Category: Monastic Life

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Benedictine Spirituality Gospel Lectio Divina Lent Liturgy Monastic Life Saints Scripture Uncategorized

Called to be peacemakers

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As we come to the end of International women’s Day we’ve begun our celebration of one of our congregation’s saints, St Frances of Rome. She is one of a very small number of married women who are saints. She brought up a large family and did a great deal to help the poor and the sick of Rome.

This week I’m reflecting on the blessing of attentiveness. It seems to me that St Frances’ life shows us how the practice of attentiveness to God changes everything. It’s through her attentiveness to God that she’s able to see God’s presence in the people she helps.

That’s especially true in the great care she took of the poor, wrapping their clothes in lavender after she’d washed and mended them. In her role as peacemaker and reconciler shows another aspect of attentiveness. It’s written of her that:

“God gave her such an abundance of loving-kindness that those who had dealings with her immediately felt themselves captivated by love and admiration for her and were ready to do whatever she wished.”

Frances dealt with many difficult and, sometimes, violent situations. Even in those situations she was able to persuade people to change their behaviour by recognising Christ dwelling in them regardless of appearances.

As we watch our world torn apart by war Frances is an important role model. She reminds me that we are all called to pay attention to the call to be peace makers. Her example shows us that even in the most challenging situations, love and kindness have the power to change hearts, minds and lives.

Where is God calling you to be attentive to the call to be a peacemaker this Lent?

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Benedictine Spirituality Candlemas Christ Christmastide Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Prayer Presentation Saints Scripture

Light in darkness

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Today were celebrating the feast of the Presentation. It strikes me as a feast that looks both backwards and forwards. Its liturgy resonates very much with the Christmas liturgy, as we revisit Christmas hymns and antiphons. Yet, it also compels us to look forward to the new beginning heralded by the coming of the Messiah.

Like Simeon and Anna, we are called to draw hope from our heritage and move forward into the unknown bearing the light of Christ for our world and our times. The second reading at the vigil is from St Sophronius. I’m reflecting on these words:

“Let us all go together bright with the light to welcome with old Simeon that everlasting shining light. Rejoicing with him in our souls, let us sing a hymn to the Begetter and Father of the light, who has sent the true light and driven away the darkness and made us all shine with that light.”

It’s not the first time I’ve reflected on them, and each time I revisit them they remind me that, in these last dark, cold days of winter we are called to be bearers of the light of Christ to each other and to the world. This year I’m very aware of the many darknesses that the world faces. It can feel overwhelming and we can easily feel hopeless.

Yet the opposite is true. In these dark times it’s even more important that we become bearers of that light for our suffering world. As well as looking back to the coming of the Light at Christmas I find myself looking forward through the pain and suffering of these times to the new light and life that Easter promises, trusting that, however small the light may sometimes feel, it will not be overcome.

As we celebrate the feast of the Presentation where is Christ calling you to be his light bearer today?

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#ConsecrateLife #SimplyJubilee Benedictine Spirituality Gospel Jubilee Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Rule of St Benedict Scripture

Forgiven and Forgiving.

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Today I’m reflecting on forgiveness. It’s central to our human experience. Both our need to be forgiven and our need to forgive are deeply rooted in the reality of our daily lives, in both big and small things. It’s impossible to live connected to other people without at some point needing to both forgive and be forgiven.

This reality is reflected all the way through Scripture. As we continue to celebrate the jubilee of consecrated life, I’m reflecting on these words from the Our Father:

“Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us.”

These words are so familiar that we sometimes overlook their significance. Yet, they have the power bring the healing that can reset our broken relationships.

St Benedict recognises this when he says that the Our Father should be said by the superior at Lauds and Vespers “because thorns of contention are likely to spring up”. It allows us to acknowledge before God that, whatever our intentions, we will have been hurt by others in the course of the day, and we will have hurt them.

St Benedict wanted the community to be reminded regularly both of their need for forgiveness and their need to forgive others in the course of their daily life.

These two are intimately linked. We begin by acknowledging our own need for forgiveness. When we know ourselves held in the loving forgiveness of God then we are able to reach out and offer forgiveness to the people who have wounded us.

Where are you being called to offer and accept forgiveness today?

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Christ Discernment Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Prayer Prophetic voices Saints Scripture St Therese of Lisieux

Love at the heart of the Church

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Today we are celebrating the feast of St Therese of Lisieux. She entered Carmel at 15 and died at 24. Once she entered Carmel she never left, she built no career, had no wealth and little influence. Even after her death, when her saintliness is recognised, she is often presented with an overlay of sentimentality and sweetness.

Her spirituality is often called “a little way” and that can make it tempting to dismiss her in these challenging times we might be tempted to look for a saint who is more obviously heroic than this young woman. To do that would be to greatly undervalue St Therese’s message.

Saint Therese was a woman of faith, courage, wisdom and discernment. Her little way takes us to the heart of the gospel. In a time when the church placed little value on love she was courageous in putting it at the heart of Christian life. Reflecting on St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians she writes:

“Love, in fact is the vocation which includes all others; it is a universe of its own, comprising all time and space – its eternal… My vocation is love… I had discovered where it is that I belong in the Church, the niche God has appointed for me. To be nothing else than love… That’s to be everything at once.”

She was able to see the one thing that she could do that had the power to change the world, one small act at a time. In these times when we are overwhelmed by the suffering we see in every area she offers us a way of making a difference. By choosing to show love in a world that often feels hateful our actions can affect real and lasting change.

Where are you being called to put love at the heart of your life today?


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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Eastertide Holy Spirit Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Pentecost Prayer Scripture

Come Holy Spirit.

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As we begin to celebrate Pentecost I find myself reflecting on our Pentecost tapestry and how it highlights the themes of the feast, listing our hopes for the coming of the Spirit into our lives:

“Come, cleanse, renew, heal, guide, fill, strengthen.”

I often find myself thinking that it seems a little bit crowded. The words seem to be jostling for space, almost overflowing the narrow hanging. This thought was in my mind as I read the first reading from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. He tells us:

“There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them.”

In the light of his words I it seems hardly surprising that the words on the tapestry seem to burst out of the available space. Pentecost is a feast overflowing with a generosity and energy that are impossible to contain. The variety of gifts God pours out at Pentecost cannot be contained.

They overflow, just like the words on our tapestry, insisting that we use them in all sorts of different ways to help, support and nurture the people of our times. Just as the disciples were compelled to reach out to the world by wind and fire the Spirit demands that we burst out of whatever upper room imprisons us to share her gifts generously with our needy world.

What gift of the Spirit do you need to overflow in your heart this Pentecost?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Eastertide Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Resurrection Saints Scripture Uncategorized

Consecrated in truth

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I’m reflecting truth. We live in times where truth seems to have little value. We talk about a “post-truth” society where it is increasingly difficult to discover whether what we are hearing and seeing is actually true.

There are areas where we can live well enough with subjective views of truth that differ radically from each other. However, there are some areas we need a deeper, more grounded truth even if that means we have to let go of some of our personal theories.

In the first reading St Paul reminds the church at Ephesus to be wary of some of the things that are presented to them as truth:

“Even from your own ranks there will be men coming forward with a travesty of the truth on their lips to induce the disciples to follow them.”

It’s easy and tempting to take things at face value, assuming because we’ve been told it, or read it, or see it on the Internet that it must be true. St Paul’s words remind us that it’s not always easy to discover the truth of things, and that we can be easily led astray. The gospel adds weight to St Paul’s concern with truth as Jesus prays for his disciples:

“Consecrate them in the truth…”

Even in these “post-truth” times we are called to be people of truth. To discover the truth requires some hard work on our part. We have to pay attention to what is going on around us and to the effects it has. We have to listen to what we are being told and to our own instincts. It requires the hard work of learning discernment.

Where is Christ calling you to learn and practice discernment this Eastertide?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Gospel Lectio Divina Lent Liturgy Monastic Life Rule of St Benedict Saints

Listen with the ear of your heart.

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Today we’re celebrating the feast of the Passing of St Benedict, so for my Lent word I’ve gone back to the wisdom of his Rule. The 17 word in my Lent lexicon is:

LISTEN

Listen is the first word in the Rule of St Benedict. It takes me back to the basics of the Christian call. We’re getting close to the halfway mark in Lent. I always think of this as a bit of a “dead” time in Lent. The novelty of our Lent practices has worn off, and we’re still a long way from the impetus of Holy Week.

This means that it’s the time when it’s easiest to let our Lent practices slip. In such times I find it helpful to go back to the basics. St Benedict opens the Rule with these words:

“Listen carefully to the master’s instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”

The call to listen is at the heart of the Rule and of the gospel. We can’t follow the call of the gospel unless we allow ourselves to hear it. For that to happen we need to create space. We live surrounded by 24 hour sound. This can be very distracting.

If we are to allow God the chance to speak to our hearts, we have to switch off some of the other sounds that surround us, even the good & helpful ones. We have to create a quiet space where we can hear the gentle, loving voice of God calling us to follow.

What is helping you to listen to God’s voice this Lent?

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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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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Scripture Vespers

O Rex Gentium, Source of our longing.

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Today we sing the 6th O antiphon, O Rex Gentium, O King of the nations. It can be tempting to dismiss this antiphon because kingship can seem like an outdated or untrustworthy notion in our days. We live in times that are generally suspicious of leaders and authority figures can encourage us to distance ourselves from this challenging antiphon. But the antiphon, and the gospel, present a different view of kingship, leadership and power:

“O king of the nations, whom they long for, the cornerstone who made two into one: come and save humankind, whom you formed from the earth.”

The King of the antiphon, the one we long for is not like the earthly rulers we’re used to. He doesn’t abuse or misuse power, he doesn’t overwhelm or manipulate others. Instead he comes quietly, refusing to trample those who feel crushed by life. With gentleness and kindness he reaches out, offering hope and consolation to all who grieve and suffer.

He is the saviour, the servant king of the Gospels, come to dwell with his people. He washes the feet of his disciples, and cooks them breakfast by the lake of Tiberius. He doesn’t come with the pomp or power of earthly rulers. He comes gently, kindly, compassionately and courteously into our lives, offering us hope and solace in these painful and challenging times.

What do you long for from the coming of Christ the King in this challenging Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Scripture

Making space.

The Annunciation by Henry Ossawa Tanner 1896

Today I’m reflecting on the Annunciation. Luke tells the story beautifully, depicting the encounter as a moment of calm, serenity and stillness.

Beautiful, moving and inspiring as these portrayals are, I sometimes think that in some way they miss the mark, their beauty and serenity can make it seem like Mary’s response was a foregone conclusion, the outcome already settled before the question is even posed. It’s easy to see how hindsight would lead us to think that. I suspect that the reality was somewhat different. St Bernard of Clairvaux writes of the Annunciation:

“The angel is waiting for your answer, it is time for him to return to the God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady…If you consent straightaway shall we be saved…by one little word of yours in answer shall we all be made alive.”

His words convey a sense of uncertainty and waiting make the whole encounter seem more realistic. Henry Ossawa Tanner’s “Annunciation” portrays this sense for me. It encompasses both the divine and the human as Mary’s room, slightly messy with unmade bed and rumpled rug, is illuminated by the Gabriel’s light.

The look on Mary’s face has such a questioning, uncertain quality that it’s very clear that she struggling to make sense of this strange occurrence I can almost hear the “but how can this be?…” echoing through her mind as she tries to make sense of the strange occurrence. When Mary’s answer came it was the result of a completely free choice so she could respond with her whole heart:

‘Let what you have said be done to me.’

We too are called to welcome the Word into the depths of our hearts, discovering God’s will for us and allowing it to shape our lives. Like Mary, we are free to accept or reject that invitation.

Where do you find space for God’s Word in your heart this Advent?