Reflection for December 28, 2011

2012

It doesn’t matter how educated, moneyed, or smart you are: When your child’s footprints end at the river’s edge, when the one you love has gone into the woods with a bleak outlook and a loaded gun, when the chaplain is walking toward you with bad news in her mouth, then only the clichés are true, a nd you will repeat them, unashamed. Your life will swing suddenly and cruelly in a new direction, and if you are really wise – and it’s surprising and wondrous how many people have this wisdom in them – you will know enough to look around for love. It will be there, standing right on the hinge, holding out its arms. And if you are wise, you will fall against it and be held.

Here If You Need Me

Kate Braestrup

If only is like hindsight. A useless exercise. . . Who knows? . . . As for God, I frankly admit I find it easier to live with the age-old questions about suffering than with the many easy or pious explanations offered from time to time. Some of which seem to verge on blasphemy. . . . The one thing we should never say . . . is, “It is the will of God.” We simply don’t know enough to say that. . . . [When a tragedy occurs] I am convinced that God’s is the first heart to break. . . . Life is sweet. Beyond the pain, life continues to be sweet. The basics are there. Beauty, food, and friendship, reservoirs of love and understanding.

Winter Solstice

Rosamunde Pilcher

Reflection for December 21, 2011

O Antiphon, O Rising Sun

Wednesday, December 21 — Winter Solstice

(Northern Hemisphere)

Reflection for December 14, 2011

Isaiah 46: 25: In the Lord shall be the vindication and the glory of all the descendents of Israel.

THE INCARNATION

Now that the time had come when it would be good

To ransom the bride serving under the hard yoke

Of that law which Moses had given her,

The Father, with tender love, spoke in this way:

Now You see Son, that your bride was made in Your image,

And so far as she is like You, she will suit you well;

Yet she is different in her flesh which Your simple being does not have.

In perfect love, this law holds:

That the lover become like the one he loves;

For the greater their likeness the greater their delight.

Surely your bride’s delight would greatly increase

Were she to see You like her, in her own flesh.

My will is Yours, the Son replied,

and My glory is that Your will be mine.

This is fitting, Father, what You, the Most High, say;

For in this way, Your goodness will be the more seen.

Your great power will be seen and Your justice and wisdom.

I will go and tell the world

Spreading the word of Your beauty and sweetness

And of Your sovereignty.

I will go and seek My bride and take upon Myself

Her weariness and labors in which she suffers so;

And that she may have life, I will die for her,

And, lifting her out of that deep, I will restore her to You.

St. John of the Cross

Reflection for December 7, 2011

… the angel Gabriel was sent to a town in Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin. …The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Luke 1: 26-28.

…

This air, which, by life’s law,

My lung must draw and draw

Now but to breathe its praise,

Minds me in many ways

Of her who not only

Gave God’s infinity

Dwindled to infancy

Welcome in womb and breast,

Birth, milk and the rest

But mothers each new grace

That does now reach our race –

Mary Immaculate,

Merely a woman, yet

Whose presence, power is

Great as no goddess’s

Was deemed, dreamed; who

This one work has to do –

Let all God’s glory through,

God’s glory which would go

Through her and from her flow

Off, and no way but so.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Reflection for November 30, 2011

Jesus said to his disciples: "Be watchful! Be alert!"

We are called to consciousness, especially in this

dark time of year, to enter into a great mystery.

As fellow pilgrims, we accompany one another

on this journey called Advent. Paradoxically,

Christ is with us, yet is to come again. This isn't

simply an ancient event. It can happen now.

So we begin, nourished by scripture,

sensing the Light, moving toward

a holy birth and the renewal of hope.