Second Sunday of Lent

This Second Sunday of Lent has the Gospel of the Transfiguration of Jesus. Just as Jesus invited Peter, James and John to go up the mountain to pray with Him, He is inviting each of us today. The most important thing about this Gospel seems to me to be the words of God the Father saying: "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." If we really listen to Jesus, our lives, our world, would be different.

Collect: "O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son, be pleased, we pray, to nourish us inwardly by your word, that, with spiriutal sight made pure, we may rejoice to behold your glory.

The first reading is from Genesis 22 and is the story of God putting Abraham to the test by asking him to sacrifice his son. Fortunately, it was only a test, but I cannot imagine how Abraham felt!

The Responsorial Psalm is "I will walk before the Lord, in the land of the living."

First Reading is from Paul's letter to the Romans: 8: 31b-34. "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over forus all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?...

Let us listen to God today. We are having a Mass and that is really good as it has been a month without Mass.
 

Our Guardian Angels

 Today I have been thinking about our angels and how they work to keep us holy and healthy as well as free from all danger. I wonder how they feel with the pandemic taking so many lives. I am sure they are working overtime - not that they ever stop working, but it must give them consolation to be the one with the dying person to lead him or her to eternal life. I guess this is just because I feel the need to thank my angel and all the angels who have been guarding us. I firmly believe that my angel is always with me.

Today was our first out of quarantine and we did enjoy talking to each other. I received two gifts this morning. One was from a cousin who now lives in North Carolina but the box was from Georgia and contained "bear claw" made with dark chocolate and white chocolate, handmade Southern Candies. I assure you that I was grateful to get this wonderful gift, but it lasted all of ten minutes after I opened it. I was delighted to have something to give the staff and so began to pass out the bear claws with real joy, but I saved one white and one dark to eat on Sunday. 

After that gift, I was surprised to find another from one of my Seniors who has just returned from Costa Rica and she brought me a darling little frog sitting on a log in a glass bubble that has lovely green sparkles when you shake it. I guess Costa Rica has no snow so invented this; also in the gift bag were two tiny bags of candy. One has dark chocolate almonds and so I have an unexpected treat. Then, one of my Sisters who lives alone in what I call the "compound" came over and brought me two advocados. She had also given me two last week so I took them to supper and they were a treat as they got passed around with the cheese pizza that was our Friday night supper this week. I enjoy mashing up an avocado and eating it on crackers or on toast. Dee is keeping me supplied! I am writing this on Friday night and need to get to sleep earlier tonight now that I have given up my detective stories until after Easter - this only means the ones on my Ipad as I still might read the ones I sometimes find in my mailbox left there by an avid reader who lives in the Gatehouse.

We are again out of Quarantine

 It means a great deal to be able to see others and talk at a distance and be able to go to the dining rooms.

We are all happy about this and will even have Mass this Sunday. I am late posting as I thought I had scheduled ahead. I am praying for everyone as there are still too many deaths. Our high school students are going to be returning to school on March first but I think only some each day so that all will get a chance to have some classes on campus and then some at home. It is confusing but they are very good at figuring out their schedules and I suspect all will be well.

I have decided that I need to give up my detective stories for the rest of Lent. They were a great escape during this quarantine, but I do not need them now and will concentrate on spiritual reading. 

Continuation of the Praise Song for the Pandemic

 

This is, as I wrote yesterday, a work in progress by Christine Valters Paintner and I do not know who sent it to me, but this is the second part.

Blessed are the ministers and therapists of every kind, bringing words of comfort.

Blessed are the ones whose jobs are lost, who have no savings, who feel fear of the unknown grnawing.

Blessed are those in grief especially who mourn alone; and blessed are those who have passed into the Great Night.

Praise for the police and firefighters, paramedics, and all who work to keep us safe, praise for all the workers and caregivers of every kind.

Praise for the sound of notifications, messages from friends reaching across the distances, give thanks for laughter and kindness.

Praise be our four-footed companions, with no forethought or anxiety, responding only in love.

Praise for the seas and rivers, and forests and stones who teach us to endure.

Give thanks for your ancestors, for the wars and plagues they endured and survived, their resistence is in your bones, your blood.

Blessed is the water that flows over our hands and the soap that helps keep them clean, each time a baptism.

Praise every moment of stillness and silence, so new voices can be heard, praise the chance at slowness.

Praise be the birds who continue to sing the sky awake each day; praise for the primrose poking yellow petals from dark earth.

Blessed is the air clearing overhead so one day we can breathe deeply again.

Ane when this has passed, may we say that love spread more quickly that any virus ever could, may we say this was not just an ending but also a place to begin.

Praising all helpers in the Pandemic

 I have been wanting to praise all those who are helping us to get through this time and then someone sent me this "Praise Song for the Pandemic;A work in Progress by Christine Valters Paintner" and it just seems to be what we would want to say so I am copying it here so we can really not only praise these people, but continue to pray for them.

Praise for the nurses and doctors. every medical staff bent over flesh to offer care, for lives saved and lives lose, for showing up either way.

Praise for the farmes, tilling soil, planting seeds so food can grow, and act of hope if there ever was one.

Praise for the janitors and garbage collectors, the grocery store clerks, and the truck drivers barreling through long quiet nights.

Give thanks for bus drivers, delivery persons, postal workers, and all those keeping an eye on water, gas, and electricity.

Blessings on our leaders, making hard choices for the common good, offering words of assurance.

Celebrate the scientists, working away to understand the thing that plagues us, to find an antidote, and all medicine makers.

Praise be the journalists keeping us informed.

Praise be the teachers, finding new ways to educate children from afat, and blessings on parents holding it together for them.

Blessed are the elderly and those with weakened immune systems, all those who worry for their health, and praise for those who stay at home to protect them.

Blessed are the domestic violence victims, on lock down with abusers, and the homeless and refugees.

Praise for the poets and artists, the singers and storytellers, all those who nourish with words and sound and color.

To be continued tomorrow as there is still more to praise and bless!

"Look to Him that you may be radiant with joy'

 The Responsorial Psalm held my attention today. This is the verse from Psalm 34 that I prayed over: 

"Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and our faces may not blush with shame.

When the poor one called out, the Lord heard, and from all his distress he saved him."

Sometimes a line from Scripture will jump out at us and that is what happened when I read

"Look to him that you may be radiant with joy"

God wants us to be joyful even in the midst of a pandemic. How is this possible?

I leave each of us to work that out for yourself, with the help of the Holy Spirit. I do think that finding God in pray makes me joyful.

So many are suffering from the cold, the snow and ice

 Here I am in California and imagining what others are going through when I read the weather reports. I think our community on the school grounds in Houston has a real fireplace in the living room. I hope they are not freezing and maybe even have electricity by now. I am writing ahead but know that Texas has not had electricity in many parts and now the news is that people are to boil their water, but if they have an electric stove they cannot do that. I hope that all this suffering is making the country aware of the need for ecological reform before we destroy our planet. 

To go back to Lent, I mostly have thoughts this morning from reading James Martin's book on prayer. I am discussing the first two chapters on a zoom tomorrow and have these two thoughts to share: There is no one way to pray and God often makes prayer easy for a beginner. Now, I am so convinced that God made us so He can love us that it makes sense for God to give us a desire for prayer as it is in prayer that we form a relationship with God and allow Him to love us. 

Just take some time today to sit with God and receive His Love!

First Sunday of Lent

 Mark's Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent is short but very important. Jesus must have told his disciples about being tempted in the desert. 

"The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.                                                  After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel." Mark 1:12-15

I think this gives us plenty to reflect upon today. May our forty days of Lent help us to proclaim the Kingdom of God. 

Reading during Lent

 Although I would not choose to be in quarantine, it certainly does give me time for reading. I bought two books to read besides the two that I need to read. They arrived just in time. I had read part of James Martin's new book: Learning to Pray: A Guide for Everyone and decided it was a book I wanted to buy. In my cart at Amazon I had other books and decided on one by Brian d. McLaren called We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-long Quest for Spiritual Formation, Reoriantation, and Activation.  It has readings for every week in the year and lends itself to discussion, I think. I really have not had time to look it over but I think I shall give it a try. 

I mostly am trying to discern how the Lord wants me to spend these days of solitude. I am trying to be docile to the Holy Spirit's inspirations. I love the quiet, the time to color, the time to pray, to read, to write to friends - this is what is filling my days. I have so much to be grateful for and have good friends to stay in contact with while I can do so. I have learned how to host Zooms and love this way of communicating.

Lent is a time of renewal

 We are given six weels to prepare for Easter to enter into the joy of the Risen Lord. First, we walk with Him and stay with Him even in His agony and death; Jesus gave His life for us to show us how much He loves each of us. I think sometimes we need just to be with Him in prayer -no words are necessary. Just be with Him in silence. 

Lent has begun with record cold

 I cannot imagine the cold that some parts are feeling now, and some are without electricity and that may mean they have no heat, no way of cooking, etc. I feel for them as no one can go out to warm up in a restaurant. Here, at Oakwood, we are having meals brought to out rooms as we will be in quarantine until all have tested negative for two weeks. I really do not mind and find solitude helpful for prayer and for Lent. These are a precious forty days and we do not want to waste them.

I never used to like Lent. I could not wait until Easter came. That changed somewhere along the years. I remember one Lent spending my afternoon prayer with Jesus in the Agony of the Garden. I could not go on and really felt that this is when Jesus suffered the most. And now I seem to find the line from Mark 14 "they all left him and fled" staying with me. I read once that suffering alone is the greatest suffering and it must have been so heartbreaking for Jesus to have all his friends leave him.

Ash Wednesday

 "Rend your heart and not your clothing" -Joel 2:13

In Lent 2021: To Live Anew, Joan Chittister has two reflection questions for us to ponder  today:

What 'doors of your heart' do you need to open this Lent to live a fuller, holier life?

And then think about this: Are there "worlds" you may have allowed to go sterile in your life? What might they be? Think about our relationships, our family, friends, physical health, time, too, for rest and relaxation - that is another "world" plus our own spiritual worlds. We need to examine with the light of the Holy Spirit how God is asking us to grow during this Lenten season. It is just six weeks, so we need to begin now!