silence of our hearts, you and I must honestly admit that this is nothing less than to allow God to bring forth Christ in our lives.

    We have no better model to do this at Advent than Mary: she heard this call and responded to it generously. Her poverty of spirit, her humility of faith and her joy of lovingly trust allowed her to wait for Jesus to be born, as the promised Saviour, she bore within. In Mary, we learn how to nurture the quiet and hopeful expectation so many of us bear within and yearn to realize—to experience the joy of the first Christmas, made resplendent because God had come into earthly existence to be one with us and all his creation.

    Mary’s ways of nurturing the call with hopeful eagerness also speak of this possibility at a time of uncertainty. Like Mary and all of Israel, our human existence today is fraught and fractured by failed promises, broken dreams and unrealized expectations. Yet, Mary shows us that we can believe with hope in the enduring goodness of a God who promises to pitch his tent on the mountaintop, dwell among us and begin an everlasting reign of peace (Isaiah 2: 2-5).

    If we, who are frail and weak can continue to believe most especially in the gift of Jesus, God-with-us, in our often weary lives, would it not be right to embark on our Christmas preparations by asking ourselves, what is it within me that allows me to hopefully await the coming of Jesus, again, this Christmas?

    And if we can identify this, should we not ponder for some time, like Mary always does, on the     ways we can nurture this gift within better these Advent days?

    Dear friend, would these steps make for a good beginning to your Advent season this year?






    artwork: mother and child reading the word by michael o’brien
    Posted by
    Labels: Advent
    2

    View comments


  6. When I was young, and I sometimes felt down, I would look up from my house to the Jesuit Residence at Kingsmead Hall. Seeing the light in Fr Wood’s room, I knew my pastor was in, and I could sleep assured that there was someone I could turn to for help.

    Leslie shared this childhood memory with me a few days ago. I found it poignant but true of how each of us looks to those who are lights in our lives when the going gets tough—loving parents, insightful teachers, patient spouses, loyal friends. These wise and faithful companions offer us much needed advice or the safe space to bounce ideas off along life’s journey. At times, they are the comforting presence of a kindred soul when words fail and only being there matters. When we are blessed with their care, we are grateful.

    We too are lights for others. We are lights when we make time for another who needs to be heard and comforted. When we drop everything to offer help when another’s life turns messy, we illuminate the other’s dreariness. And when we dispose ourselves to walk with another in grief and hurt, we are indeed lamps that light the next steps forward the other can confidently take.

    Yet, don’t we sometimes find ourselves resisting letting go of ourselves and rolling up our sleeves to be with my friend or family, my neighbour or my enemy in his darkest hour? Is my unwillingness rooted in self-preservation? Or, do I hold back because I perceive there are other good Samaritans who will do what I ought to do?

    A good place to begin reflecting on these questions is the Apostles’ Creed. One of the things Christians profess in the Creed is our belief in a God who gathers us into the communion of saints. We are one with the holy people who have gone before us: saints, who led exemplary holy lives, and the holy souls, who are being purified in Purgatory to see God face to face. These transfigured lives in God remind us of the sainthood we are also called to, and which Jesus announces with the Good News: repent for God desires so much to be friends with us, and for us to be friends with one another.

    Who are saints? Saints are lights for us. They are like beacons that offer safe passage and guidance for all of us who traverse life’s stormy seas. Their holy friendship with God reminds us that it is possible to navigate these waters well. But they do more than merely illuminate our darkness; they point to the ever faithful presence of God whose radiant light is already aglow in all our lives.

    The question we can ask ourselves, then, is not, are we lights in other people’s life but are we saints whose words and actions, disposition and bearing give light to another’s orientation towards God?




    photo: heceta head lighthouse, oregon coast by ron niebrugge

    Posted by
    0

    Add a comment

  7. Have you experienced a song coming along, delighting you and finally capturing your attention totally? When it does, don't we find our whole being taken up by its tune and its lyrics? I'd like to believe this happens, however, because something deep and rich within the song speaks to us of who we are and what we believe in.

    Chris de Silva's song, Can You See God, is that song in my life these past months. It speaks to me of St Ignatius's insights into our identity and living life more meaningfully and happily. And these can be expressed thus: we can find God in all things because we are his beloved, and so live secure in His already gifted and constant friendship with us.

    Today, I'd like to share Chris's song with you.

    Can You See God
    by Chris de Silva, from the album, One Love, One Song

    In the face of hatred, shinning in your love,
    In the eyes of terror, burning in the heart of freedom,
    Where two or three are gathered in my name,
    I am in your midst, living inside your heart.

    See the colors of the rainbow, see the images of love,
    Hear the music when the blows, hear the angels up above.
    In the beauty of a new day, in the joy of every Spring,
    Can you see God, can you see Him,
    Can you see God, can you see Him,
    Can you see God in everything?

    In the voice of silence, hidden in the noise,
    In the life of darkness, dwelling in God’s holy light,
    I will be with you until the end of time,
    I am in your midst, living deep inside of your heart.

    See the colors of the rainbow, see the images of love,
    Hear the music when the blows, hear the angels up above.
    In the beauty of a new day, in the joy of every Spring,
    Can you see God, can you see Him,
    Can you see God, can you see Him,
    Can you see God in everything?

    So what will separate us from the love of God?
    Neither death nor holy angels,
    Present things nor future things,
    Height nor depth nor any creature,
    Can keep us from the love of God.

    See the colors of the rainbow, see the images of love,
    Hear the music when the blows, hear the angels up above.
    In the beauty of a new day, in the joy of every Spring,
    Can you see God, can you see Him,
    Can you see God, can you see Him,
    Can you see God in everything?





    photo: in my place by confusedvision

    Posted by
    1

    View comments

  8. Have you ever found yourself waiting? And by waiting I mean being in that state of life where you are unable, for one reason or another, to move on, even as you are prepared to do so. Some have experienced this from time to time. For them, uncertainty characterises the moment.

    Waiting, in this sense, can be confusing. It can also be exhausting: one constantly struggles with the painful suspicion that one’s life is hopelessly wanting. Worse still, waiting can lead one to give up on life and drift aimlessly along. In this light, existential angst can suffocate a person to death.

    But can waiting be otherwise? Perhaps, if we dare to rethink of waiting as waiting in and for God’s time, we might begin to realize that this time is in fact life-giving.

    To wait in and for God’s time is to dwell in God’s present-ness. With God, there is no past or future; there is always the present. God is. And because God is, God simply loves us as we are today, even as we admit this: "what I am today is all of my past, both the good and the bad, and all of my hoped-for-future at this point in history." That God’s love expresses itself always in the present tense St Augustine reminds us is God’s desire to befriend us in the ‘now’ moments of our lives. To be in the now with God, then, is God’s wish for us to realize and to fulfil.

    Indeed, we wait in no other space but in God’s. To be here, moreover, is to be confronted with God’s invitation to redeem our lives from amorphous existence and to fill it with vivre and character. For this, we must rightfully seize each day and live it fully, with gratitude and joy. Waiting, one of the many seasons in our cycle of life, invites us to do this. Like all other seasons, it harkens us to be truly alive. We begin to do this when we begin to recall honestly this oft-forgotten reality of our being human: we are created to simply be, and, more rightly, to simply be ourselves before God and in relation with and for one another.

    To wait is therefore to wait always in the good company of God, family and friends. And in this good company, we are asked to savour these companionships and partake of the celebration of life, in all its splendour as well as its wreck, they bring into our lives, even as we bring ourselves into theirs too.

    It would be wise for us to appreciate waiting as pausing, taking stock and coming to the epiphany that in each moment of life our truest human dignity is to be fully alive as God’s friends, imaged in his likeness. While we will grapple with the gritty, painful realities of day-to-day existence as we wait, hidden in our frustration of waiting and not going anywhere is God’s silent prodding that we re-learn how to live life in the certain hope that waiting is not wasting.

    Finally, to dwell in God’s time asks us to acknowledge that this is God’s anointed time for us to grow up for the advent future. If there is a time to till the ground for the seed to grow and a time to pack the haversack well for the journey ahead, then our waiting times, often disappointing, are times when God moulds each of us to become his beautiful vessel from which he pours forth balm and spirit to ennoble human life and human company in the days to come. This is the promised fulfilment of our lives.

    Dear friends, can we not celebrate the waiting moments in our lives and give thanks for them?



    photo: waiting time by philip ed
    Posted by
    2

    View comments

  9. These past few weeks several faithful and I have been studying and discoursing on The Apostles’ Creed. Our meetings are part of a seven week series on the Catholic faith organized by Cana. We have four more weeks to go.

    Our discussion has revolved around our belief in God in the light of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. From our sharing, we recognized that the belief in God we profess each Sunday at Mass is really God's gift of faith to humankind. Our belief in God is all the more real and meaningful, we agreed, because it is manifest in the living relationship one has with God, even if this is characterized by questions and frustration, at times.

    A question we seek to answer in these weeks is, “will I still believe enough to say, I believe in God when times are dark and hard?” The following reflection on the Gospel Reading of the 29th Sunday (Luke 18: 1-8) by Fr Gerry Keane, SJ, provides an illuminating response:

    The bottom line of today’s parable is "at the end of the day, will I still believe?" It is all about a dogged and persistent conviction that despite every appearance to the contrary will turn out well and God's promises will be fulfilled.

    It has nothing to do with power or repetition, the recitation of ceaseless "aves." Prayer is not just begging for favours however noble and legitimate, it is primarily a presence assuring me that I am a unique product of a love that I share with my Father—a life that is born of Christian faith.

    That this sense of daily presence is enhanced by regular moment of formal prayer is beyond dispute but it is not achieved by endless nagging. It is rather a tranquil and enduring assurance always underlying my every moment in circumstances both religious and mundane.

    But why a loving God who has what I need and seems to endlessly turn a deaf ear to my just aspirations? Perhaps, it is because we of the age of the “instant” and immediate need to be reminded that eternity is what is real—the timelessness of God.

    One is reminded of St Monica, the mother of St Augustine, who wept her way through life begging for the conversion of her son. He, in the end, conceded that his mother had a significant part to play in his conversion. But she was not the full explanation. Time was needed to furnish the acceptable moment. Only God knows when that has arrived. It comes as a reward of trust.




    photo: the rainbow through the window by konny (lubbakonsa)
    Posted by
    Labels: Breaking Open God's Word
    1

    View comments

  10. This question came to me as my confreres and I discoursed over dinner one evening last week.
    The topic of our conversation was knowing where people sat at for daily Mass. We agreed that one could come to daily Mass, and with almost utmost certainty identify where Mr A, the B family and Ms C sit. This knowledge is comforting; one has only to look across to find a friend or family member in church.


    Further reflection led me to realize that the experience of coming to church and sitting in one’s favourite seat belies a human yearning for that spot where one is most oneself to worship God. Being in one’s spot in church also speaks of the comfort of the familiar faces one has grown accustomed to around her and with whom she is at home with in the Lord.

    The act of sitting in the same place for Mass does, in fact, enunciate our innermost human desire to find one’s place in life, and, in this space, to know the definitive answer to one’s existence.

    Ordinarily we do this daily in the habitual spaces and times of our prayer, as we also manifest it in the regularity of our prayer form. Indeed, doesn’t this attest to our desire to just be with God on a regular basis? And, isn’t the process of habituating ourselves true too of the charitable responses we make towards the less fortunate?

    Indeed, these are good habits to have. They allow us to grow in relationship with God and to become a person for others.

    But, we can sometimes, and inadvertently, become complacent with our good habits: our attitude becomes familiar, and our actions, routine. Good habits of prayer and charity are genuinely good when they lead us to God's challenge that sometimes frightens us. This is the invitation to leave them behind and to learn new habits God wishes to teach us, and, in this way, mature in friendship together.

    This is a wisdom St Benedict writes about. Addressing his monks on prayer and charity, he insists that while it is good for a monk to pray so that he can better listen to obey God’s will, it is more important to hear the knock on the door when one is praying and to attend to it. The monk who is able to let go of the routine recitation of the Divine Office at this moment and to respond is the one who will have the truer, richer experience of God’s presence. Benedict advocates this for he believes profoundly that the one knocking, and calling the monk to a greater love of God in kindness for another, could be no other than Jesus himself.

    And so, as we sit in our favourite spot in church at the next Mass or when we return to the secure prayer space at the anointed time to do the day’s prayer, we might want to consider Benedict’s wisdom and ask ourselves this, “Am I open enough to Jesus, who may be inviting me to a new habit of being with God?”


    photo: church of the gesu, ateneo de manila by ad_sj
    Posted by
    4

    View comments

"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
Faith & Spirituality
Faith & Spirituality
Tagged as...
Tagged as...
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

About Me
About Me
My Photo
is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
Loading