Category: Divine Office

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

Ash Wednesday

Photo by Grant Whitty on unsplash.com

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?

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

The power of love.

bart-larue-jMd3WS9LBcc-unsplash-2.jpg

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?

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

The light of hope

Photo by Eliezer Muller on unsplash.com

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?

Categories
Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Scripture

Promise and hope

Image © Turvey Abbey

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?

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

The Feast of the Baptism

Photo by Biel Morro on Unsplash

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?

Categories
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?

Categories
Benedictine Spirituality Christ Christmastide Discernment Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Scripture

Come & See

Image by Anja from pixabay.com

It’s tempting to tell ourselves that Christmas is over. The world has moved on, many decorations are down. The present giving, parties and gatherings are over and life has gone back to its normal routine. We can be tempted to move on with everyone else, packing the wondrous and challenging feast of the Incarnation away with the dusty decorations.

Yet, these days of Christmastide offer us a real opportunity to spend more time reflecting in the Incarnation. The gospels for the past few days are focussed on recognising Christ’s presence in the midst of ordinary life. Yesterday John the Baptist pointed out Jesus in the street, telling his disciples:

“Look, there is the Lamb of God…”

He goes on to tell how he recognised Jesus as Messiah when he baptised him. The theme carries on in today’s gospel. John once again points Jesus out to his disciples, but there is a new development. This time two of his disciples go after Jesus, asking him where he lives and being invited to “come and see”.

When Andrew brings his brother Peter to meet Jesus the recognition deepens. As Peter recognises Jesus, Jesus recognises something new in Peter. He highlights a quality in Peter that I suspect Peter wasn’t aware of. In that moment of mutual recognition Jesus offers Peter a new name and new life.

These days offer us a quiet moment of mutual recognition with Christ, allowing us to recognise his presence with us and opening our hearts to allow him to being recognised by him.

Where is Christ inviting you to recognise his presence in your life?

Categories
Benedictine Spirituality Christ Christmastide Divine Office Gospel John the Baptist Lectio Divina Liturgy Scripture

Discovering the Lamb of God.

Image by Myriams-Fotos from pixabay.com

I’m always grateful for these days between Christmas and Epiphany. After the busyness of our celebrations they give us an opportunity to reflect more quietly on this great gift of the Incarnation. They give us the opportunity connect the Christ child in the manger to the adult Jesus who calls and challenges us.

They give us the opportunity to follow the example of the Magi, still on their journey. These wise men spent their lives seeking truth and wisdom. It led them on a long and unlikely journey.

In today’s gospel we encounter another seeker of truth, John the Baptist. He’s also a man dedicated to seeking truth and pointing out the presence of Christ when he discovered it. When he sees Jesus coming towards him he tells the crowd:

“Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.”

His pointing out Christ’s presence offers us hope. He makes us aware that Christ is there waiting for us with an invitation, a challenge and a promise. We’re all too aware of the sin that touches our lives and our world. We know the issues it raises can seem insurmountable and leave us feeling desperate and hopeless.

John’s words remind us that, however desperate we might feel there is hope. Jesus invites us to to seek truth and wisdom and to follow him on a journey that will challenge us and lead us into new life in his presence.

How are you being called to seek truth and wisdom in these days before Epiphany?

Categories
Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Divine Office Gospel John the Baptist Lectio Divina Liturgy Scripture

Seeking Christ

Photo by K B on unsplash.com

A post from the archives for 9 day of Christmas. As we head back to work after the Christmas holidays it can be easy to forget that Christmastide is not over. We are still in the midst of the Christmas season, still celebrating the miracle of the Incarnation, of God is taking human form. As so often happens with liturgy the tone changes in these days before Epiphany.

Until now we have focused on the miracle of God’s presence made manifest in our midst. Today’s gospel brings us back to John the Baptist, with his call to alertness, to actively looking for Christ’s presence. He is quick to point away from himself towards Christ:

“I am not the Christ…I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”

His words remind us that we are called to be constantly seeking God. We are to seek God not just in the obvious places, as we stand on or before the crib, as we pray, as we come together to worship and celebrate the newborn King.

We are also called to seek Christ’s presence in every aspect of our lives. However unlikely it might seem to us every encounter, every activity, every engagement is an opportunity to discover the presence of Christ.

This process doesn’t happen automatically. If we are to discover Christ’s presence in every situation we have to be prepared to take a risk. We have to risk softening our hearts and opening them to the possibility of Christ being present even in situations that challenge us and make us uncomfortable.

Where is Christ challenging you to be open to his presence in unexpected situations this Christmastide?

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

Pondering treasuses

Icon by Sr Esther

Since I was a child I’ve been fascinated by Mary’s pondering. I always wanted to know what she was pondering, and what treasures she was holding in her heart. If I’m honest, I would still like to know. So today, as we begin a new year with all the hopes and uncertainties that entails I’m reflecting on these words from today’s gospel:

“As for Mary, she treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.”

I imagine that all that Mary faced since the annunciation would have left her with much to ponder. Some of that pondering would have been life-giving, encouraging and hopeful, treasures to help her face whatever the future held. As a young woman, pregnant in unusual circumstances, some of her pondering must touched on the painful, hurtful and judgemental, not treasures to carry into the future, but burdens be laid down.

Mary’s wisdom is that, in the midst of the challenging and uncertainty she faced, she was able to take the time to reflect on what she needed to let go in order to make space for the treasures that would sustain her. This makes her an excellent model for us as we start the New Year. A year of hardships and challenges that has left us with much to ponder. We have to ask ourselves where we discover the hidden treasures in those challenges, and what we have to put down in order to make space for them.

As we move into 2025 what treasures are you carrying in your heart?