A Birth and a Rebirth

As we get closer to Christmas I share with you this prayer from the Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian Community of men and women from different Christian traditions and from different walks of life.  We used it for our retreat on Evolutionary Spirituality and also for our Employee Christmas Prayer.  It touches my heart deeply.

When the world was dark

and the city was quiet,

you came.

You crept in beside us.

And no one knew.

Only the few

who dared to believe

that God might do something different.

Will you do the same this Christmas, Lord?

Will you come into the darkness of tonight/today's world;

not the friendly darkness

as when sleep rescues us from tiredness,

but the fearful darkness,

in which people have stopped believing

that war will end

or that food will come

or that a government will change

or that the Church cares?

Will you come into that darkness

and do something different

to save your people from death and despair?

Will you come into the quietness of this city/town,

not the friendly quietness

as when lovers hold hands,

but the fearful silence when

the phone has not rung,

the letter has not come,

the friendly voice no longer speaks,

the doctor's face says it all?

Will you come into that darkness,

and do something different,

not to distract, but to embrace your people?

And will you come into the dark corners

and the quiet places of our lives?

We ask this not because we are guilt-ridden

or want to be,

but because the fullness of our lives long for

depends on us being as open and vulnerable to you

as you were to us

when you came,

wearing no more than diapers,

and trusting human hands

to hold their maker.

Will you come into our lives,

if we open them to you

and do something different?

When the world was dark

and the city was quiet

you came.

You crept in beside us.

Do the same this Christmas, Lord.

Do the same this Christmas.

Amen. 

What are your prayers, hopes, and dreams this Christmas?  In what way might Christ creep in beside you?  Today a friend sent me this You-Tube link and I was touched by the ordinary humans who present their dreams and hopes for a new and more loving humanity.  As we end the Mayan calendar when many focus on the world ending there are also many others who  believe this is a time of transition, a new birth, to a higher humanity where we join together  to co-create with God a world of peace, unity and love.  Science has taught us that our thoughts in many ways create our reality.  Scripture tells us "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am" (Matthew 18:20).  Let us unite our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams with those of our brothers and sisters throughout the world who choose to co-create with God a better world.  Together we can create an energy field of love by our thoughts and it can transform our world.  I invite you to look at the You-Tube link and look into the faces and the words of our brothers and sisters, ordinary people like you and I and ask yourself what your prayers, hopes, and dreams are this Christmas?

Agents of Creation

Will you come into our lives, if we open them to you and do something different?  When the world was dark and the city was quiet you came, You crept in beside us.  Do the same this Christmas Lord.  Do the same this Christmas.

Christmas -- We're almost there

All the attention today is on a large tree placed in our chapel.  As you can see from the photo the lights are half way up the tree but it's a big tree and they have a long way to go  Somehow that feels like a symbol for me today and perhaps for you as well.  As a nation I think we're almost there but we have a ways to go.  I have sat several times this week to do a blog entry and always the same sad feeling comes to my heart--how to find joyful words a midst the sadness of Newtown, CT.  With all of you, we, at the Spiritual Center, still feel the ache of the tragedy of last Friday.  Even in attending the Nutcracker Suite at Neumann University, many commented that the children dancing brought to mind the innocence of the children killed and terrified last Friday morning.  Christmas is a time filled with the innocence and joy of children and the goodness and excitement that the season brings to everyone.  Where to go with the pain is still a struggle for many..

Eugene C. Kennedy has an editorial and here is a link to the article:  The Sacramental Revelation of Newtown, Conn. It freed something within me and changed my focus a bit.  To rehearse the tragedy over and over isn't helpful and nothing can take away the loss for those families but the families in Newtown have taught us a great deal.  This Christmas perhaps the gift is to see the goodness of the ordinary everyday people of Newtown and the manner in which they enflesh the love of God.  This is the Incarnation for us this Christmas.  Newtown is in some way the Bethlehem of today.  Although the focus is on the funerals of small children and their teachers the real story is in the  unbelievable resilience of a community coming together to support one another.  They are a simple people filled with such goodness and deep faith; they are a community of strength and deep love.  They have incarnated our God who is the love alive within and among us.  We have been inspired by their stories of strength and resolve and sacrifice.   I suppose we had a similar example in the victims of the super storm Sandy.  Ordinary people who go on day by day in the face of tragedy can truly help us refocus our values so that the true meaning of Christmas is alive within us.

The staff of the Franciscan Spiritual Center thank each of you for the way you incarnate God's love each day.  We thank you for your love and support and wish you blessings during this Christmas time and throughout the 2013 year.  We also unite with people of all faiths who in this movement of Birth 2012 invite us to three days of love -- Birth 2012 - Three days of love.  Christmas is about a child who taught us love and who grew day by day like all  children.  In our Christmas readings we often hear proclaimed Isaiah 11:6 (the wolf shall dwell with the lamb...and a little child will lead them).  Perhaps the children who lost their lives in Newtown will lead us to a more civilized nation where guns are less valued, assault weapons are banned, and peaceful conflict resolution replaces violence.  Let the little children lead us.  This Christmas may all children be safe, be loved, and be surprised by the goodness of life and love..

Card Writing Day and St. Nicholas Day

Yesterday we had an "Advent Ritual:  Card Writing Day".  All gathered in the morning with their address books, boxes of cards and the Spiritual Center provided a prayerful environment with soft Christmas music, candy canes, and we began the day with Ed Hayes' Christmas Card Psalm (follow this think:  A Christmas Card Psalm), and then moved to the real meat of the day--the actual card writing.  Sr. Marie Angela Presenza prepared the day for us reminding us that writing cards is a prayer of remembering and a prayer of celebrating.  Scripture tells us "where two or three are gathered together, there I am".  We gathered and felt the power of our togetherness.  Except for a break for lunch and an afternoon break for tea, you could hear a pin drop.  It was a blessed event.  We'll meet again next year -- same place, same time, same purpose!

Today is the feast of St. Nicholas.  I don't know about you but St. Nicholas did stop by my door last night and it was a glorious surprise awaiting me this morning.  May you be St. Nicholas for someone today!  I could do no better than Ed Hayes at telling you the significance of this day so I repeat his words adapted from Edward Hays' "The Pay-less Shoe Gift Shop" by Brian Cavanaugh" in Ed Hays book A Piligrim's Almanac:  Reflections for Each Day of the Year  (Forest of Peace Publishing, 1989, 190-191.)

It is fitting that the feast of St. Nicholas comes at the beginning of Advent and the beginning of the shopper's season.  As the patron saint of shoppers he proclaims, "Keep it simple!"  Keep it simple enough to fit in a shoe or a stocking.  One gift that could fit in a ... shoe, or in a stocking hanging on the fireplace, is a note that speaks of one of our most precious gifts, the gift of time.  Such a St. Nicholas note might read:  "The gift I give to you is half an hour of quality conversation each night right after the dishes are done."  Or, "The gift I give to you is one Saturday a month to be with you and do whatever you want to do." .... The possibilities are almost unlimited for these St. Nicholas shoe gifts.  
Come, St. Nicholas, patron of shoppers and gift-seekers, and make Christmas this year fun, creative and love-filled.

Blessings on your Advent

This photo of Mary painted by Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1898 was used by Brother Michael Laratonda, FMS on this past weekend's Advent Retreat entitled The Divine Pregnancy.  The oil painting captures Mary sitting in stillness as she is visited by Gabriel.  Mary is portrayed as a teen age girl in a simple and rumpled peasant dress without halo or any other holy attribute.  Gabriel appears only as a shaft of light. The original painting was placed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1899.  I share with you my own small reflection on  the painting, after Brother Michael's illuminating retreat, hoping it might  resonate with a piece of your heart.  

Advent

I sit still and ask for nothing

and in some way everything comes to me.

I sit and try to stay in the truth

of who I am

of who God calls me to be

and in some way everything fills me.

Is Advent that moment in history

where the invitation to stay empty

teaches us about the fullness that comes with emptiness?

Mary sat in stillness and silence. 

Did she feel empty

because she didn’t trust herself enough

to know if she should say yes?

Or did she simply

sit in her emptiness

and say “your will be done”

and allow the extravagance of God

to fill her emptiness?

And is that what it truly means

to allow ourselves

to be mother

to incarnate the divinity

so that others can see

the God who is still and quiet within,

the God who transforms

our emptiness, our nothingness,

into the womb of divine life.