Thoughts on New Year's Eve

 

Another Year Ends

As another year draws to an end, let us pause before the manger and express our gratitude to God for all the signs of his generosity in our life and our history, seen in countless ways through the witness of those people who quietly took a risk. A gratitude that is no sterile nostalgia or empty recollection of an idealized and disembodied past, but a living memory, one that helps to generate personal and communal creativity because we know that God is with us. God is with us. Today the Word of God introduces us in a special way, to the meaning of time, to understand that time is not a reality extrinsic to God, simply because he chose to reveal himself and to save us in history. The meaning of time, temporality, is the atmosphere of God’s epiphany, namely, of the manifestation of God’s mystery and of his concrete love.

—from the book The Peace of Christmas: Quiet Reflections from Pope Francis by Diane M. Houdek

Thoughts on Christmas season

 

The Stories of Christmas

Whether it’s the Christmas story in church, the family stories we tell around holiday tables and in gatherings with old friends, or the Christmas movies we watch each year, there’s something about the telling of familiar stories that holds a special magic. The young sometimes roll their eyes when Grandma tells the same story every year, and not everyone appreciates the rhythm of the lectionary selections. But this is part of who we are as a family and as a people of God. Life finds its meaning in the stories we tell. We’re approaching the end of the Christmas season. Soon we will back to the ordinary routines of our life. But if we have celebrated the feast of the incarnation well, our lives will be changed. We don’t know what the new year will hold for us, for our families, for the world. But we know that God will continue to be with us. As we look back at the significant events of the past year, both the joys and the sorrows, the highs and the lows, we can see how God has shaped us and strengthened us for what lies ahead.

—from the book The Peace of Christmas: Quiet Reflections from Pope Francis by Diane M. Houdek

Thoughts on Christmas

 

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. - Isaiah 9:2

Somehow I realized that songs, music, good feelings, beautiful liturgies, nice presents, big dinners, and many sweet words do not make Christmas. Christmas is saying "yes" to something beyond all emotions and feelings. Christmas is saying "yes" to a hope based on God's initiative, which has nothing to do with what I think or feel. Christmas is believing that the salvation of the world is God's work and not mine. Things will never look just right or feel just right. If they did, someone would be lying... But it is into this broken world that a child is born who is called Son of the Most High, Prince of Peace, Savior. -- Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak

Thoughts on the winter solstice

 

The Turn of the Sun

Dark days can mean dark moods. This natural turn of the seasons helps explain the timing of Christmas. It is the festival of light, the return of the sun and longer periods of daylight. It’s a time of renewal and hope, sentiments we feel as we watch the skies and see faint signs of the sun returning. What happens in December in the northern hemisphere is a natural symbol. You don’t need a dictionary or an encyclopedia to know that the dark sky parallels your darkened heart. You feel it in your body and then in your emotions. The sky mirrors your feelings, and your pulse beats with the special rhythms of night and day. The turn of the sun on the day of solstice may well coincide with a turn in your spirits.

—from the book The Soul of Christmas by Thomas Moore

4th Sunday in Advent

 In the world there are many other voices speaking – loudly: "Prove that you are the beloved. Prove you're worth something. Prove you have any contribution to make. Do something relevant. Be sure to make a name for yourself. At least have some power -- then people will love you; then people will say you're wonderful, you're great."

These voices are so strong. They touch our hidden insecurities and drive us to become very busy trying to prove to the world that we are good people who deserve some attention. Sometimes we think that our busyness is just an expression of our vocation, but Jesus knew that often our attempts to prove our worth are an example of temptation. Right after Jesus heard the voice say, "You are my beloved," another voice said, "Prove you are the beloved. Do something. Change these stones into bread. Be sure you're famous. Jump from the Temple..." Jesus said, "No, I don't have to prove anything. I am already beloved."

-- Henri Nouwen, A Spirituality of Living

3rd Sunday in Advent

 

I know that, alone, I cannot see, hear or touch God in the world. But God in me, the living Christ in me, can see, hear and touch God in the world, and all that is Christ's in me is fully my own. His simplicity, his purity, his innocence are my very own because they are truly given to me to be claimed as my most personal possessions... All that there is of love in me is a gift from Jesus, yet every gesture of love I am able to make will be recognized as uniquely mine. That's the paradox of grace. The fullest gift of grace brings with it the fullest gift of freedom. There is nothing good in me that does not come from God, through Christ, but all the good in me is uniquely my own. The deeper my intimacy with Jesus, the more complete is my freedom.

-- Henri Nouwen, Finding My Sacred Center

2nd Sunday in Advent

 

Prayer is in many ways the criterion of Christian life. Prayer requires that we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. This is difficult in a climate where the predominant counsel is "Do your best and God will do the rest." When life is divided into "our best" and "God's rest," we have turned prayer into a last resort to be used only when all our resources are depleted. Then even the Lord has become the victim of our impatience. Discipleship does not mean to use God when we can no longer function ourselves. On the contrary, it means to recognize that we can do nothing at all, but that God can do everything through us. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern. 

-- Henri Nouwen, Compassion

Thoughts on hope

 

Hope

When we live with hope we do not get tangled up with concerns for how our wishes will be fulfilled. So, too, our prayers are not directed toward the gift but toward the One who gives it. Ultimately, it is not a question of having a wish come true but of expressing an unlimited faith in the giver of all good things. . . . Hope is based on the premise that the other gives only what is good. Hope includes an openness by which you wait for the promise to come through, even though you never know when, where, or how this might happen. Henri Nouwen

1st Sunday in Advent

 

In our personal lives, waiting in not a very popular pastime. Waiting is not something we anticipate or experience with great joy and gladness! In fact, most of us consider waiting a waste of time. Perhaps this is because the culture in which we live is basically saying, "Get going! Do something! Show you are able to make a difference! Don't just sit there and wait!" So, for us and many people, waiting is a dry desert between were we are and where we want to be. We do not enjoy such a place. We want to move out of it and so something worthwhile. 

-- Henri Nouwen, Finding My Way Home

Thoughts on Advent

 

The Quiet Joy of Advent

The season of Advent can be overlooked in the run-up to Christmas, but if we take the time to recognize its hum beneath the busyness of shopping, baking, parties, and decorations, we discover the quiet joy it can bring, those moments apart from the giddiness (or the frustration) of December. Even people who work in ministry can get caught up in the preparations for the Advent and Christmas liturgies and lose sight of the deep joy of the season. Advent challenges us to step away from the hectic activity of the world, even if only for a short time each day. Pope Francis is the perfect guide through this season. Not one to shy away from a busy schedule, he has discovered the secret of balancing work with reflection, busyness with quiet contemplation, celebration with solitude, simplicity with the complexities of daily life. And what is at the heart of that secret? Making sure everything is rooted in Christ. The work we do (and the joy it can bring) emerges from a commitment to bringing the gift of God’s love to those we meet.

—from the book The Joy of Advent: Daily Reflections from Pope Francis
by Diane M. Houdek

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

 

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving focuses on God’s gifts. Our challenge is to take nothing for granted, but to appreciate every blessing. Thanksgiving is a way of life. Indeed, the prayer of thanksgiving characterizes a eucharistic people. Our gratitude centers on the greatest gift of all—Jesus. This gift, and all the other gifts through God’s providence, are expressions of God’s love. How fitting and just it is that we always and everywhere express our gratitude to the Lord.

— from the book Living Prayer: A Simple Guide to Everyday Enlightenment
by Robert F. Mourneau

Thoughts on eating

 

Sharing the Feast

Eating is not only an individual delight but also, and mainly, a communal experience. Family reunions mean sharing story after story around the table. The food served becomes the backdrop for a renewal of mutual concerns remembered and new events announced. Those of us who have to travel for business may need to eat alone, but may not relish doing so. Travelers often end up at a local hangout not only to order a beer but to find a bartender or other patrons to converse with. Breaking bread with a friend is why I baked that loaf in the first place. A dinner scheduled to last for perhaps two hours can put us in a zone of leisure that seems to go on without our knowing how so much time has passed.

—from the book Table of Plenty: Good Food for Body and Spirit 
by Susan Muto

Thoughts on time

 

Time Speeds by Us

Time speeds by, one event falling into another. I see this now. Was I in danger of reaching the end without stopping to see what was being given? I kept looking up and another year was gone. Another holiday. Another birthday. I was living in my mind. I wasn’t really here. Now a door swings open and life is looking back at me. The roses, the trees, the birds, the stars. Everything is watching. I ask myself, where have I been? While I was lost in lists of things to do and goals to realize, where was I?

—from the book Stars at Night: When Darkness Unfolds as Night

Thoughts on fear

 

The Fellowship of the Weak

Fear, shame, and guilt often make us stay in our isolation and prevent us from realizing that our handicap, whatever it is, can always become the way to an intimate and healing fellowship in which we come to know one another as humans. After all, everyone shares the handicap of mortality. Our individual, physical, emotional, and spiritual failures are but symptoms of this disease. Only when we use these symptoms of mortality to form a fellowship of the weak can hope emerge. It is in the confession of our brokenness that the real strength of new and everlasting life can be affirmed and made visible. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on changes

 Almost 60 years ago singer/songwriter (poet?) Bob Dylan scribbled the verses to his “The times they are a-changin” on a battered sheet of binder paper which recently sold for over $400,000. The song was written in a specific context, but it has become a kind of anthem not only for frustrated youth and civil rights, as it probably was back then, but a call to action for all kinds of people and movements seeking change for the better, or as our advent faith calls it “metanoia.”

This season in the secular calendar, as well as in the church year, is all about changing times and our own calls to action today. The secular calendar as well as the changing colors, light, colors, temperature and autumn leaves all around us point us to changing times as we get out the cameras, the rakes and the leaf blowers to welcome in another season.

In these days of the church’s year of grace, we begin a new Advent calendar celebrating the communion of saints who have gone before us, both those officially canonized and those not (yet) officially recognized. We celebrate in anticipation of Christmas, but also in expectation and hope that we too will someday join that great cloud of witnesses when the saints go marchin’ in.

As Dylan’s song did, this calls us to action, our own ongoing “seasoning” through our own “metanoia,” a transformative change of heart that is at the root of Jesus’ mission.

This suggests some questions for our reflection about our own personal and communal seasoning in this first week of Advent:

What we want to leave behind?

What new growth do we want to cultivate?

What new hopes of transformation is God calling us to?

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius we offer you through White House’s ministry provide a helpful time and place for all of us to continue singing “The Times They are a Changin” and acting for metanoia.

-Fr. Ted Arroyo, SJ

Thoughts on suffering

 

The Awful Grace of God

The suffering creatures of this world have a divine Being who does not judge or condemn them, or in any way stand aloof from their plight, but instead, a Being who hangs with them and flows through them, and even toward them, in their despair. How utterly different this is from all the greedy and bloodthirsty gods of most of world history! What else could save the world? What else would the human heart love and desire? Further, this God wants to love and be loved rather than be served (John 15:15). How wonderful is that?! It turns the history of religion on its head. Jesus said it of himself: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32) and “from my breast will flow fountains of living water” (7:38). It is only the “harsh and dreadful” commingling of both divine love and human tears which opens the deepest floodgates of both God and the soul. Eventually, I must believe, it will open history itself. I will sink my anchor here. To mourn for one is to mourn for all. To mourn with all is to fully participate at the very foundation of Being Itself. For some reason, which I have yet to understand, beauty hurts. Suffering opens the channel through which all of Life flows and by which all creation breathes, and I still do not know why. Yet it is somehow beautiful, even if it is a sad and tragic beauty.

—from the book Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr 

Thoughts on friendship

 

Be a Real Friend

True friendships are lasting because true love is eternal. A friendship in which heart speaks to heart is a gift from God, and no gift that comes from God is temporary or occasional. All that comes from God participates in God’s eternal life. Love between people, when given by God, is stronger than death. In this sense, true friendships continue beyond the boundary of death. When you have loved deeply that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. This is the core message of Jesus. When Jesus died, the disciples’ friendship with him did not diminish. On the contrary, it grew. This is what the sending of the Spirit was all about. The Spirit of Jesus made Jesus’ friendship with his disciples everlasting, stronger, and more intimate than before his death. That is what Paul experienced when he said, “It is no longer I, but Christ living in me” (Galatians 2:20). You have to trust that every true friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those, living and dead, who have truly loved God and one another. You know from experience how real this is. Those you have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences. Dare to love and be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as to those whom God has given you to love. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on questions

 

The Questions We Choose The scope of every life is indeed defined by the questions we choose to live into, and if we are blessed to live long enough, we will inevitably end up shaped like a question mark. Since quest is also the start of every question, it is questions, not answers, that are the surest guideposts for any journey of faith—which necessarily means moving into the unknowable. Always trust the open, heartfelt question that lays bare the soul to unknowing. Whether they are simplistic or sophisticated, handle answers with care, for they often reflect and display, for all the world to see, the broad sweep of our ignorance. Perhaps, for this reason, wisdom teachers use stories, ballads, parables, or poems. Such lyrical musings open spaces for fresh appreciations and diverse perspectives. They foster fascination and expose imagination to wider fields of understanding, laced with mystery, which always leads us down and out to face yet another, more penetrating question. —from the book Wandering and Welcome: Meditations for Finding Peace by Joseph Grant

Thoughts on Contrition

 

Choosing a Life of Contrition

Celebrating the Eucharist requires that we stand in this world accepting our co-responsibility for the evil that surrounds and pervades us. As long as we remain stuck in our complaints about the terrible times in which we live and the terrible situations we have to bear and the terrible fate we have to suffer, we can never come to contrition. And contrition can grow only out of a contrite heart. When our losses are pure fate, our gains are pure luck! Fate does not lead to contrition, nor luck to gratitude. Indeed, the conflicts in our personal lives as well as the conflicts on regional, national, or world scales are our conflicts, and only by claiming responsibility for them can we move beyond them—choosing a life of forgiveness, peace, and love. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on pain

 

Befriend Your Pain

I want to say to you that most of our brokenness cannot be simply taken away. It’s there. And the deepest pain that you and I suffer is often the pain that stays with us all our lives. It cannot be simply solved, fixed, done away with. . . . What are we then told to do with that pain, with that brokenness, that anguish, that agony that continually rises up in our heart? We are called to embrace it, to befriend it. To not just push it away . . . to walk right over it, to ignore it. No, to embrace it, to befriend it, and say that is my pain and I claim my pain as the way God is willing to show me his love. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on forgiveness

 

Divine Forgiveness

I have often said, “I forgive you,” but even as I said these words my heart remained angry or resentful. I still wanted to hear the story that I was right after all; I still wanted to hear apologies and excuses; I still wanted the satisfaction of receiving some praise in return—if only the praise for being so forgiving! But God’s forgiveness is unconditional; it comes from a heart that does not demand anything of itself, a heart that is completely empty of self-seeking. It is this divine forgiveness that I have to practice in my daily life. It calls me to keep stepping over all my arguments that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical. It challenges me to step over all my needs for gratitude and compliments. Finally, it demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive. . . . Only when I remember that I am the Beloved Child can I welcome those who want to return with the same compassion as that with which the Father welcomes me. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on identity

 

Accept Your Identity as a Child of God

Your true identity is as a child of God. This is the identity you have to accept. Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain. You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you as an opportunity for strengthening your basic identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame. You belong to God, and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on the spiritual life

 

Our True Home

How can we live in the midst of a world marked by fear, hatred, and violence, and not be destroyed by it? When Jesus prays to his Father for his disciples he responds to this question by saying, “I am not asking you to remove them from the world but to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world” (John 17:15–16). To live in the world without belonging to the world summarizes the essence of the spiritual life. The spiritual life keeps us aware that our true house is not the house of fear, in which the powers of hatred and violence rule, but the house of love, where God resides. Henri Nouwen

Thoughts on good works

 Appreciating the Good Works of Others

 

In this Sunday’s first reading and then in the gospel reading we see first the disciples of Moses and then those of Christ disturbed at the good works being performed or carried out by “others.” What is their problem? Moses suggests to his upset followers that they might be jealous of their achievements. Instead he says it would indeed be wonderful if everyone could do what they’re doing.

Jesus response is somewhat similar. If a person is performing a good deed in my name, leave them alone. What is important is the good deed they perform not who is doing it.

All of this reminds me of the challenge I have sometimes in rejoicing in the good works and success of others. Why shouldn’t I be able to rejoice in the success in good works of others. For me Moses hits nail on the head: I am jealous. For what reason I’m not sure, but whatever it is, is not good for me. It deprives me of the joy and enthusiasm I might have, and it prevents me from commending and congratulating and encouraging the person whose work it is. It seems to me that this response is akin to the reaction of the older son in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

The grace we pray for in the final week of the Spiritual Exercises is to enter into the joy, happiness and fulfillment of the risen Christ. This grace is a very rich gift which can empower and energize one’s work for the Kingdom. A helpful preparation for receiving such a gift is our taking part and entering into the accomplishments, successes and achievements of our day-to-day companions.

 

-Fr. Jim Blumeyer, S.J.

Thoughts on Autumn

 

A prayer for the beginning of autumn

O God of Creation, you have blessed us with the changing of the seasons. 

As we welcome the autumn months, 
may the earlier setting of the sun 
remind us to take time to rest. 

May the brilliant colors of the leaves 
remind us of the wonder of your creation. 

May the steam of our breath in the cool air 
remind us that it is you who give us the breath of life. 
 
May the harvest from the fields remind us of the abundance we have been given and bounty we are to share with others.
May the dying of summer’s spirit remind us of your great promise that death is temporary and life is eternal.
We praise you for your goodness forever and ever. 

Amen.

—via FaithND

Thoughts on freedom

 

God's Love Is Free

Freedom is the gift of God’s humble love. It is the gift of a God who loves us faithfully despite our failures, always bending low to embrace us in love. God’s love is free because real love always desires the best for the other without interfering or manipulating the other. God is one who neither manipulates nor interferes with our created freedom. Rather, God respects the gift of freedom that he has given us. If God forced us to love him, God would not be perfect love and we would not be free. We would be puppets of a controlling God, a God who would be like a dictator; we would live under constant oppression. This would not be a God faithful in love and worthy of our trust and hope. But God does not control or manipulate. No, God is like a beggar waiting at the soul’s door. If we choose to open the door and allow God into our lives, then we will find the freedom of love to be all that we are created to be.

— from the book The Humility of God: A Franciscan Perspective, by Ilia Delio, OSF

9/11/2001

 

God Sends Us Where We Are Needed

“God is not an obligation or a burden. God is the joy of my life!” —Fr. Mychal Judge

On the bright fall morning of September 11, 2001, firefighters across New York were summoned to a scene of unimaginable horror: Two hijacked airliners had crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. As firefighters rushed into the burning buildings, they were accompanied by their chaplain, Fr. Mychal Judge. Hundreds of them would die that day, among the nearly three thousand fatalities in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Fr. Judge would be among them. There seemed to be special meaning in the fact that Fr. Mychal was listed as the first certified casualty of 9/11. A photograph of his fellow firemen carrying his body from the wreckage to a neighboring church became an icon of that day: an image of loving service and sacrifice, a hopeful answer to messages born of fear and fanaticism.

— from The Franciscan Saints by Robert Ellsberg

Thoughts on vocations

 

Is Your Work a Vocation?

It doesn’t take much looking in our economy to see that in fact there is a great deal of work that doesn’t pray, work that disconnects us from our sources of life rather than moves us toward wholeness. For work to pray, it must have a sense of vocation attached to it—we must feel some calling toward that work and the wholeness of which it is a part, that there is something holy in good work. Vocation is a calling and prayer is a call and response, deep calling to deep. For work to pray, to be vocation, it must be brought into a larger conversation. “The idea of vocation attaches to work a cluster of other ideas, including devotion, skill, pride, pleasure, the good stewardship of means and materials,” Wendell Berry writes. It is these “intangibles of economic value” that keep us from viewing work as “something good only to escape: ‘Thank God it’s Friday.’”

— from the book Wendell Berry and the Given Life by Ragan Sutterfield