Reflection for April 11, 2012

“The Golden Rule”

Christianity

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Judaism

What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor.

That is the entire Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn.

Islam

No one is a believer until you desire for another

That which you desire for yourself.

Baha’i

Blessed are those who prefer others before themselves.

Zoroastrianism

Human nature is good only when it does not do unto another

Whatever is not good for its own self.

Sikhism

Be not estranged from one another for God dwells in every heart.

Janism

In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief…

Regard all creatures as you would your own self.

Buddhism

Hurt not others in ways that you yourself find hurtful.

Art: Mary Southard, CSJ 2003 Congregation of St. Joseph

www.ministryofhearts.org

142V Printed by St. Joseph Press

Reflection for April 4, 2012

HOLY WEEK

Christians speak of the "paschal mystery," the process of loss and renewal that was lived and personified in the death and raising up of Jesus. We can affirm that belief in ritual and song, as we do in the Eucharist. However, until we have lost our foundation and ground, and then experience God upholding us so that we come out even more alive on the other side, the expression "paschal mystery" is little understood and not essentially transformative. Paschal mystery is a doctrine that we Christians would probably intellectually assent to, but it is not yet the very cornerstone of our life philosophy. That is the difference between belief systems and living faith. We move from one to the other only through encounter, surrender, trust and an inner experience of presence and power. From Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 62, 63 Prayer: "Faith is a journey into darkness, into not-knowing." Richard Rohr

Reflection for March 28, 2012

The Physics of Attention

First comes the sitting. You should be relaxed

but comfortably straight as you align

your head and torso, shoulders, neck and spine,

your leg right-angled: soles are roots, feet flexed.

In this position you will find your head

afloat, not heavy. Rest there. Now begin

attending to your breathing, out-and in-

the street noise there but filtered, edited.

Quiet the voice that asks: That's all? Just sitting?

Just being there and breathing? Breathe. Align

your body with the earth, your flitting mind

with all that flies, and welcome, in the One

in whom you live and move and have your being,

things as they are: this chair, this you, this time.

MARY O'CONNOR

Mary O'Connor, R.S.M., has taught literature and writing

in the San Francisco Bay Area and in South Dakota. She

now conducts writing retreats.

Reflection for March 21, 2012

Ancestors

my ancestors surround me

like walls of a canyon

quiet

stone hard

their ideas drift over me

like breezes at sunset

we gather sticks

and make settlements

what we do is only partly

our own

and partly continuation

down through the chromosomes.

……………………………Harvey Ellis

Reflection for March 7, 2012

Hope has two beautiful daughters---

their names are anger and courage;

anger at the way things are, and

courage to see

they do not remain the way they are.

St. Augustine

Reflection for February 29, 2012

Jesus clearly says the kingdom of heaven is among us (Luke 17:21) or “at hand” (Matthew 3:2, 4: 17). One wonders why we made it into a reward system for later, or an evacuation plan for the next world. Maybe it was easier to obey laws and practice rituals for later than to actually be transformed now.

The price for real transformation is high. It means that we have to change our loyalties from power, success, money, and control (read: “our kingdoms”) to the Lordship of Jesus and the kingdom of God. Henceforth, there is only one thing that is Absolute and in relationship to that, everything else is relative – everything – even the church, even our nation, even national security, even our wealth and our possessions, even our identity and our reputation.

Your god is whatever you trust to validate you and secure you, and the Gospel is saying, “Will the real God please stand up?”

Richard Rohr, O.F.M.

February 22, 2012

Be a gardener

Dig a ditch,

toil and sweat,

and turn the earth upside down

and seek the deepness

and water the plants in time.

Continue this labor

and make sweet floods to run

and noble and abundant fruits

to spring.

Take this food and drink

and carry it to God

as your true worship.

Julian of Norwich

February 15, 2012

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver ~

February 8, 2012

Love Generously

Rachel Naomi Remen

When I imagine myself as an old woman at the end of my life and ask myself how I will evaluate my time here, there is only one question that concerns me: Did I love well? There are a thousand ways to love other people and the world – with our touch, our words, our silences, our work, our presence. I want to love well. This is my hunger. I want to make love to the world by the way I live in it, by the way I am with myself every day.​ ​

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Reflection for February 1, 2012

WEAVING IN AND OUT OF LIVES

I'VE COME TO KNOW

THE LETTING GO

AS THE SURRENDER IN THAT WAR

BETWEEN MY ROOTS AND WINGS.

Macrina Wiederkehr

"Seasons of Your Heart"

Reflection for January 25, 2012

I am a little pencil

in the hand of a writing God

who is sending a love letter

to the world. Mother Teresa

Reflection for January 18, 2012

What Can I Say - Mary Oliver

What can I say that I have not said before?

So, I’ll say it again.

The leaf has a song in it.

Stone is the face of patience.

Inside the river there is an unfinished story

and you are somewhere in it

and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the

chamber of commerce

but take it also to the forest.

The song you heard singing in the leaf when you

were a child

is singing still.

I am of years lived. So far, seventy-four,

and the leaf is singing still.

INTENTION - Kay Ryan

Intention doesn’t sweeten.

It should be picked young

and eaten. Sometimes only hours

separate the cotyledon

from the wooden plant.

Then if you want to eat it,

you can’t.

Reflection for January 11, 2012

It's very important to experience doubt. I think faith without doubt

is either nostalgia or a kind of addiction.

Mary Gordon

As Gerald Haslam's father approached death, he asked

his son,"Do you really believe that stuff?"

He replied, "I consider the human mind to be

a distinctly limited instrument, and believe

life's meaning is beyond rational grasp.

I further believe there is a reality

dwelling beyond the cusp of the known and the

unknowable, and I willingly acquiesce to the

supernatural promise of Christianity.

'Haslam's Valley," Gerald Haslam

Reflection for January 4, 2012

Song on the Feast of the Epiphany

Be bold like the Maji.

Do not tarry, settling into your comfort,

but rather set out

keeping the star in your vision.

It will lead you to a place

you are most in need of

the place where God is.

And if an angel warns you in a dream

not to return by the old way,

please listen.

From Luminous Night, Christine Rodgers

Reflection for January 4, 2012

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.