Good Shepherd Sunday and Mother's Day!

Jesus tells us that He is the Good Shepherd and does not abandon His sheep. He watches over us and defends us and even leaves His flock to seek the lost one. He continues to do all this for us. I guess my favorite Psalm has always been Psalm 23. Here is the Responsorial Psalm for Sunday's Liturgy:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
R/  The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
or:
R/  Alleluia.
He guides me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side.
With your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
R/  The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
or:
R/  Alleluia.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
R/  The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
or:
R/  Alleluia.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
R/ The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
or:
R/  Alleluia.

Happy Mother's Day to all!

Do you run from difficulties?

"Do not resist or run from the difficulties in your life. These problems are not random mistakes; they are hand-tailored blessings designed for your benefit and growth. Embrace all the circumstances that I allow in your life, trusting Me to bring good out of them. View problems as opportunities to rely more fully on Me."
The above is the first paragraph for May 10 from "Jesus Calling", the little daily meditation book that my brother-in-law gave me. I must confess that I had not picked it up for some days, but my sister called yesterday to ask prayers for Phil, her husband, who had fallen and broken his foot. He is not to put any weight on it for six weeks and is getting around the house on a little scooter!
Having said this, I shall add the rest of today's reflection from "Jesus Calling":
"When you feel stressed, let those feelings alert you to your need for Me. Thus, your needs become doorways to deep dependence on Me and increasing intimacy between us. Although self-sufficiency is acclaimed in the world, reliance on Me produces abundant living in My kingdom. Thank Me for the difficulties in your life since they provide protection from the idolatry of self-reliance."

The suggested Scripture readings are John 15:5; 2 Corinthians 1:8-9; Ephesians 5:20.

Joy in the midst of woe

This picture reminds us that Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel has John telling us that Jesus says He is the gate and we pass through Him. I think that all of us all called to go through Jesus to pasture and to live in harmony with all the others. I have felt carried by Jesus at times and so can identify with the black sheep in the picture. Jesus calls us by name and we follow Him in trust and joy! I wanted to write more but it is time to leave for the gym. I just will wait until later to share how I am finding joy in the midst of woe.

Appreciation

 

 

Gratitude is very close to appreciation. When we appreciate something, we are grateful. I read that even the worst sort of a day can be appreciated for all the dreadful things that did not happen to us. I am finding it fun to look for different things to be grateful for each day. They are often little things like clean sheets; that thought immediately makes me grateful for a washer and dryer and for hot water. That triggers the gratitude I feel for clean water that one can drink; for water that allows us to have a swimming pool. The thought of the pool then triggers even more gratitude as I thought when I entered that I would never swim again and now I have a pool that waits for me each day and I do enjoy it and thank God for it. It also brings back memories of my family gathered around the pool in my parents' last home - one that they bought, I think, because of the pool. My Dad would sit out there in the evening after checking the chemicals used to keep the water pure and he would just contemplate the white swan (a rubber one but really it looked quite real) as it floated around the pool. As you can see, I could not get the cursor to begin at the left margin and do not know why!

 

Here is what I am trying to copy about gratitude:

 

	Be thankful for what DIDN’T happen. No matter how bad things are, they could almost always be worse. Start finding gratitude for what could have happened but didn’t. You may not be thankful for everything in your life, but you can always be thankful for something. Find more tips like this in Learning to Dance in the Rain by Mac Anderson and BJ Gallagher.
2.	Don’t hold on to your anger or hurt. Though you may not realize it, you are always choosing between two ways of perceiving: Looking to the world for reasons to be upset, or looking in your heart for reasons to be happy. You can’t be upset and grateful at the same time, and life is too short to look for reasons to be upset. Try to remember that patience and tolerance bring you happiness, while anger and hatred bring you suffering. Find more tips like this in Smile for No Good Reason by Dr. Lee Jampolsky.
3.	Savor life’s little moments. Italian poet and novelist Cesare Pavese once said, “We do not remember days; we remember moments.” At today’s hectic pace, however, we often forget to live in the moment, to just be. And by just being, by just soaking up a beautiful moment, we can find some of life’s greatest pleasures. Find more tips like this in The Road to Happiness by Mac Anderson and BJ Gallagher.
4.	Express your gratitude by living it. Expressing gratitude brings even more things to be grateful for. No matter what’s going on around you, look for things to appreciate, and then express your appreciation. You don’t spread gratitude by preaching or scolding—you spread it by living it. Every moment. Every hour. Every day. John F. Kennedy said it best, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” Find more tips like this in Learning to Dance in the Rain by Mac Anderson and BJ Gallagher.



Transformative Experiences

I have been reflecting on transformative experiences in my life. What come to mind are many experiences that I have had in prayer that truly were transformative moments. It is an experience that stays with one and truly made such an impression on me that I was changed. I have not finished my reflection but have a whole page of experiences beginning when I was in high school and felt the presence of God so strongly that I could never doubt His existence or reality in my life. It was during a summer storm and I was out on the back sleeping porch at my home in blue jeans and a leather jacket and God just came into my life in a very real way so that I knew He was there and loved me.

I did not have another experience comparable until I was a first year novice and making my meditation on the roof during the summer. I was thinking about Jesus as the Good Shepherd and was suddenly so sure of His love and mercy that I was overwhelmed by the experience and it also was one that has never left me and is just as strong today. My misery is the object of His Mercy and His Heart is always open for me.

I think the next experience that really stands out was perhaps the longest as I was five months at the Trinita dei Monti in Rome. Jesus taught me how He wanted me to pray. It was in the little balcony overlooking the altar and on the same kneeler that St. Madeleine Sophie had used. That was a special grace and has marked my life. It was there, also, that I developed a special relationship with each Person in the Blessed Trinity. I also had the grace to be with Mater as sacristan during those months so it was a cumulative grace and I should also include the fact that I made an eight-day retreat with a famous French Jesuit before returning to the Mother House for Probation. My 30-day retreat five months later only deepened the summer retreat, but by then I knew I was going to Chile straight from Rome as a missionary.

I guess this is enough for you to begin to think about your own experiences of transformation.

Waiting for Inspiration

Sometimes when I sit here and ask the Holy Spirit what to say I just do not hear anything so I need to look at a picture and wait for inspiration. Water and mountains are helpful. I remember a day in Coquimbo, the poorest region in Chile, when I walked down to the beach and had a delightful time just swimming and contemplating the gorgeous scene. We lived up in a poor section but could walk out to the other side of the Church and see the ocean. I could also walk some blocks the other way and up a hill and find myself in the dessert.
 The best spot was the beach and now I wonder why I did not make more time to have a quiet day there. I live in Miami and never get to the ocean! Crazy, but true. However, I have learned to take time to just sit and contemplate the beauty around me and it is a way to prepare for the coming of Jesus. He is always with me, but I am so distracted and busy about so many things that I need to stop and be still to welcome Him into the depths of my heart or, better still, to find myself in the depths of His Heart.

Opportunity for Transformation

 

 

 

 

I am still praying over the Easter apparitions and want to share this with you today:

 

 What did the realization of Easter mean to the two disciples on their way to Emmaus? Luke's answer to this question has resulted in one of the most poignant narratives in all of the Christian Scriptures. As we follow their transformation, we are grateful for Luke's profound insights and grasp of the mystery of God's gift to us in Jesus.

Making their way to Emmaus, Cleopas and his companion were downcast and disappointed. By their own admission, they had hoped Jesus would be Israel's long-awaited redeemer. They could not bring themselves to accept the word of the women who found Jesus' tomb empty. Nor did they place any credence in their vision of angels. Only when Jesus broke open for them the word of God, and only when he broke bread with them, did a light of recognition dawn. In that moment, they remembered, they believed, and they were transformed. Rather than continue their journey, they returned to Jerusalem, no longer hopeless but full of joy, professing their faith in their risen Lord.

This same opportunity for transformation is made available to each of us every time we gather, in Jesus' name, to be nourished by the bread of the Word and by the bread of Eucharist. We come as we are, some sad, some wounded, some broken, some full of vigor, some full of doubts, some with lists of needs and desires, some with empty but open hands. As the word is proclaimed, the Spirit enables us to hear with fresh ears so that we can take away an insight, or renew our resolve to be better. We keep this challenge with us as we go forth into the week ahead. As the bread of life is blessed, broken and shared, the real presence of Jesus makes our hearts burn within us, nourishing us and nudging us toward a more lively faith and more devoted service of those in need.

Although our transformation has begun, it is not complete. It will be necessary for each of us to return again and again to the table of the Lord. There we will find the food to feed all our hungers. There we will also find forgiveness and healing, as well as the motivation to continue the lifelong process of transformation until Jesus comes again.

[Patricia Sánchez holds a master's degree in literature and religion of the Bible from a joint degree program at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary in New York.]

Third Sunday of Easter

We pray together every Sunday night and I am sure Jesus is with us. He does like to be invited though and I sometimes forget this.
Here is a commentary from John Kavanaugh (to read more, go to the Concord Pastor's blog and click on the picture of the Bible):

It’s a lovely Easter story that the Gospel of Luke gives us. Here we have two people who seem to think everything is over. They have just experienced a great loss.

“We had hoped,” they say, “he was the one to set Israel free.”

Not only have they left the community, they don’t place much credence in the testimony of the women who heard angels declaring Jesus alive. Other witnesses saw the empty tomb, but not Jesus. Perhaps that is why they are walking away.

Observe what is going on here. We have two people who seem to be in a situation of unbelief, hitting the road, leaving their community, deep in confusion.

Two things happen. One, they are joined by Jesus on the road. He actually walks with them in their loss of hope and in their bewilderment. Two, he asks them to tell their story, and he stays to have dinner with them.

Even when he chides them for their weak faith and goes through the scriptural promises of the messiah, they are not in a state of full belief. They have yet to recognize him. Only with the breaking of the bread are their eyes opened; and at that moment of recognition, he vanishes from sight.

Imagine this incident as a metaphor of how God deals with someone who has gone away or lost the way, an image of how we could deal with each other in our unbelief.

With the breaking of the bread, the two wayfarers are brought into communion, even though they have not fully acknowledged the mystery that beckons them.

The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus presents a strange state of affairs indeed.

Jesus was more with them on their journey, even in their doubt and unbelief, than when they actually saw and recognized him and finally believed.

And it was only in retrospect that they could see that their hearts were enkindled as they were walking and talking on the road—even though they did not know that it was he who was explaining the scriptures to them.
I find this paradox of faith, of distance and closeness, of belief and unbelief, repeated over and over again in people’s lives. Although I cannot see when or if it happens to me, it is startlingly clear when I witness it in others.

Stay with us, Lord...

I keep going back to this apparition of Jesus to the two disciples on Easter Sunday because I think it is one that models for us the way Jesus often comes to us, walks with us, and even accepts our invitation to dine, yet we do not really recognize Him. We need to ask Him to stay with us, to pray with us, and to walk with us in our daily lives.

This Sunday's Gospel is again the story of the two disciples of Emmaus. They might easily have been a husband and wife. The point is they were  conversing about all that had happened in Jerusalem and they had left discouraged and very downcast because they had their hopes in Jesus ended with the terrible death of Jesus on the cross. They even knew about the empty tomb and the announcement of the angel that Jesus was alive, but they could not believe this and so had come away sad. Jesus said to them, "Oh how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe ....!  Does Jesus sometimes need to say the same to me?

I hope I ask Him to stay with me and then recognize Him.

Now that summer is approaching, I start thinking about my retreat. It will not be until August 4 but, as I told my community last night, it is the most important week in the year for me. In the meantime, I am loving Walter Kasper's book on Mercy; it is full of references to Scripture and to the early Fathers and other mystics and theologians. I have it on my Kindle and wish I had the book in my hand so I could easily go back and forth and look at the notes, etc. I hate not having page numbers, but the books on Kindle are much less expensive.

Now I am thinking of the blessings that come with all the Feasts at this time of the year. Our Mother Foundress, St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, has her feast on May 25; then we have the Feast of the Ascension, Pentecost, the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, and the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and then, now the next day, the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That takes us up to June 28 so there is plenty to prepare for and pray about in the next few weeks. I think that entering into the mind of the Church through the celebrations of feasts is one way to deepen our own Liturgical life and our interior life as we try to prepare and celebrate with Jesus.

Memories

When I was in the sixth grade, we moved into a larger home with a beautiful backyard. We had a fishpond with thirteen goldfish and knew each one by name; we had three flowering peach trees, another tree surrounded by Lily of the Valley, and a walk that led to the alley that was bordered by lovely Irises such as you see in the picture. We also had a grape arbor so my mother and a friend pooled our sugar rations to make grape jelly. My brother, George, was born that Christmas of 1941 when we had just begun World War II; my brother, John, was born less than two years later and soon we were hiding Easter eggs among the flowers in our yard. This picture triggered so many memories as I had the back bedroom with my desk overlooking the backyard and spent a fair amount of my time contemplating what went on outside instead of getting my homework done.

Today is the Feast of St. Athanasius, Archbishop and Doctor of the Church who lived in the fourth century and is known for his struggle against the Arian heresy. He had many enemies and was five times banished from Alexandria. It was during his exile in the desert that he wrote the life of St. Antony.

Month of Mary

I grew up thinking that May was the month to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary. We did this by our May altars, putting fresh flowers in front of her statue (every classroom, I think, had a May altar when I was in grade school), and then taking part in the May crowning of a statue of Our Lady that took place at the end of the month. Since my birthday was the last day of May and always a Feast of Mary, the month has been special for me as far back as I can remember. The title for the Feast of Our Lady on May 31 changed several times. First it was the Feast of Our Lady, Mediatrix of All Grace, then it was the Queenship of Mary, and now it is the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth.

On this first day of May, we also have the Feast of St. Joseph, Worker. I am beginning to read Father Philippe's book on The Mystery of Joseph. It is a profound study and I am just starting it.


May is also the month when we celebrate St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, the Foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart. I like it, too, when Pentecost falls within the month of May. In our part of the world, it is Spring with all the flowers in bloom and one wants to go around singing just for joy. In Chile, the month of Mary is November 8 to December 8 and the churches are packed every night during this month.

The book that I am reading and pondering is Sandra Schneiders' Jesus Risen in Our Midst.
Mostly, I am just enjoying finding the Lord in my daily life and I am grateful for all the times I do recognize Him in people, events, circumstances, and the little attentions that help me to share in His joy.
I hope you are finding Jesus appearing often during these days.