New Year’s Day

Numbers 6:22-27

Psalm 67

Galatians 4:4-7

Luke 2:16-21

Mary Kept These Things

Jesus is born of a woman, and what a woman she is! When Mary “reflects” on all these things, I doubt it’s like any kind of reflection I try to do. For her, she must just allow God’s presence to flood her soul and then view each person and event as God would. Talk about perspective! Another translation says that she “treasured” these things in her heart. Treasure is far different from harboring, ruminating, and nurturing a resentment. That’s what I’m more likely to do. Instead, she treasures whatever happens. She holds it tenderly, as something dear. She cries out together with her Son, “Abba, Father!” But her cry is not desperation as much as acceptance.

Mary, teach me true silence so I can see people and events as God does. Then help me respond to others from a place of balance and peace. Help me find that place within my heart.

Holy Family

Sirach 3:2-6; 12-14

Psalm 128

Colossians 3:12-17

Matthew 2:13-15; 19-23

The Silence of Surrender

I’ve always loved Joseph, but these readings make me respect him. He was a man who knew how to listen, how to take direction given him, and how to use his own common sense. He lived with the serene question, “What does God want of me today?” When the angel spoke to him and said, “Get up, take them, and go,” he got up, took them and went. When he was told to return, he did the same, yet he did so intelligently. Herod’s son still held the throne, so he took them somewhere safer. Another dream confirmed his reservations.

From all this, I get an image of a father of a family who daily listened for God’s will for him and then moved to do it. We have often heard how Mary pondered these events in her heart. Clearly, both parents did this. The house of this family must have been one of deep silence marked by attentiveness to God and one another. All the qualities named in Colossians describe this family atmosphere, mostly that of letting the Word of Christ live in their hearts richly.

My own sense of silence and prayer is far from Joseph’s, but his life gives me hope. Granted, I don’t get told what to do by angels in dreams, but perhaps I would hear the “angels” better if I were silent. It gives me cause to wonder what life would be like if I simply surrendered my life to God’s guidance.

Merry Christmas!

Isaiah 52:7-10

Psalm 98

Hebrews 1:1-6

John 1:1-18

How Beautiful

Last night, I was watching my sister, Jeanette, as she rocked back and forth in the chair. I was looking into her eyes and relishing the expression on her face. Though her eyes are blind and she could not hear me, she knew I was there since I was helping her rock with my foot under the recliner. I prayed a couple decades of the joyful mysteries as I watched her, and it hit me. This feast of Christmas is really about innocence giving birth to innocence.

“How beautiful…are the feet [of those] announcing peace…announcing salvation…they see directly…the Lord restoring…the Lord comforting…” These little ones are open to God’s “grace upon grace”. Their faces shine with “the refulgence of God’s glory”, and they are indeed “the very imprint of God’s being”. Mary was the perfect choice to bear Jesus since only innocence can begin to grasp pure innocence. The rest of us can marvel, but Mary could relate.

How often I let past hurts and their consequential walls keep me from enjoying innocence! How many are shut out by my fear, my reticence to risk! Mary, teach me how to see the world through Jeanette’s eyes so I can sense when my God is present with skin on.

4th Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 7:10-14

Psalm 24

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-24

NO FEAR

“Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.” In a dream, God releases Joseph of his moral decision to quietly divorce the woman he loves. God steps in and puts the anguished hearts of both betrothed at rest. At first glance, this peeves me a bit wondering why God didn’t step in earlier. Why allow the misunderstanding to happen in the first place? Yet, something within me knows that God is always the loving parent who helps us discern and doesn’t just solve all our problems. And if Mary and Joseph were not exempt, then who am I to complain?

At the heart of it all, this verse tells me not to fear. It moves me to open my heart and take Mary and her child into my home, the private areas of my heart, and allow them to clean and heal what is found there. [It's something like when I ask Amparo to come into my room or office and do what she does best. Once the place has been "Amparoed", no self-respecting clutter would ever be found there.] So, I need to let the Christ Child in to wander through those tiny crawl spaces and root out resentment, laziness, and illusions of importance. The anguish is just part of the package and letting go the best pain reliever.

3rd Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10

Psalm 146

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

“What did you go out to the desert to see?”

I love the desert. It’s where I grew up. The desert lives in my bones. The heat, the cold, the incessant wind all speak to me of extremes, even harshness, but also home. The sweet smell of the rain, the peace on a silent evening, the brilliance of the diamond-studded night sky calm my soul.

The ancients went to the desert to find God. Whether it be in the stark wilderness or the absolute solitude, they knew God awaited them there. I just spent the last year in the desert. What did I go out to see? What did I expect? I wanted to learn to pray. I found silence. I sought peace. I found desire. I sought God, and though I am inconsistent even in my wanting, I found a desire to spend quiet time alone. I yearn now for the desert.

The Scripture says that God found Israel in the desert, “in the wilderness, a wasteland of howling desert.” God, find me! Care for me and shelter me. Guard me as the apple of your eye. Teach me to fly as the eagle with her young. I know that, like John, this will involve times of doubt, darkness, and loneliness, but Lord, I must have you! I fear that I, too, may come to the end of my life still wondering in you are the one. Yet, even in this, I know you will show me the wonders you accomplish that I am too blind to see.

2nd Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72

Romans 15:4-9

Matthew 3:1-12

Transformation

I’ve never been one to promote the ascetical life. It always sounded like I, too, needed to be dressed in camel’s hair and eat off locusts. [Just the visual image is disturbing!] However, slowly I’m coming to understand that I don’t have to live like John, but I do have to listen to that “voice crying out”.  In this light, asceticism is simply living a spiritual life: taking responsibility for my actions, and courageously transforming the wolf, leopard, lion, and yes, even snake within me that act as predators to my own innocence. Isaiah paints a different picture of the end times. There will be harmony and profound peace. The violence and gentleness within will be integrated into peaceful relationships. John, however, is clear. I must “produce good fruit as evidence” of my repentance.  A friend once told me, “Charlotte, the sisters don’t want to hear your ‘Sorrys’ anymore. They want to see you change.” That’s where I see these readings taking me: welcoming another as Christ would, thinking in harmony, allowing that Child to lead me, taming the anger and ambition…so that a straight path can truly be prepared in me.

1st Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2:15

Ps 122

Romans 13:11-14

Matthew 24:37-44

Plowshares and Pruning Hooks

I love this quote, “They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. No more shall they train for war again.” How appropriate this is in our world today! How even more appropriate in my life! Plowshares and pruning hooks are far better than weapons. Yet  I have allowed myself to fire and refine many weapons over the years! Self-centeredness, the subtle disregard of another’s opinion, hidden agendas, manipulating to get my own way…all are weapons. Yet God stands by ready to show me how to turn these very weapons into tools that help me dig deeper in the spiritual life and cut away the wreakage I have caused. I must only step back and welcome the light of truth that shines on my darkness that I may admit my character defects to myself and others, work on rooting them out of my life and choose to channel my positive energies into the doing God’s will each day. Only then can I hope to be ready for the Lord who comes when and within whom I least expect it.