Category: Divine Office

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Lectio Divina Lent Liturgy Psalms Scripture

Yearning for God.

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The 20 word in my Lent lexicon is:

YEARNING.

It’s inspired by psalm 41, today’s responsorial psalm. Generally, I tend to overlook the responsorial psalm, looking first for insights in the other scripture readings. I often miss out on real wisdom and insight by doing that. So today I’m reflecting on these words:

“Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God.”

It speaks to that longing that we all feel deep within us most of the time. Sometimes it feels like we’re always looking for something that we never quite find or that we’re always slightly dissatisfied with what we have. It can be unsettling and frustrating at best.

We can try to fill that gap with money, possessions, career or success. In my experience that works to some extent. For a while we can feel fulfilled and satisfied by those things, but after a while we begin to realise that those are not enough. Underneath the apparent satisfaction we become aware of a niggling feeling we want something more regardless of how well we are meeting the goals we set for ourselves.

That underlying discontent can be uncomfortable. We can be tempted to push it aside, trying to fill the gap with more of the same, but that doesn’t often work. Instead we can sit with the discontent & discover its true source is our desire for God. Once we can acknowledge that it can lead us to seek God’s presence in our lives in new & enriching ways.

Where is your yearning for God leading you this Lent?

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

Faithfulness and trust.

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The fifteenth word in my Lent lexicon is:

FAITHFULNESS.

It has particular resonance today as we celebrate the feast of St Joseph. It seems to perfectly sums up this man who is sometimes dismissed as a shadowy figure. In the gospel he appears as a background figure who supports Mary and the child Jesus bringing stability and respectability to an otherwise difficult situation.

Yet, so often the apparently background figure has a more important role than we realise at first glance. Joseph is man of faith, from a long line of people who waited through the centuries for God’s promise to be fulfilled, keeping hope alive even when facing disappointment.

When his life and expectations are completely turned upside down St Joseph finds the courage to draw on their faith. So that in the face of what must have seemed like a shattering blow he’s able to remain faithful and follow God’s call into the unknown as his ancestors did.

“When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do.”

It can’t have been an easy choice, it will have required both humility and courage as well as faithfulness and trust. It’s impossible to think of this without reflecting on the seemingly insurmountable challenges our world faces today, both at home and abroad.

As we see lives disrupted and communities destroyed by war and uncertainty St Joseph becomes a valuable role model. He reminds us that however dark and uncertain our lives, we are called to remain faithful and willing to follow God into the unknown.

What helps you to be faithful to God’s call this Lent?

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Benedictine Spirituality Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Lent Saints

A generous heart.

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The sixth word in my Lent lexicon is:

GENEROSITY.

One of the three pillars of Lent practice is almsgiving. It’s a call, not only to share what we have, but to do it to with an open and generous heart. Today we’re celebrating one of our congregational saints, St Frances of Rome.

She brought up a large family and did a great deal to help the poor and the sick of Rome, sharing her resources of time and money with generosity and sensitivity. She is one of a very small number of married women who are saints.

Her generosity is obvious in her almsgiving, in the hospital she built, in the priest she funded to visit plague victims and in her generous almsgiving. But I see it most clearly in the way she cared for the poor. After she washed and mended their clothes she wrapped them in lavender before returning them to their owners:

“These she washed and mended with care and thoroughness, as if they were to be used by the Lord himself, then she folded them carefully and put them away in lavender.”

This small detail acknowledges that generosity is not just about meeting material needs, but about recognising and honouring the humanity of those who have less than us. Frances recognises this. The gospel for the feast is the story of the prophetess, Anna. Luke tells us that:

“She never left the Temple, worshipping day and night with fasting and prayer.”

Frances also spent time in prayer. It is this that enables her to develop the open hearted generosity that touched so many lives.

Where are you learning to be generous this Lent?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Divine Office Lectio Divina Lent Liturgy Rule of St Benedict Scripture Uncategorized

Fasting, a Lent challenge.

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The third word in my Lent lexicon is:

“FAST”

Often the first question anyone asks us about Lent is “what are you giving up? Fasting carries a heavy weight of history and of personal experience. This can make it a particularly sensitive issue. It can be an area that’s open to judgement and misinterpretation. It’s a word I find challenging and I’m coming to it with some trepidation.

I find St Benedict’s chapter on Lent helpful in facing the challenge. Instead of prescribing a particular fast for everyone he gives a list of things that we might fast from, food, drink, sleep, talking, idle jesting. He openly acknowledges that people have varying needs and capabilities. He knows that what might be manageable for one isn’t possible for another. His words carry a call not to judge ourselves or others harshly, allow people the freedom to choose the “fast” that will most help them on their spiritual journey.

In today’s first reading the prophet Isaiah gives another perspective on fasting:

“Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me – it is the Lord who speaks –to break unjust fetters and undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke, to share your bread with the hungry, and shelter the homeless poor, to clothe the person you see to be naked and not turn from your own kin? Then will your light shine like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over.”

While this is deeply challenging it is also helpful. It reminds me that our spiritual practices have to have a knock-on effect in the way we live our lives. They are not just for our personal benefit.

They are to draw us out of ourselves towards our neighbour, to help us become kinder and more compassionate. It seems to me that as Isaiah calls us to fast from the thoughts and behaviours that would harden our hearts to those around us.

How are your Lent practices helping you to become kinder and more compassionate?

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Ash Wednesday Benedictine Spirituality Christ Cross Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Lent Liturgy Scripture Uncategorized

Ash Wednesday

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One of the most helpful books I’ve read is “Amazing Grace, a vocabulary of faith.” By Kathleen Norris. She describes it as “an exploration and record of some of the words in the Christian lexicon that most trouble and attract me.”

The book reminded me of an important Benedictine principle, that words matter. They shape us, form us, challenge us and help us grow.

So this Lent I’ve decided to make myself a Lent lexicon. I’m going to explore some of the words we commonly hear in Lent. I’ve chosen words that attract and sometimes scare me. They also both shape and challenge my experience of Lent.

Ashes

Ashes mark the beginning of our Lent journey. With a small, but significant physical sign we give a powerful message about the significance of this time. The Ashes seem to me to be a signal of intent for the season of Lent. There are many ways that intention could be stated, it will vary from person to person and from year to year. But whatever variations it has I generally find that this verse expresses them all:

“O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts.”

It’s the first thing we sing on Ash Wednesday, and whatever Lent practices I choose this verse sums up their purpose and intent. Lent practices help us to move away from the clutter that disguises our hardheartedness. They invite us to allow our hearts to become vulnerable and open to receive the Word of God.

Ashes remind us of that intention and of our limitations. As we receive the ashes we hear one of these verses:

“Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.”

Or

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

Our Lent journey starts with high hopes. These verses bring us back down to earth. We are created from the stuff of the earth, that is both a humbling and liberating thought. In a world that sets impossibly high standards it allows us the freedom to accept our limitations.

As we journey through Lent our good intentions will get battered and even fall by the wayside. The ashes are a reminder that this is simply part of being human. We can fall, and get up and try again.

How are you being called to open your heart to God’s voice this Ash Wednesday?

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

The power of love.

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Today is the feast St Scholastica, sister of St Benedict and the patron saint of Benedictine women…It’s a feast about the power and importance of love.

We hear it in St Gregory the Great’s account of her last visit with St Benedict. At St Scholastica’s request they stay up all night “conversing of holy things”. This means Benedict has to spend the night outside his monastery. He initially refuses her request until her prayer results in such a fierce storm that he is compelled to stay with her. St Gregory comments:

“It is not surprising that the woman…was more effective than he [St Benedict] was on that occasion. For according to the saying of John, “…God is love.” So it was entirely right that she who loves more should accomplish more.”

The gospel is the story of Martha and Mary, so often seen in opposition. Mary is prayerful and contemplative and Martha as active and practical. The reality is more complex; they are both aspects of love. If we are to truly seek God, we need both of them, not in a hierarchy, but working together in union and tension.

We can see them come together in St Scholastica. She can only have recognised the significance of this last meeting with St Benedict if she had been a woman of prayer. She would also have been used to a life of practical service of others. She will have recognised the tension between them in her own life as Martha and Mary must have done. It may be that it was this that enabled her act out of love in praying for the extra time that she and her brother needed together on this last visit.

Where are you called to act out of love today?

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

The light of hope

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Living in times that are challenging, uncertain, even frightening it can be hard to keep hold of hope. It feels much easier to give in to despair and to allow darkness to have the upper hand. There is so much to worry and concern us that it can even feel like hope is at best naïve and at worst pointless. Today’s feast, the Presentation of the Lord is the last feast that touches on Christmastide. It promises us that even in the darkest times there is light, and that however dark it gets the light will not be overwhelmed.

The prophetess Anna encapsulates this hope. She was a woman who based her whole life on hope. Widowed after seven years and living constant threat that comes of being in a country occupied by a foreign power she knew suffering and challenge. She’s sustained by a deep and lasting faith that the Lord will fulfil the promises made to her people. She spent her life in the Temple, praying, waiting, and hoping. Like Simeon, she recognises that the child presented by Mary and Joseph is no ordinary child, he is the long-awaited Messiah:

“She came by just at that moment and began to praise God; and she spoke of the child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.”

She knew what it meant to keep on hoping even when hope seemed lost in the long shadows of hopelessness. It is out of these shadowy and sometimes painful experiences that she is able to recognise the presence of Christ, the promise light of the world in the most unlikely of circumstances.

As we celebrate the feast of the Presentation what helps you to keep the light of hope alive in your life?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Scripture

Promise and hope

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In today’s gospel Jesus is reading in his local synagogue. He reads from the prophet Isaiah:

“The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.”

They describe the the fulfilment of God’s promise that will be heralded by the coming of the Messiah, the source of hope for generations of Israelites, even when it felt like there was nothing left to hope for. I was struck both by the hope they offer and by how hard it can be to keep hope alive in the midst of difficult lives.

Jesus’ first audience in the synagogue must have known that truth from their own experience just as we do in ours. In his quiet, humble way Jesus points out a different reality. He reminds his hearers that the promise Isaiah speaks of has not been rescinded or forgotten, but is being fulfilled before their eyes:

‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’

Looking around them at the state of their world those first listeners must have struggled to accept his message. That’s equally true for us in our own troubling and challenging times. It can be hard to be hopeful, when life is tough it can even seem naïve or foolish.

It can feel like everything we read and everything we hear points us towards hopelessness. Jesus points in another direction. He tells us we are called to be people of hope whatever we face. It is the hope, that St Paul reminds us, cannot deceive us however troublesome the times.

As we face challenging and uncertain times what helps to keep hope alive in your life?

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Baptism Benedictine Spirituality Christ Christmastide Divine Office Gospel John the Baptist Lectio Divina Liturgy Prophetic voices Scripture

The Feast of the Baptism

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Today Christmastide comes to an end with the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. It’s a feast full of the promise of new life. It takes us back to our beginning, recalling creation when God’s spirit, hovering over the waters, called new life out of the the swirling chaos:

“When Jesus also had been baptised and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’”

It doesn’t take more than a quick glance at the news to recognise that we are living in chaotic times. That is stressful and unsettling, so this reminder that it was out of the chaos that God called us into being is consoling and encouraging.

It also calls to mind another, more personal beginning. Through our baptism in Christ each of us has been called to become a new creation, to blossom into new life in Christ. Through the gift of this baptism we have become favoured and beloved daughters and sons of God. This certainty can give us the courage and hope living away that allow our baptismal promises to shape our lives and our interactions with one another.

As we start a new year it’s worthwhile to take some time to reflect on these beginnings founded on love and hope. Time reflecting on our baptismal promises and how they might shape our life seems to me to be time well spent as we make our way through these challenging times.

As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord how might your baptismal promises shape your daily life?

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

Epiphany

Today we’re celebrating the feast of Epiphany. Together with the Baptism and the wedding at Cana it’s part of a trio of epiphanies that recognise Jesus as the promised Messiah, the Son of God. It’s full of awe, wonder and joy. Yet there’s another side to it. There’s challenge, threat and uncertainty there too. The magi find the Christ after a hard, and sometimes dangerous journey that’s summed up by these words from T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The journey of the Magi”:

“A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”

Their journey brings them joy and delight as the gospel makes clear:

“The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child and his mother Mary, and falling to their knees did him homage.”

Yet it’s a joy that doesn’t cancel out difficulty, challenge, suffering and hardship, but manifests in the midst of all those hard realities of life. Instead it appears alongside them never dismissing them or cancelling them out.

Generally, I think we’d prefer that joy and delight would cancel the hardship, but it is just possible that, by not doing so, the gospel offers us a greater hope and a greater joy. This way it takes account of the hardships and suffering we all live with, and tells us that it’s in the midst of those that we’ll discover the joy the Magi followed the star to discover.

In our challenging and uncertain times that seems to me to increase the hope by acknowledging the hardship and telling us that however hard our journey we can discover and delight in the presence of Christ who chooses to dwell in our midst.

Where is Christ inviting you to delight in his presence in your life this Epiphany?