“Lord, show us the Father.”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

You can almost hear the sound of exasperation in Jesus’ reply to Philip’s request: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?  He who has seen me has seen the Father: how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” (Jn 14.9)  This week long I have been remembering and pondering a conversation I had with a good priest-friend of mine.  He made the insightful comment that he considered one of Christ’s greatest sufferings to be that so, so many did not grasp the most important part of His mission–and that was: to reveal the Father’s love to us.  How frustrating for Jesus to have so very few whose hearts and eyes were open to perceive this desire of His Heart and to satisfy it.  Imagine for yourself what it is like to try to communicate your own love and appreciation of someone dear to your heart.  You want everyone to know the goodness of this person you know.  One of my own favorite things is to introduce my friends to each other–so that these wonderful people that I know may get to know each other.  And here is Jesus who wishes to open the depths of our souls to the Father of all goodness. . . and we so often say with Philip, “Where is He? Show Him to us.”

Come, Holy Spirit, open our hearts wide to the full revelation of the Father through Jesus.  Help us to satisfy this never ending desire of His to “show us the Father.”

The voice of the Father

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

One of the wonders of the Lord’s Baptism, which we celebrate today, is that for the first time Christ heard His Father’s voice as a man.  This has incredible meaning for us, this unveiling of the heart of the Father for us:

“It is as man that he now hears his Father and sees the Spirit, and he rejoices that, because he now dwells humbly among the sons of men, the Father can no longer speak to him without his fellow-man feeling something of the vibration of that resounding Voice.  Christ brings man not so much a teaching as a dazzling proximity to the inner life of God.  And the very essence of the divine life, the very life-breath of the Son, is the good pleasure, the gracious favor and delight of the Father.” (Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis)

Through His baptism by John, Jesus shows us the way to attaining this inner life.  He humbly show us; He patterns for us what He has no need of.   As Leiva-Merikakis points out: “His present task is to show what human repentance in the presence of God is to be, and it surely comes to him as no surprise that the gift of the Spirit is the result of such repentance and turning to God.”  All God the Father asks of us is humility and repentance, something attainable by each of us.  We are not asked to accomplish great ascetic works or perform great deeds.  All that is needed is a humble and contrite heart . . . and then we each hear spoken to us personally: “Here is my beloved son/daughter, in whom I am well pleased.”

“Let us celebrate the festive day”

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Awake, Mankind!  For your sake God has become man.  Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you.  I tell you again, God became man.
You would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time.  Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh.  You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness, had it not been for this mercy.  You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death.  You would have been lost if he had not hastened to your aid.  You would have perished, had he not come.
Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption.  Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time.

~St. Augustine, Sermon 185

Empty enough

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

If you are feeling empty today, then you are ready for the Christ Child to enter in:

“And yet a paradox is involved here: this greatness and depth of God can be perceived only by babes, the nêpioi or ‘infants’–those who have no words of their own–and not by those who are wise and possess understanding according to the logic of the world.  Not in vain does Saint Bernard say, Non consolatur Christi infantia garrulos— ‘Christ’s infancy does not console the garrulous.’  To these–mere babes, to those of innocent heart–God reveals his inmost secrets as to his intimate friends and dear children.  There is a clear affinity between God and children.  This truth is at the center of the mystery of Christmas, when God is revealed in the form of a baby.  More than mere ‘affinity,’ this is actual identification: The eternal God becomes what he most loves on earth–a child.  But this is no mere sweet sentimentality on God’s part: If he loves the childlike, it is because they are empty enough to receive what he wants to give, a mystery Guerric of Igny expounds:
‘If in the depths of your soul you were to keep a quiet silence, the all-powerful Word would flow from the Father’s throne secretly into you.  Happy then is the person who has so fled the world’s tumult, who has so withdrawn into the solitude and secrecy of interior peace, that he can hear not only the Voice of the Word, but the Word himself: not John but Jesus.'”  (Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis)

Bleak winters.

Sr. Dorcee, beloved3 Comments

“In the lives of those who believe and pray, there are bleak winters of the spirit.  We seem to go along well for a while in prayer and relationships and life generally, but from time to time we disintegrate.  It is very painful.  You may suspect that this will prove to be a creative disintegration, that God is re-creating you, putting you together in the likeness of his Son at a new and deeper level.  Certainly this does happen: growth is not easy; there is a probably distressing period for the caterpillar on the way to butterflyhood.  We are all participants in this experience from time to time, and a chrysalis needs sympathetic understanding, so we should be gentle and patient with ourselves, as with others.  Nevertheless, they are hard to live through, these winters of the spirit.  When you know yourself to be sterile, helpless, unable to deal creatively with your situation or change your own heart, you know your need for a Savior, and you know what Advent is.  God brings us to these winters, these dreary times of deadness and emptiness of spirit, as truly as he brings winter after autumn, as a necessary step towards next spring.  But while we are in them they feel like a real absence of God, or our absence from him. . . . .In the winters of your prayer, when there seems to be nothing but darkness and a situation of frozenness, hold on, wait for God.  He will come.”  (Maria Boulding)

I hope this provides encouragement for you.  Know that I’m praying for you . . . all of you who “know what Advent is.”

For those who are grieving or suffering loss during Advent (repost)

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Today’s post is a reflection on today’s first reading from the book of Judges.  It is the story of Manoah and his wife who was barren.  By the message of an angel and the grace of God, they became the parents of Samson.  This story is obviously a foreshadowing of the Gospel story that follows of Zechariah and Elizabeth.  Listen to what Kathleen Norris has to say:

Today our readings ask us to reflect on a mystery: when our lives are most barren, when possibilities are cruelly limited, and despair takes hold, when we feel most keenly the emptiness of life–it is then that God comes close to us.  This is a day for those who are grieving or suffering loss during Advent, lamenting that just as we are suffering, and need to weep, the world force-feeds us merriment and cheer.  But we are not without hope, for it is because we are so empty, having used the last scrap of our own resources, that God can move in.  To work on us, and even to play.  Even our bitter emptiness gives God room to play, as at the Creation, placing whales in the sea and humans on dry land, then bringing all the animals to Adam to see what in the world he will call them.  This is not a scene of imposed merriment, but of genuine delight and joy.  (from God With Us, Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, p. 105)

It’s easy to feel very lonely, to feel very alone, when you are grieving during such a joyous season.  It gives me hope to know that God is drawn to those who are empty and lonely and alone.  He was born in an “empty” stable.  So let’s come to God with our barrenness and our grieving.  It is there that He will come close to us.

“When we give each other our Christmas presents”

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

“When we give each other our Christmas presents in his name, let us remember that he has given us the sun and the moon and the stars, the earth with its forests and mountains and oceans and all that lives and moves upon them.  He has given us all green things and everything that blossoms and bears fruit and all that we have misused–and to save us from our own foolishness and from all our sins, he came down to earth and gave us Himself.  Venite adoremus Dominum.”  (Sigrid Undset)

Advent Prayer (repost)

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Advent Prayer

Like foolish folk of old I would not be,
Who had no room that night for Him and thee.
See, Mother Mary, here within my heart
I’ve made a little shrine for Him apart;
Swept it of sin, and cleansed it with all care;
Warmed it with love and scented it with prayer.
So, Mother, when the Christmas anthems start,
Please let me hold your baby–in my heart.

Sr. Maryanna, O.P.

Robert, Cyril. Mary Immaculate: God’s Mother and Mine. New York: Marist Press, 1946.