Category: Discernment

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Scripture Uncategorized

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?

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Finding Balance

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Today’s gospel highlights a dilemma that is at the heart of Christian life and ministry. When his disciples come back from their mission Jesus’ first thought is to give them space for rest and reflection. He says to them:

“You must come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”

He is responding both to their need to recover from their travels and to the situation to which they returned which was so busy that they didn’t even have time to eat. In our busy, stressful and needy world we all know this situation from our own experience. When we are presented with situations that need us it is very easy to forget the importance of our own well-being. Like the disciples we need space to rest and recover and it is a relief that Jesus acknowledges that.

Later he is presented with another challenge:

“As he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length.”

His actions may seem confusing and contradictory. They leave us wondering what we should do if we are to model our lives on his. They are a reminder that, as St Benedict tells us, the Christian life is one of balance.

We are not called to choose one or the other of these ways of being, but to hold them in tension and balance. This requires discernment and self-knowledge, we have to take each situation and discern what we are being called to in it. Our discernment needs to take account of our own needs and the needs of those who come to us.

Where is Christ challenging you to find balance in the midst of your life and commitments?

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Called to radical trust

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It can be hard to feel hopeful when life is tough. In challenging and uncertain times we tend to tense up and close in on ourselves. We find it hard to be hopeful, trustful or aware of our blessings. We look for ways of maintaining the status quo, and keeping ourselves safe Understandable as that is Scripture calls us to a different way of being.

In his own challenging and uncertain times Jesus sends the Twelve out to preach the Good News with nothing except his authority. Instead of allowing them to look for ways to protect themselves he challenges them to risk embracing the uncertainty:

“He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bread, no haversack, no coppers for their purses. They were to take sandals, but he added, ‘Do not take a spare tunic.’”

We are so familiar with this passage that it’s easy to sanitise it. We can assume it’s for the disciples, but not for us today. We can allow the challenges of our lives today to overshadow that call, using those legitimate demands to avoid it. We are also called to the radical trust and hope of discipleship. That can be easier when life is good, when our nations and societies seem stable and secure.

It becomes much more difficult when we live with fear and uncertainty across the globe. Yet, while the details might look different to the instructions to the Twelve, the underlying call is the same. We too are called to live with radical trust and hope in the midst of much that would undermine that.

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

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Unsettling listening.

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In today’s gospel Jesus faces rejection by the people of his home town. It’s a familiar and understandable story. We often find it hard to recognise special qualities in people we perceive as just like us. So we find Jesus’ neighbours grumbling about him:

“Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom that has been granted him, and these miracles that are worked through him?”

Unsettled and disturbed by the way Jesus challenges them they turn away from him, refusing to accept his message. Jesus’ response a is challenge:

“A prophet is only despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house.”

It’s a call to pay attention to what is going on around us. He challenges us to look again at what we might be missing. It’s a call to listen very specifically to those we prefer to avoid, to those who challenge us and make us feel uncomfortable.

His challenge has particular resonance for me as we face a new chapter in our national life. I find myself wondering how we can ensure that the voices of those we push to the margins can are heard and welcomed. We’re called to re-examine our preconceptions and ask ourselves what we need to put aside to open our hearts and minds to those voices. Jesus challenges us to take the risk of allowing ourselves to listen to those voices, and even to allow them to change our minds and our perceptions.

Who is Jesus challenging you to listen to today?

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Facing challenging questions.

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St Thomas is one of my favourite disciples because he is so direct and has the courage to ask awkward questions. He asked the questions that other people didn’t quite have the nerve for. His feast has particular resonance for me as we come to the end of general election campaign that has raised awkward questions in many areas of our lives.

There are many reasons why we avoid asking the awkward questions. Maybe we don’t want to be seen as troublemakers, or appear uninformed or unintelligent. Maybe we are scared that there will be no answers, or that they will be too challenging and hard for us to cope with.

We can draw courage from both Thomas’ reaction and Jesus’ response. When Jesus appears again and Thomas has the courage to voice those questions he faces neither criticism or blame. Instead Jesus offers him exactly what he says he needs to be able to believe in the resurrection:

“He spoke to Thomas ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Doubt no longer but believe.’”

His words break down any barriers of doubt that Thomas still harboured. Jesus’ acceptance of Thomas’ position enables Thomas to open his heart to believe in the reality of the risen Christ. Jesus accepts our questions and uncertainties in exactly the same way, coming to each of us in the way that is most likely to open our heart to to accept his peace and love in our lives.

Where is the risen Christ giving you the courage to ask the awkward questions that you need to?