Category: Discernment

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Prayer Scripture Truth Uncategorized

First and last

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We live times where status matters. Whether our status is related to work, wealth, or online presence we see it self defining in some way. It can make us feel important, valued, seen or powerful. The temptation to seek status can be beguiling and misleading.

In today’s gospel the disciples fall into this trap. Discovering them arguing about who is the greatest among them Jesus takes them aside, offering a teaching that turns all their ideas about status and power upside down.

He tells them that the greatness they seek is not part of the kingdom. The way of the kingdom is not to seek to be first, but to choose to put others first:

“If anyone wants to be first, they must make themselves last of all and servant of all.”

It’s not what the disciples had left everything to follow him were expecting to hear. If we are honest about our own reactions his words they are just as startling to us today.

He calls us to a way of living that puts the needs of others before our own, to treat them as we would like to be treated. I wonder how life might change if that became the guiding principle of all our daily interactions and encounters? There is no doubt that such a change would be costly for us, and would require a daily effort. Alongside this challenge the gospel offers us the hope that it would also be an enriching and life enhancing experience.

How is Christ calling you to serve today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Lectio Divina Scripture Truth Uncategorized

Space for love to flourish

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Today I’m reflecting on the first reading. From the 1st letter of St Paul to the Corinthians it’s a call to allow every aspect of our lives to be shaped by love:

“Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”

St Paul captures the essence of love and why it is so essential to our lives. He expresses both the ideal we strive towards and the practicalities of how we make that ideal a reality in our daily lives. He reminds me that the call of love is always to seek the good of the other, to act with kindness and to to give the benefit of the doubt wherever we can.

We live in times that are quick to judge and condemn. Fuelled by the speed and anonymity of the internet it’s rare that we take the time to listen & understand views that are different from ours. Sometimes we rush into reacting before love has a chance to make its voice heard.

St Paul’s call to love is a call to re-evaluate all of that, to consider our response to disagreement in the light of the love we’re called to by the gospel. How that could reinvent the digital arena, and all our public engagement?

Often I think we find it easier to act with love in challenging, difficult situations than in the ordinary, mundane interactions of daily life. Yet it’s the daily small kindnesses and patience in bearing with one another that changes lives, easing burdens and allowing love to flourish.

Where are you being called to allow love to flourish in your life today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Scripture Uncategorized

Finding Space.

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Today’s gospel is all about service. Leaving the synagogue Jesus goes immediately to Simon’s house where he cures Simon’s mother-in-law. Immediately she gets up and begins to serve them. The evening sees Jesus serving again, as crowds of people come to him seeking healing. It must have been a long and tiring day, and all of us know that feeling. The next morning Luke tells us:

“When daylight came, he got up and left the house and made his way to a lonely place.”

We read this as a break in the pattern of service, Jesus taking time out to pray in order to return to serving refreshed and renewed. On one level that is is true, but the Gospels often have many layers of truth. On another level Jesus’ act of taking time to be alone in God’s presence is also an act of service.

It is an act of self-care which allows him to draw all that he needs to carry on from God. It’s also an act of service to others, a reminder that part of what it is to be human is to need time to rest and recharge.

When the needs of the people we serve seem to be overwhelming we can feel pressured to keep going regardless of our own needs. Jesus doesn’t wait until every need is met, every person healed, every situation resolved before he takes the time he needs. He doesn’t expect us to do that either there is both an invitation and a challenge in that.

Where is Jesus inviting you to take time to pray in the midst of serving others?

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St Gregory the Great.

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Today we’re celebrating the feast of St Gregory the Great. The gospel poses the question at the heart of Christian life. Jesus asks his disciples what people are saying about him. It highlights Jesus’ humanity, like all of us he wonders what people think of him, and how much impact his message is having them. He gets a varied response from the disciples. Some people say he’s John the Baptist, or Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Brushing this mixed bag aside he asks the disciples:

“But you…who do you say I am?”

This question moves the discussion to a deeper level. Directed, not to the crowds who hear him in the market place or synagogue, but to the people who left everything to follow him. It requires a deeper response than the comments the disciples have passed on. I can imagine the silence that fell as the disciples realised this and pondered their response. As usual it is Simon Peter who has the courage to break that silence as he says:

“You are the Christ…, the Son of the living God.”

As the rest of the passage unfolds we see how life changing this response is for Peter, and for St Gregory the Great. It’s left me pondering my own response to the question. Yet, each time it arises it has the potential to be life changing for us too. Whenever it comes up we’re called to give it our whole attention so that we, like Peter and St Gregory, can answer it from the depths of our hearts.

Who do you say Christ is today?

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Learning compassion.

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This Sunday’s gospel is about judgement and motivation. It opens with the Pharisees questioning why the disciples are eating with unclean hands. Their comments are both judgemental and critical. Jesus uses the prophet Isaiah to challenge both these attitudes. He reminds them them that faith is about more than adhering to human tradition however valuable and revered that might be:

“This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations. You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.“

He goes on to call the people to him, telling them:

“Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a person from outside can make them unclean: it is the things that come out of a person that makes them unclean.”

Jesus’ words are every bit as relevant to us as they were to the Pharisees. The challenge to attitudes and behaviours, the judgements and presuppositions applies as much to us in the church today as it did to the Pharisees.

Within the church today, we know all too well the temptation to judge and criticise others for their beliefs or spiritual practices. Especially when social media can spread our ideas so far we know how damaging and undermining such attitudes can be. Jesus calls us to listen with the “ear of our hearts”, to look inwards at our own motivations, and focus on our own response to his teaching.

If we give our whole attention to this, we will have little energy or interest in judging others. As our inward journey shows us both our own strengths and weaknesses we will discover that we grow in compassion and so we will be less tempted be judgemental or critical to others.

Where is Christ challenging you to look inwards today?

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Called to be generous

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Some thoughts on fairness and generosity from our archives: Today’s gospel is all about fairness and generosity. At the beginning of the day a landowner goes out to hire workers for his vineyard, offering them a fair price for the day’s work. He goes out again several times later in the day, right up to the 11th hour, and still finding idle workers sends them to his vineyard offering them “a fair wage”.

At the end of the day he tells his bailiff to pay all the workers the same amount, starting with the ones who came last. This causes some consternation to those who have been working all day, and they grumble that it’s not fair as they have worked longer and should receive more. They evoke our sympathy because we all know what it feels like to be treated unfairly. Yet, the vineyard owner takes a different view, saying to them:

“My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius?… Why be envious because I am generous?

His words turn the situation on its head, challenging his workers, and us, to look at it from a different perspective. He calls us to look at our motivations and to acknowledge that there can be a thin line between our desire for fairness and envy. His generous action points out that generosity is a hallmark of the Kingdom. It compels us to reflect on where we can be generous towards those around us with both our material goods and our time.

Where is Christ calling you to act generously today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Rule of St Benedict Saints Scripture

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?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Eucharist Gospel Holy Spirit Lectio Divina Scripture Uncategorized

Invitation & challenge.

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Today’s readings speak of invitation, call and challenge. In the first reading Wisdom sends her maidservants out into the city to invite everyone to:

“Come eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared! Leave your folly and you will live, walk in the ways of perception.”

In the gospel Jesus also has an invitation, as he offers us his very self:

“I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and the bread which I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.”

He invites us to choose the life-giving over the often beguiling death dealing:

“I tell you most solemnly… Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in them… Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.”

The challenge in both these invitations is to change. Wisdom’s call to walk in the “ways of perception” requires that we examine how we live in the light of God’s teaching and to make changes where necessary.

The gospel carries a similar message. However devoted to and sustained we are by the Eucharist, by itself it is not enough. The invitation to partake in the Eucharist is a call to imitate Jesus’ life of loving service in all areas of our lives.

In the letter to the Ephesians St Paul grounds this theme even more explicitly in the reality of our daily interactions. He writes:

“Be careful about the sort of life you lead… Do not be thoughtless but recognise what is the will of the Lord… Be filled with the Spirit.”

While each of the readings draws us into a meaningful and sustaining spiritual practice, they also point as beyond it. They invite us to is to allow the spiritual practices affect our behaviour in every part of life. The challenge is to let the love of God we have received shine through in every encounter, every interaction and every relationship of our lives.

Where is Christ calling you to model your life on his today?

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The call to transformation.

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The Transfiguration is a beautiful feast. It gives us an insight into the mystery of God. It shows us how God’s glory can break through into our ordinary lives, transforming them and enabling us to see them in a new light. Yet it’s also full of challenge.

Like Peter, when we glimpse that glory we want to stay with it. We long to be held in the shelter of God’s presence, protected from the storms and hardships of our lives. Tempting as that is, it misses the point of the Transfiguration. Those moments of intense encounter with God are not places to hide away but ones to draw courage from so that we can face the turmoil of the challenging lives and times we live in.

It seems to me that the key to the Transfiguration is in these words spoken from the cloud:

“This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.”

It’s a call to listen to Jesus that requires we are open to those intense moments of transformation, but are also willing to move on from them. It’s a call not only to listen, but to respond to his words, allowing them to shape our actions and encounters.

It’s a call to leave the places where we feel safe and comfortable and follow him whatever challenges life presents, and to learn to respond to those challenges with love, kindness and compassion.

Where are you being called to listen to Christ in your life today?

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Discovering treasure.

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Today we’re celebrating the feast of St Ignatius Loyola whose spiritual exercises have done much to shape Christian spirituality through the centuries. Today’s gospel, the pearl of great price, struck me as having an enlightening resonance with the life of St Ignatius. In describing the kingdom Jesus tells his disciples the story of a someone finding treasure hidden in a field, and happily selling all their possessions to buy the field:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which someone has found… He goes off happy, sells everything he owns and buys the field.”

His desire for the pearl and his decision to act on it is completely life changing for him. St Ignatius went through a similar life changing experience. Having been seriously wounded in battle he found himself bedbound, bored and frustrated in a strange house. He had limited resources to entertain himself. He was left with nothing to read except a life of Christ and the life of the saints, which would not have been his choice.

However, as he read them and daydreamed about their stories he began to find unexpected riches buried there. The discovery led him to question how he was living and what made him truly happy. To his surprise he discovered that it wasn’t imagining himself as a great knight, performing deeds of strength and courage.

Instead he found that he was happiest when he imagined himself imitating the actions of Jesus or of the saints. This was the treasure he discovered and, he willingly gave everything he had to be able to carry on seeking that treasure.

Where are you being called to seek the hidden treasure of Christ’s presence in your life?