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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Prayer Scripture Uncategorized

Be Ready

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As we approach the end of the liturgical year the Gospels we hear in the liturgy take on an urgent tone. The call to prepare becomes more and more urgent.

It’s a call to actively look for the presence of God in our times when it’s easy to surrender to for despair and hopelessness. The sense of hopelessness can invade our spiritual life as well.

We can then be tempted to give up, to decide that it’s too hard to seek God. We might even find ourselves wondering how God could help in these situations.

Today’s parable of the ten bridesmaids is a bit of a wake-up call, telling us that even in these times our choices can make a difference. They may not change the world, but we are not powerless, and they will not be without effect.

The ten bridesmaids were called to wait faithfully in a situation that they couldn’t foresee the outcome of. They all made a choice. Some of them chose to prepare themselves for a long wait, with extra oil for their lamps.

The others chose not to. So, when the bridegroom arrives, some of them are ready and some are not. The gospel ends with a call to:

“So stay awake, because you do not know either the day or the hour.’”

In our challenging times it’s a call not to give in to despair, but to stay alert and awake to the presence of Christ in the midst of our challenging times.

Where is Christ calling you to be awake to his presence in your life today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Prayer Scripture

Dedicated to Christ

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Today we’re celebrating the feast of the Dedication of our Oratory. It’s a feast that call us back to reflect of the core of our faith and our monastic life. Every year it seems to offer me something from the core of our faith to reflect on. This year I’m reflecting on the gospel’s call to forgiveness:

It’s a call that’s full of challenge and that has to be at the heart of any life that involves human relationship. It’s impossible for us to be in relationship with one another without discovering both our need to forgive and to be forgiven. That makes the call to forgive one of the most essential and practical ones we need to respond to.

It’s not an easy call. To forgive we have to both acknowledge the pain of our hurt, and be willing to put it aside. It can be tempting to refuse forgiveness, it gives us a superficial feeling of control when we are vulnerable and brought low.

Forgiveness asks more of us than that. It doesn’t remove the pain we experience. It asks us to acknowledge the pain, and still risk to risk trying again. That leaves us exposed to the risk of more hurt.

Yet to refuse forgiveness imprisons us and ties us to the past. If we want to build the Kingdom together our only hope is to embrace this challenging and risky call as much as we can.

Where are you being called to consider forgiveness today?

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All Souls Benedictine Spirituality Christ Cross Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Prophetic voices Saints Scripture

A time for Hope.

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Every year I’m struck by the mood shift between the feast of All Saints to that of All Souls. All Saints is full of light and joy as we celebrate those who carried the bright light of Christ love into the lives of those around them.

As we move into All Souls the mood becomes more sombre. This is a day for allowing ourselves time to grieve and to mourn for all our losses and all that we lack.

Taken together these feasts speak of the intimate connection between life and death, sadness and joy, telling us that both are part of life and that we can’t have one without the other. I’m struck by how the readings for All Souls offer hope in the promise of new life and resurrection. I’m reflecting on these words from St Paul:

“Hope is not deceptive because the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”

Hope seems easy when life is going well. When life is challenging or we are grieving hope becomes much harder and we’re more likely to mistrust it. It’s in these times that St Paul reminds us that Christ’s hope does not deceive. Whatever griefs we carry on this All Souls Day, the love of Christ that we hope in will sustain, console and lead us into the new life Christ promises.

As we celebrate All Souls what hope is sustaining you?

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All Saints Beatitudes Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Prophetic voices Saints Scripture

To be a peacemaker…

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Our celebration of All Saints begins with Vespers. As part of the service we sing the Beatitudes, which we then hear again proclaimed in the gospel at the vigil and then at Mass. This helps keep them in my mind all through the feast.

Sometimes approaching the Beatitudes can be a bit bewildering, I don’t know which one to focus on and focussing on all of them together can be a bit overwhelming.

Today I haven’t had that difficulty, each time I encountered the Beatitudes the same words leapt out at me:

“How blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called the children of God.”

They have particular resonance because I’m so aware of how desperately the world needs peace at this time. So many people are having their lives torn apart in these times when war is causing so much pain and suffering in so many places.

It’s left me reflecting on this essential call to make peace. It can sometimes appear to be a soft option, but that’s not the case. It requires commitment, courage and strength. To be peacemakers we have to find ways of working round personal hurts and grievances, however justified.

We’re called to be open and vulnerable, to acknowledge the hurts we carry and to do all we can to heal the hurts of others. Peacemakers are called to reach out across barriers that can seem insurmountable in trust and hope.

Where is Christ calling you to be a peacemaker today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Prayer Scripture

Commanded to love.

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In today’s gospel Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Hoping to trip him up the ask him:

“Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?”

Unfazed by their question Jesus has an answer ready that they cannot disagree with:

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind… You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”

His answer takes us back to the most basic principle of Christian life, the call to love wholeheartedly. This is not just a fine principle based on spiritual or devotional practice.

It is a call to give surrender ourselves and our lives wholeheartedly to God, to respond with our whole being to God’s call. But it is not only that, the love of God that we are called to is to be lived out in the practicalities of daily life. By itself it is not enough.

Love of God has to go hand-in-hand with love of our neighbours and (though we so often forget it) of ourselves. But Jesus words are clear, we are called to love our neighbour “as yourself”.

Challenging as we find it I sometimes think we better understand the call to love our neighbour than the call to love ourselves.

The call to love is a call to ensure that no one is left outside the circle of God’s love. It’s a call to love everyone as precious and valued children of God. That applies to our neighbours wherever we encounter them. Uncomfortable as it may make us feel, it also applies to ourselves.

Where is Christ calling you to widen the circle of his love so that it includes everyone you encounter?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Prayer Scripture

Waiting

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Waiting is one of the hardest things we have to do in life. The end of the year is fast approaching. The Autumn colours, the cooler temperatures, the darker mornings and evenings are all pointing in that direction. The same is true of today’s gospel.

Its call to be alert and ready, waiting and prepared for the coming of the Lord reminds me that Advent is just around the corner. I’m struck by this in today’s gospel:

“You too must stand ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

Waiting is generally an uncomfortable experience, it’s often frustrating and stressful. It brings us face to face with the uncertainty we live with, with all those aspects of life that we can’t control.

It compels us to admit our lack, our limitations and our neediness. We can find a myriad of activities from constant busyiness to endless online connectivity to distract us from the discomfort it brings.

The gospel calls us away from those distractions. It invites us to embrace our times of waiting, giving our full attention to it, acknowledging its discomfort, and actively seeking the blessing it promises. As I reflect on this passage one of our Advent antiphons is running through my mind:

“Stand erect, hold your head high because your liberation is close at hand.”

It helps me to put this challenging call to wait into a wider context. This call to be ready comes with a promise. We stand ready, waiting for this promise to be fulfilled, trusting that the Lord will come to set us free from all that would distract us.

Where are you being called to be ready for the coming of the Lord today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Prayer Prophetic voices Saints Scripture

Finding Inspiration

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Our world has become a challenging place. All around us conflict is breaking out between nations with devastating consequences for the people caught up in it. Our news feeds are full of doom and gloom, and we are no longer even sure that we can believe what we see or read.

It’s so easy to give into hopelessness and despair. We can quickly tap into a narrative that tells us the destruction and loss are inevitable, and there is nothing we can do to improve things for ourselves or anyone else. The message is clear that hope is at best misguided and gullible.

That is not the message of the gospel. The gospel calls to be people of hope is not a call for when life is going well, when we feel secure and settled. It’s a call for when we feel like we are living on a knife edge.

These words from St Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians suggest a place to look for hope and inspiration:

“We always …thank God for you all, and constantly remember before God our Father how you have shown your faith in action, worked for love and persevered through hope, in our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Paul reminds us that, however bleak things feel, there are people quietly working to support those in need, to bring love to the loveless, to console the sorrowing.

They are keeping hope alive by faith and action in circumstances that seem impossible to us. He calls us to draw our inspiration from those people in these challenging times.

Who inspires you to keep hoping in our challenging times?

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#ConsecrateLife Christ Discernment Divine Office Lectio Divina Liturgy Prayer Prophetic voices Saints St Teresa of Avila

The call of love

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In these increasingly challenging and uncertain times it can be easy to despair and to lose hope. At such times it can be helpful to look for inspiration from the lives of others who’ve also faced challenges.

Today, we’re celebrating the feast of St Teresa of Avila, Carmelite nun, reformer, theologian and Doctor of the Church. She faced her many challenges with courage and perseverance. There’s much in her writings and in the example of her life to inspire and encourage us. I came across this from her writings:

“Whatever we think of Christ, let us always bear in mind that love of his which drove him to bestow upon us so many gifts and graces. Let us bear in mind to how great is the love God has shown us, since God has given us in Christ such a pledge of that love which God has for us; for love calls for a return of love.”

When life is difficult it seems surprisingly easy for us to lose sight of God’s love. The day-to-day struggles, the seemingly insurmountable challenges and anxiety leave us little energy to discover or reflect on that love. Yet, it is precisely at those times when life is hardest and most challenging that we need to be held and sustained by that love.

The love St Teresa speaks of is not the love of cinema or romantic novel that promises those happy ever after endings that are so beguiling, it is much stronger and deeper than that. Christ doesn’t promise that we won’t be hurt or disappointed, that we won’t feel pain or suffer.

Instead, he promises that whatever sufferings we face, whatever breaks our hearts and disappoints us, he will be there loving and sustaining us through it all.

Where do you need to be aware of the greatness of God’s love for you today?

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Guided by the Spirit

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I’m reflecting on today’s first reading from St Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It starts out full of hope and promise as he tells them:

“If you are led by the Spirit no law can touch you.”

At first glance it seems like he’s offering us an easy option, let the Spirit lead you and you will have no worries. That’s a beguiling and tempting thought, yet we all know it’s not true. A brief moment of reflection shows us it’s not what St Paul is offering us, as he goes on to make perfectly clear saying:

“When self-indulgence is at work, the results are obvious…”

As he carries on listing the results of self-indulgence our hearts recognise the truth of what he says. We all know from experience that wherever our particular form of self-indulgence leads it doesn’t result in peace, joy or contentment.

With his usual directness St Paul carries on to offer us us the antidote to our self-indulgence, listing the characteristics that we need to seek and cultivate if we want to live lives led by the Spirit:

“What the Spirit brings is…: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

As I read his words I recognise how much my heart longs to live a life that are shaped by them. Looking around me I see the difference they could make to lives and communities that are anxious and fractured in these uncertain times.

His words offer us a hope and a challenge. The challenge is to put aside self and allow the Spirit to shape and mould us into a new creation. The hope is that, guided by the Spirit, we can live lives shaped by love, kindness and gentleness.

How are you being called to let the Spirit direct your life today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Prophetic voices Scripture

Trusting the promise.

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Today’s first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, is full of promise and hope. It presents an image all the peoples of the earth been welcomed by God to a banquet on God’s holy Mountain.

It is a promise of salvation and new life that is at odds with our current reality as we watch people’s lives torn apart by war and violence once again. I’m reflecting especially on these words:

“On this mountain God will remove the mourning veil covering all peoples, and the shroud enveloping all nations, God will destroy Death for ever. The Lord will wipe away the tears from every cheek; he will take away the people’s shame everywhere on earth.”

It’s easy to be hopeful when life seems safe and secure. It’s much harder to hope when we are aware of how precarious life is. Isaiah was writing to people who knew what it was to lose all hope, people who had been exiled and lost everything they held dear.

Through centuries of seeming hopelessness his words kept their hope alive. These words, so full of hope, touch us all deeply because we all carry pain that feels inconsolable.

In these hard times they also bring to mind all those who are mourning the loss of homes, livelihoods, communities and loved ones. In the face of the suffering we see all around us give the passage a new depth and meaning.

This beautiful passage offers us a challenge as well as an invitation. We are also called to hope in that promise even in those times when life seems utterly hopeless.

Where is Christ calling you to hope in your dark times?