The important thing to remember about Andrew was that he and his brother, Peter, immediately left their nets and followed Jesus.
It is good to write down whatever we have decided to do this Advent to prepare for the celebration of Christ's coming into our world. Then we will be definite about our Advent preparation. It is a short season, but one that can make a difference in our lives!
The Liturgy for the First Sunday of Advent is worth praying over so I shall just mention a few things that strike me this year.
The Collect: "Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom."
The First Reading is from Isaiah 63 "Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down..."
The Responsorial Psalm is from Psalm 80 and we beg the Lord to make us turn to Him and we cry: "Rouse your power and come to save us."
The Second Reading is from Paul's first Letter to the Corinthians: 1:3-9:
"I give thanks to my God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus that in him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."
The Gospel is from Mark 13: 33-37
"Jesus said to his disciples: 'Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.....May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. what I say to you, I say to all: 'Watch!'"
I think we all have grown up with different ideas about Advent that have changed as we have grown. I certainly can remember when Advent was a time of trying to be good so Santa would bring us what we asked for and how we could hardly wait to hang up our stockings to be filled. I did know that it was the birthday of Jesus and I loved seeing the manger with Joseph and Mary waiting for Jesus to be born. I think I was in high school before the real meaning of Advent hit me; it is a time to prepare our hearts to welcome Jesus again in a special way. Yes, Jesus is in my heart, but the Church now calls us to really prepare our hearts, to make more room for Jesus, to be able to welcome Him...
On this Friday after Thanksgiving I am sitting in front of my computer aware of so many friends scattered all over. Some I have not seen for years, but the gift of their friendship has marked my life. I am grateful for friends in Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Chile, Italy, France, England, Scotland, Canada, Colombia, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and, of course, the United States. What a gift to have friends all over the world! I am not good at staying in contact with many, but they are often in my thought and prayer. I guess I am thinking of them more today as I have just finished writing Christmas cards to be mailed before Advent.
I have not written to those outside of the United States, although I will be sending electronic cards to some RSCJ. My Christmas letter and cards are going to arrive at the beginning of Advent and are for family and friends who are not RSCJs. I tried to limit the list to 50 this year and finished writing all before Thanksgiving for the first time.
I do want to spend Advent preparing for Christmas. When I entered the Society we were not allowed to write letters during Advent and Lent. That is no longer true, but I must tell you that I am happy to have my Christmas letter sent early to wish everyone a holy Advent - actually, I want everyone to have a holy, healthy, happy Advent and Christmas.
Besides thinking of my friends today and feeling very grateful for them, I am also asking God to show me what He wants of me during Advent which begins on Sunday. "Kindness" was suggested from the reading of Chapter 6 in the Pope's latest encyclical; I think that kindness would be the positive way of keeping out all critical thoughts and so I think that will be helpful for me during this Advent.
What are you planning to do for Advent?
This morning I happened to read Psalm 16 and it said so much to me that I am sharing it with you, at least a few lines - it begins with a plea for protection and that is something we all need at this moment:
"Protect me, O God, for in You I take refuge,
I say to the Lord, "You are my Lord;
I have no good apart from you."
That is powerful- can I really say that I have no good apart from God?
And how about these lines from Psalm 16 still:
"I bless the Lord who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me.
I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure...
In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore." (NRSV)
One thing I am trying to do while in this solitude is to is to "keep the Lord always before me" and then my heart is glad and my soul rejoices. Try it and see how good the Lord is for in His presence there is fullness of joy!
It seems easy to say, but how often do we forget to concentrate on the good and count our blessings?
This a a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh: "The Zen master Ling Chi said that the miracle is not to walk on burning charcoal or in the thin air or on the water; the miracle is just to walk on earth. Your breathe in. You become aware of the fact that you are alive. You are still alive and you are walking on this beautiful planet... The greatest of all miracles is to be alive."
With so many dying everyday here and all over the world, we must count our blessings because we are alive and still able to help others by our prayers and actions.
Today is my brother's birthday and I give thanks for him; he was an adorable baby and is a wonderful brother. Let us give thanks today as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving Day tomorrow - thanks for all the good memories, the many times we have been able to gather on Thanksgiving and, even in our quarantine, I am grateful that we have not gone back to the cardboard trays and plastic forks, etc. I do find it strange to be eating alone on Thanksgiving, but there are many who not only are alone but do not have a real meal to celebrate this day.
In our consumer society we are beset with ads trying to convince us that we must have whatever is being advertised. The question we need to keep asking our selves is, "Do I really need this?" I suspect that we would say no to all these ads if we stopped to think of what is actually a need and what is simply a desire. The point I am trying to make is that we are happier when we do not want for what we do not need. We begin to see how much we have and are grateful that we do not need all these things that are attracting us, but we find ourselves happier when we can say, "no, I do not need that."
When I was a young nun my family was allowed to visit for an hour on Sunday afternoons when I was in town for summer-school at Maryville. My mother told me she had a list of six things she wanted me to pray for - I do not think she told me what she wanted but I remember her saying to me after a few weeks: "Stop praying as I keep getting the things on my list and then do not want them." It seems that she wanted an alarm clock that also started the coffee so she and my Dad could have coffee in bed; the first time she tried it, the alarm went off at 4:00 AM; the second time the water boiled but the coffee did not enter the machine; by the third time it would not work, my Dad said to forget it and get rid of it. The second thing on the list was a water-bed. They had just come on the market and my mother thought she would love one. When it came, it seems that is was a disaster as my Dad was heavier and my mother kept rolling over on top of him and so they had to pay to get someone to remove it and get another mattress. I think it was the same for all the items on my mother's list. The funny thing is that my mother usually wanted nothing and if someone even admired what she had, she would give it to them. She did not like extras and hated clutter of any kind.
Let us be grateful for what we have and not long for anything we do not need!
When we look back over the years, or look over the months or weeks or even days, we see so much to be grateful for and want to thank now, even if we did not feel so grateful then. I guess what I am trying to say is that returning to past moments that may have been difficult then, now can be seen as real moments of grace and growth and we need to be grateful for them. I am finding many such moments in my own life as I pursue this practice of gratitude. I know Jesus is happy when we stop to thank Him. He knows that it is good for us to thank and in these days before Thanksgiving, let us remember to turn to Him in gratitude for all the graces given us each day.
This last Sunday of the Liturgical Year celebrates Jesus as King of the Universe. I wonder what Jesus thinks when he looks at the world today so full of suffering, poverty, injustice, sins of all kinds. This is the feast where we pray in the Collect of the Mass that "the whole of creation, set free from slavery, may render your majesty service and ceaselessly proclaim your praise."
So, let us praise the Lord and rejoice that the First Reading is from the Prophet Ezechiel 34:11-12, 15-17 where God says "I myself will look after and tend my sheep... "It is a very consoling reading.
The Responsorial Psalm is: "The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want."
The Second Reading is from Paul to the Corinthians: 15:20-26,28 is also consoling for "since death came through man, the resurrection of the dead came also through man.....
The Gospel is from Matthew 25:31-46 and tells us that Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats...."
Then we hear about the works of mercy - I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me....whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.
Let us all pray to be counted with the sheep and begin to care for others as Jesus wants us to love one another in concrete ways and thus we are showing Jesus love, too.
November 21 is a special day as we count this day, a feast of Our Lady, as the birthday of the Society of the Sacred Heart. It was the day that Madeleine Sophie and her first companions made their vows and consecrated themselves to the Heart of Jesus.
When I was a young Religious, the time before final Profession was usually five years and every one of those years we had a big celebration for the Feast of the Presentation and usually a triduum to prepare it. This meant that for the three days before the feast all those who were not yet professed would gather with the Superior for a talk each evening as we were all busy in the school and could not make a real retreat. At Mass on the feast, we would renew our vows; when we made our first vows, they were not temporary, but we renewed them as a devotion. Some have the habit of renewing their vows every single day in their own prayer. I think I used to do that but lost the habit of doing it perhaps when I was sent to Chile from Rome immediately after my final profession.
Today we pray for all the Religious of the Sacred Heart all over the world and hope that we are making a difference by our love and by our consecration to the Heart of Jesus.
We are quarantined until November 30 so forget what I said about visitors - we found out on Thursday morning; we are again confined to our rooms, meals in our rooms and no Chapel, but a short walk in the patio outside my window when others are not there.
I have been wanting to quote from the Encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, and this struck me today. It is from Chapter 5,#194: "Politics too must make room for a tender love of others. "What is tenderness? It is love that draws near and becomes real.....Amid the daily concerns of political life, "the smallest, the weakest, the poorest should touch our hearts; indeed, they have a 'right' to appeal to our heart and soul. They are our brothers and sisters, and as such we must love and care for them."
The Pope stresses the common good and I think the only way we will solve our own political problems is to make sure that all elected officials promise and are held to that promise of promoting the good of all. I am sure that we can erase the real poverty of many if everyone would think of the common good. We are a wealthy country, but need to see how we can help those who are without even what is necessary to live a fruitful life.
