Friday, December 4, 2015

1 Thessalonians 1:2-10

We think and speak often of life as a journey. Our hopes, dreams, reflections and questions on “the good life” are never far away. Moving along our path (some or all of which we have not chosen) we are influenced by an endless variety of experiences and people, not all of which are met with comfort and joy.

Reading these verses from Paul to the Thessalonians, I detected a “journey in words”, moving through the steps of: being remembered where we are and what we’ve been through; being reminded that we have been chosen; that we are gifted by the Holy Spirit; that, as a result, we can become examples to others who have not yet found their path or who are struggling to keep on a path.

The road that Joseph guided the donkey along with its passenger was no doubt arduous, long and at times painful because of Mary’s condition. They must have had a deep source of hope that they would get to their destination, despite whatever rough patches confronted them; as well as wherever the road of their lives would lead them after that.

In Advent this unique section of our road of life opens yet again for us to travel, perhaps noting some new insights as we journey with hope to whatever lies ahead for us and our world, and all that lies between. May we each have a meaning-filled journey . . . .

Mary L. (Bunny) Stewart

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Romans 12:9-21 

Ice on convent window

“Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.”

Few of us will remember with any clarity the names Patrick Sonnier or Robert Willie from the 1970’s—80’s era. In her publication Dead Man Walking, Sr. Helen Perjean, a young Catholic nun wrote a pen-pal letter to an inmate on Louisiana death row in Angola Prison—he wrote back. Patrick Sonnier was later put to death by the electric chair, but not before Sr. Helen had fostered in him a sense of dignity and hope in a God who cares for us all.

Still later she became spiritual advisor to inmate Robert Willie, pleading his case at a Prison Board hearing, only to have it turned down. Her no nonsense yet hospitable manner persuaded Robert that he too can die with integrity and hope with a new found faith in Christ.

Sr. Helen went on to minister to the families of victims or rape and murder, promote Amnesty International to abolish the death penalty around the world. Her own suffering and anguish through all this, balanced by faithful prayer is her constant strength as she continues to this day the work she started.

Janice Barnes

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Romans 8:18-27

From noise and chaos to whispering and stillness, we look with St. Paul upon the mystery of suffering with hope.

Paul compares all creation, including the Redeemed, to a woman in agony while expecting the mostprecious of miracles. He says our pains will be forgotten in the splendour of the revealed children of God: our children, and God's children. He says there is always hope, as long as the fullness of God remains obscured until the right time. To help us bear our waiting, God has gifted us with hope, which opens us to the Spirit and the vision of a better future.

There is so much to wonder at here. There is Paul's unPaul-like attunement to the magnificently constructive experience of childbirth.  He doesn't dwell on the taboos associated with blood and contamination. Instead Paul imagines womankind as holding onto agency and dignity even in extreme powerlessness. The birthing woman groans, but she groans with hope. She claims the universal right to ask for God's help as she faces the unknown. She does not know the future, but she hopes for a future, even a splendid future.

This is a time of crumbling empires, a time of women labouring to bring forth children of uncertain citizenship. It is a time when we, whose hopes have been so often fulfilled, are called to be hope-bearers. Let us grasp the hands of our sisters and, where words and language and even ideas fail, let us entreat the Spirit to speak for us, with hope, into God's ear in God's own language.

 Julie Poskitt

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Matthew 12: 15b-21 

Each season of the year and of the church calendar gives us the gift of time for reflection; to hear God’s invitation as God’s chosen, the one in whom God loves and delights in. God came down among us through the Word and each Advent we are invited to reflect and bring Christ anew into our heart – to become our best selves again and again through God’s Spirit working in and through us during the year. At our baptism God’s Spirit is put upon us and we grow in that Spirit.

Winter: Time to reflect to make new - God’s invitation to Mary to bring to birth a new way of life on which we can put our hope and Mary’s “Yes” to God;

Spring: New life - resurrection/transformation - a new way of being is beginning to take root;

Summer: Growth through God’s Spirit working in and through me;

Fall: Maturity in the love God as God’s beloved and chosen servant. Sharing that love with others.

What is God’s invitation to me here and now?

What is my response going to be?

Advent calls me to become aware anew that my journey is just begun as God’s beloved chosen servant as I am invited to share God’s love with others in all of life circumstances and situations in yet another coming year; looking with anticipation for God’s surprises and delights.

-Sr. Dorothy Handrigan

Monday, November 30, 2015

Sculpture by Sr. Rosemary Anne SSJD

Jeremiah 29:11-13

God has a plan, plans for our welfare and not for harm, to give us a future with hope. There are times when we find that hard to believe, yet we must if we are to keep despair at bay during our darkest times - or even when we are watching the evening news.

It can be hard to live in the present moment knowing that all is well without knowing on some deep level that “all shall be well” because God does have plans for our welfare and not for harm, that God has given us a promise of a future with hope.

It can be hard to get through our daily struggles and concerns without this faith. We have to claim these promises and so many more that God has made to us and that can be found throughout Scripture. We need to not only read Scripture and meditate on it, but also claim it, putting our name or the name of our loved ones in the Scripture and praying it personally while giving thanks that these promises have already been fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

So please pray today's reading as if God is speaking to you personally, which I believe to be true, and claim it. Make room in your heart by letting these promises clear out the darkness, despair, doubt and fear that can too easily fill it instead. “Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.”

Nancy Scott

Sunday, November 29, 2015

HOPE

Isaiah 52:7-10 

What an incredible reading to begin Advent 2015 – filled with hope of a return of the people of Judah from bondage and exile in Babylon to Jerusalem, hope that the temple would be re-built and worship restored, hope that God would return as promised through the prophets and love his people once again. And, in verse seven, the proclamation that God reigns. What a powerful statement that in fact summarizes the entire message of these three amazing verses.

This short biblical text begins with the voice of a single messenger, spreads to the voices of the watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem, and then to the whole of Jerusalem, so that a whole choir is singing praises to God. But it is the final message in verse ten of global anticipation that particularly resonates with me. The message is for “all the nations” and it is a message for today as well. In the midst of the ruins in our world, as we see people still being held in bondage and oppression, as we see great destruction and waste of our beautiful planet, as we witness great human suffering all around us, we can still experience the great hope and the great faith that says – God’s purpose is global, for all of us and forever. “God Reigns”.

-Sandi Austin

Forward

Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you’ve refreshed the hearts of God’s people. Philemon 1:7

During Advent, we’re invited to make an interior journey and to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Christ Child. 

While the distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem is only 60 miles (96 km) as the crow flies, the route Mary and Joseph likely travelled for safety’s sake took them 80 miles (129 km) over rugged terrain. Today, the trip can be made in two to three hours by car, but when Joseph walked the route, leading the donkey that carried Mary, it probably took them nearly a week. The Gospels don’t really describe the kind of shelter loaned them on their arrival nor can we know how comfortable it was. It may have been a stable, or a cave or even a back room in a house where a family kept their livestock. Whatever it was, it wasn’t much of a welcome for the long-awaited Messiah; yet gladly, willingly, Jesus came to be born in that shelter and from that moment on, began changing the hearts and lives of all who welcome him in. The busy-ness we bring upon ourselves in the days before Christmas so often bring us stress rather than anticipation, short-fuses rather than kindness, exhaustion rather than celebration and conflict rather than harmony. These daily reflections are an invitation to experience more fully the true Advent gifts of hope, love, joy, and peace as we seek to make room in our hearts to embrace the One who knows and loves us best. 

Written by 19 Oblates and 6 Sisters, these daily offerings include a suggested reading. May these entries form part of your daily devotions. 

It is our prayer that these little embers, the lectio of our lives, will provide food for the journey. We welcome your company as we seek to make room in our hearts – and lives. 

Regular posts will commence on the first Sunday of Advent.