Thoughts on Holiday Spirit

 

As we’ve slogged toward the end of this strangest of years, it’s taken me more time than usual to find my holiday spirit. The anticipation of gathering with friends and family and co-workers is absent this year, and while in many cases we’ll replace the in-person visits with phone calls or video chats, it won’t be the same. But as the coronavirus pandemic continues to plow its destructive path, skipping these traditional holiday parties is the prudent and charitable thing to do. That being said, missing the conversation, laughter and, yes, food, normally shared in these weeks leading up to Christmas has sapped some of the joy from the season. This excellent and timely piece by Leonard DeLorenzo, a professor at Notre Dame and frequent writer for Our Sunday Visitor, has caused me to consider that the source of my joy might be misplaced. Using the voice of St. Nicholas — the fourth-century bishop of Myra (and the inspiration for Santa Claus) — DeLorenzo writes: “This Christmas is a season to begin to heal from your slumbering sadness. Certainly, it is not enough to just suddenly say, ‘OK, I accept Christ as God!’ You have to feel it in your fingers, feel it in your toes. You must profess it and live it. That is a hard thing to will all at once.” “So here, then, is some advice from your jolly old St. Nicholas: Just let yourself rejoice. Even if you do not feel joy, follow others who do. As the gloom of this year seeps into next year, focus on giving thanks during this Christmas season. Choose to give thanks rather than remain melancholic and anxious. It is not right for us to weep in a time of celebration, and Christmas as the feast of the Incarnation is a time of great celebration.” Scott Warden Our Sunday Visitor

More thoughts on hope

 

The Nature of Hope

Hope is not a feeling, sentiment, or affect. It is not a starry-eyed assurance, cheery conviction, or buoyant confidence. Nor is it passive optimism that, despite the situation, bullishly predicts, “It’s all going to work out.” It is beyond security and peacefulness. Hope cannot be bought or taught. It can only be received and awakened. Saint Francis instinctively knew this when, seeking discernment before the San Damiano crucifix, he prayed, “And give me…certain hope….” The seed of hope is planted by God and celebrates the gratuity of grace. It is a gift, a blessing that strangely breaks ground and sprouts only during times of desperation, despair, despondency, and disaster—when the soul is parched. 

—from the book Soul Training with the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis
by Albert Haase, OFM  

Thoughts on The Immaculate Conception

 

The Immaculate Conception

This miraculous feat that God accomplished in the human flesh of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a breakthrough event for the entire human race. It establishes an otherwise “inconceivable” excellence and changes the way we think, act, and hope! As Pope John Paul II wrote, “The marvelous work which the Creator achieved in Mary gives men and women the possibility to discover dimensions of their condition which before were not sufficiently perceived.”

 

For this reason, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is a day of elation. St. Anselm notes that all things that are subject to the use of human beings now rejoice in Mary’s Immaculate Conception because, through her, “they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace.”

 

God deigned to work such an august miracle in St. Anne’s little girl in order to form her for her vocation as the Mother of God. St. Bede the Venerable (+735) observes, “No wonder that the Lord, when he was about to redeem the world, began his work with his Mother, so that she, through whom salvation would be put into place for all, would be the first to taste the fruit of salvation from her Child.”

 

—from the book Mysteries of the Virgin Mary: Living Our Lady's Graces, 

by Fr. Peter John Cameron, OP

Thoughts on forgiveness

 

The Art and Heart of Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not a feeling. It is a decision, an act of the will, a resolution, a firm choice to free ourselves from the continued influence and control of the adversary. As we deliberately and intentionally walk the footpath beyond the ego’s injury, we find ourselves being blessed with spiritual maturity: Wounds are often the womb of wisdom. Because forgiveness is a process and our hearts are finicky, we might be tempted to revisit the scene of the crime and throw another log on the fires of fury. When that occurs, we remind ourselves that we have made the rational decision to pardon and get on with life. We recommit to the decision. With every recommitment to forgiveness, we take another step forward in the footsteps of the Lord and Divine Master and becoming his instrument. We pray to be instruments of peace in the Peace Prayer. That transformation occurs as we serve the Lord and Divine Master and train our souls in forgiveness. When we commit and recommit to the process of sowing pardon amid an injury, we witness to the gratuity of grace that moves us from selfishness to selflessness.

—from the book Soul Training with the Peace Prayer of Saint Francis
by Albert Haase, OFM  

2nd Sunday of Advent

 

Second Sunday of Advent: 

The Rough Edge of Prophecy

Prophets don’t come into our lives every day, and they don’t always make the sort of impression that John the Baptist and the biblical prophets must have made. But if we begin to understand how they experienced God, we might begin to see that even we ourselves have moments of prophetic insight. Prophets are gifted with an intense personal awareness of God’s love for his people. Their call both inspires and compels them to preach this word to those who will listen—and to those who close their ears.

 

St. Francis’s sharper edges have been somewhat softened by time and the popular imagination. But he would have understood John the Baptist. Francis accepted somewhat reluctantly the pope’s command to the Lesser Brothers to preach the Word of God as they wandered the street. Once he accepted that call, he didn’t hesitate to call people to repentance. But he always tempered his words with the mercy and love of God.

 

We must bring forth therefore fruits befitting repentance (Luke 3:8) and love our neighbors as ourselves. Anyone who will not or cannot love his neighbor as himself should at least do him good and not do him any harm. Those who have been entrusted with the power of judging others should pass judgment mercifully just as they themselves hope to obtain mercy from God. For judgment is without mercy to him who has not shown mercy (James 2:13). We must be charitable, too, and humble, and give alms…. We lose everything which we leave behind us in this world; we can bring with us only the right to a reward for our charity and the alms we have given.

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

Thoughts on waiting

 

Radical Waiting

I have found it very important in my own life to try to let go of my wishes and instead to live in hope. I am finding that when I choose to let go of my sometimes petty and superficial wishes and trust that my life is precious and meaningful in the eyes of God, something really new, something beyond my own expectations begins to happen in me. To wait with openness and trust is an enormously radical attitude toward life. It is choosing to hope that something is happening for us that is far beyond our own imaginings. It is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life. It is living with the conviction that God molds us in love, holds us in tenderness, and moves us away from the sources of our fear. Our spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, expecting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination or prediction. This, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control. Henri Nouwen