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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Christmastide Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Saints Scripture

Rooted in Love.

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The Christmas octave is one of the most liturgically challenging times of year. It feels like we’ve hardly begun to celebrate the great mystery of the Incarnation before we are rushed into celebrating one feast on top of another. St Stephen, St John, Holy Innocents and, (in Northampton diocese) St Thomas Beckett follow one on the other. At best it can feel somewhat unfocused.

Today we celebrate the feast of St John the Evangelist and I was touched by the second reading, from the writings of St John Henry Newman. In his parochial and plain sermons, he tells us that Christian love is never an abstract concept, only having meaning when practised in the daily interactions of life:

“By trying to love our relations and friends, by submitting to their wishes, though contrary to our own, by bearing with their infirmities, by overcoming their occasional waywardness by kindness, by dwelling on their excellences, and trying to copy them, thus it is that we form in our hearts that root of charity, which, though small at first, may, like the mustard seed, at last even overshadow the earth.”

His words take me back to the heart of the Incarnation. It’s the Love that St John describes, who comes to show us how become people of love in the midst of all the messiness and challenge of daily life. Practising that love in the ordinary encounters of our life may seem small and insignificant in the face of the challenges our world faces. But those small acts of love have the power to grow like the mustard seed, changing life, lightening burdens and bringing hope.

As we work our way through this Christmas Octave how is love taking root in your heart?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Christmastide Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Saints Scripture

Happy Endings & Messy Lives.

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Today we celebrate the feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr. I’m reflecting on this from the 1st reading:

“Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God…”

This wasn’t a “happy ending” in any human sense. It happened as Stephen faced a violent death. This led me to think about the difference between a Christmas movie and the nativity.

I love a Christmas movie, the cheesier the better. With their beautifully decorated scenes and cosy gatherings that happen with minimal effort and stress they’re great background for getting Christmas cards written or presents wrapped.

Yet I know it’s not real. Even as we long for that happy ending we know that the reality of our lives is completely different. When our happy endings do come they are hard won and often appear a bit battered.

The nativity doesn’t offer a happy ending, instead it offers hope, new life and consolation however messy our lives are. It comes to us with a small, vulnerable, outsider baby, conceived in suspicious circumstances and born in a stable. It’s hard to imagine a less “Messiah-like” beginning. Yet, because our own lives are messy, imperfect and uncertain it is precisely the beginning we need.

The false promise of a “happy ever after” can leave us feeling we’ve failed to make the mark in some way. The alternative and real promise of the God of love who chooses to come to dwell with us in our messy and vulnerable live, brings us hope and consolation whatever we face in life.

Where are you aware of the God who offers to dwell with you this Christmastide?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Lectio Divina Liturgy Saints

And light shone out

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Advent is the coldest, darkest, lowest time of the year. That time when we are most aware of our fragility and vulnerability, when it can be easy to lose sight of the Lord’s radiance.

It’s the season when it seems most tempting to give in to despair and hopelessness as everything around us seems dark, cold and colourless. It’s a time when we need to be reminded that the light of the Lord’s love has not disappeared from our lives.

Today we’re celebrating the feast of St Lucy. This morning we we sang a hymn written by one of our sisters that captures both the darkness and the vulnerability of Advent and the hope that St Lucy points us towards.

A young woman martyred for her faith, St Lucy reminds us that, however dark our world might seem, the light has not been wiped out of our lives, instead it is planted deep within us waiting for the right time to burst forth into new life. This morning we sang:

Deep in the darkness seeds of light are sown,
The joyous Light the dark has never known;
Beneath the ground the living waters sing,
And secret streams new life, new gladness bring:
Before the seas were shaped the Fountain played,
And Light shone out before the stars were made.

The words of the hymn offer us hope. They remind me that however dark life might seem there are seeds of light hidden in the darkness, waiting, germinating, preparing to put out shoots when the time is right.

As we approach the shortest day, the lowest point of the year I am grateful for St Lucy’s gentle light reminding us to look towards the Lord’s radiance and directing us to new life and new hope.

What seeds of light are sown through your darkness this Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel John the Baptist Lectio Divina Liturgy Saints Scripture

Finding Direction.

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John the Baptist is one of the main figures of Advent. He is both an uncomfortable and challenging figure. Like so many of the other prophets, he is clearly an outsider, living on the fringes of his society.

Yet his message is clear and central. The Messiah is on his way, and we, like John’s first listeners, are called to prepare ourselves for that coming:

“A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.”

We hear these words every year, read, sung, performed. They are so familiar that it’s easy for us to dismiss their impact for us today. As we rush from pillar to post, busy with Christmas preparations, they can become part of the general background noise of this time of year, words we hear but don’t really listen to.

If, however, we are able to pause and allow them to sink into our hearts they have the potential to be life changing. They carry the question of how we are to prepare for this coming. John also has the answer to that, as he goes through the district calling people to repentance.

He calls us to prepare for the coming of Messiah by looking at where our lives might have to change. Repentance calls us to pause, look at the direction of our lives taking, and to ask ourselves if we need to change direction so that we can be orientated once again towards Christ change direction so that we are re-orientated towards Christ.

What helps you to reflect on the direction your life is taking this Advent?


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All Saints Day.

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The feasts of all Saints and All Souls are intrinsically linked. I can never think of one without being aware of the other. They speak of a deep seated equality that is at the heart of the gospel. All Saints reminds us that through our baptism we are all one in Christ, equally called to live lives shaped by the gospel. Tomorrow’s celebration of All Souls allows us to reflect that other great equaliser, the impermanence of human life.

Today I’m reflecting on this from the first letter of St John:

“My dear people, we are already the children of God, but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.”

This is not a feast of the canonised and recognised saints of the church. They have their own feasts when we rightly celebrate their lives and example. Yet, while we greatly value this, it can distract us from those other unnamed and unrecognised saints who have built up the church through quiet, unrecognised faithfulness to the gospel and to their baptismal promises.

This is a celebration of the ordinary Christians who have striven to be faithful in all ups and downs of ordinary life. The people who have allowed their lives to be shaped by their faith so that in thousands of small, seemingly insignificant, ways they ease the burdens of those around them.

This is a day for celebrating all the children of God who will never be recognised officially as saints, but who have through their actions and example shared the love of God with their families, neighbours and workmates.

Where is Christ inviting you to share his love today?

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The Peace of Christ

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Today were celebrating the feast of St Luke, author of some of the best-known and most loved gospel stories. It’s not surprising then that today’s gospel focuses on the sending of the seventy-two to preach the Good News through the towns and villages.

Jesus gives them very specific instructions, telling them what to take and how to behave as they travel around the country. On their journey they are called to trust themselves completely to the providence of God and the kindness of strangers.

But he doesn’t send them out completely empty handed. He gives them a gift to pass on to the people they encounter:

“Whatever house you going to, let your first words be, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if people of peace live there, your peace will go and rest on them; if not it will come back to you.”

As we see communities torn apart by war and conflict across the world it’s hard to imagine a time when that peace has been more needed. This peace is no quick papering over of cracks. It requires that we do a certain amount of inner work to be able to receive it.

If we are to be people of peace, we have to allow our hearts to be changed. We need to risk letting the stories of the other change us. We have to be willing to let go let go of much that we cherish. We have to accept that we are not right about everything and to be willing to compromise.

Where is Christ calling you to change so that you can accept his peace today?

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Hearing the call

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From the archives for the feast of St Therese of Lisieux. Today we are celebrating the feast of St Therese of Lisieux. She’s often been presented with an overlay of sentimentality and sweetness that undermines her great spiritual wisdom and insight. She was a women of great faith, courage, determination and discernment. This morning we had a reading from her autobiography, where she describes some of her struggle with vocation and its resolution. Reflecting on St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

“Love, in fact is the vocation which includes all others; it is a universe of its own, comprising all time and space – its eternal… My vocation is love… I had discovered where it is that I belong in the Church, the niche God has appointed for me. To be nothing else than love… That’s to be everything at once.”

Her realisation is the result of a deep and honest personal reflection. To reach it she must have paid attention to her deepest discontent as well as her deepest desires, searching the Scriptures to discover how God was leading her through both to discover and respond to God’s call. To go through that process requires great honesty and courage, it’s something we’re all called to.

St Therese’s discernment takes us right back to the very heart of our Christian call, the call to love. It’s a call that seems obvious, straightforward and simple. But, as St Therese herself could tell us the ups and downs of life soon shows us that the call to love is also costly, challenging and painful.

How is God calling you to discover the niche God has appointed for you?

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The hope of peace.

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I’m reflecting on these words from today’s first reading. In his second letter to the Thessalonians St Paul writes:

“May the Lord of peace himself give you peace all the time and in every way. The Lord be with you all.”

They have particular resonance in the light of today’s news, which gives the impression that there is almost nowhere in the world where peace prevails. In such a challenging scenario it’s tempting to dismiss his words as too idealistic for such troubled times.

But the gospel calls us to hope, not hopelessness. In his own challenging and violent times St Paul was able to write these words of hope and believe in them because of the good news of the gospel.

Today were celebrating the feast of St Augustine of Hippo. His writing was hugely influential in shaping Western Christian thought and theology. He also lived in violent and challenging times as the Roman Empire disintegrated around him.

Like St Paul, St Augustine was able to face his times with courage and hope because of his faith in the gospel and it’s promise. In many ways we face the same dilemma that they did. It’s not easy to be hopeful in our own challenging and violent times.

It’s hard to see people suffer and not be able to fix things. Yet it is in precisely these times that we are called to follow their example, to seek and share the peace of Christ wherever and however we can.

Where are you aware of needing the Lord of peace to bring peace to your life today?

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Surprised by Christ

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From the archives for the feast of St Bartholomew. I’m reflecting on Jesus’ encounter with Nathanael. It’s clear that the encounter was as life changing as it was unexpected for Nathanial. He is somewhat underwhelmed with Phillips’ news that the expected Messiah is from Nazareth, questioning whether anything good can come from that place.

However, despite this uncertainty, he is unable to resist Phillips’ invitation to “come and see” for himself. It’s this openness and willingness to take a risk that enables him to be embrace the life changing encounter that follows. When he does come to Jesus it is with a question:

“How do you know me?

Jesus’ answer seems commonplace enough:

‘I saw you under the fig tree.’

Yet it is this apparently ordinary answer that enabled him to put aside his doubts and recognise the long-awaited Messiah: “

“Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel.’

The passage makes me aware of how we long to be known and accepted as we really are. We long to recognise Christ in our lives, and for him to recognise us. It is both comforting and challenging to discover that Christ knows us better than we know ourselves.

It’s comforting because it means that with Jesus I can be completely myself, without pretence, knowing that I will be accepted completely as I am. It’s challenging because of the things that I would rather keep hidden, those times when I don’t live up to my best self, that Jesus invites me to bring out into the open, into the light of his love.

Where is Christ surprising you with his presence today?

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Love in action.

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Today we’re celebrating feast of St Bernard Tolomei, the founder of the Olivetan congregation. He was a 13th century lawyer who, with a few friends, left the city to live as hermits in the hills outside of Siena.

However, things did not turn out quite as they planned. Having being led out into one of those “desert places” where God speaks to the heart, they were called back into the city to nurse the victims of the plague in 1349. It was there that St Bernard fell ill and died.

Reflecting on Bernard’s life in the light of that gospel I was touched by this:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

It sums up both the essence of St Bernard’s life and of the call to contemplation that we all experience. The result Bernard’s contemplation was not to cut him off from the world and its sufferings, but to make him more aware of them. This led him back to the city to give his life in serving others.

It’s tempting to make a division between a life of contemplation and one of service. Bernard’s life suggests that there is no such division, they are two parts of a whole. It is our time spent with God that enables and sustains our service to others. It is the love we discover in the heart of God that enables us to love our sisters and brothers.

How is Christ calling you to serve today?