Be still, stop and breathe
It is no coincidence that Jesus spends forty days in the desert; this is a very particular biblical unit of time. It recalls the Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years before arriving in the Promised Land; the Great Flood lasted forty days; Moses fasted for forty days in the wilderness of Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 9:18), as did Elijah near Mount Horeb (1 Kings 19:8). We are in good company as we enter into the wilderness, a place where God is revealed. During Lent, it is good for us to remove ourselves from our normal routines, to be still, and to stop and breathe. We need not be afraid of this, for the Gospel shows us that time spent in the wilderness is Spirit- led and we are not alone.
Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Sunday Gospels in the Year of Mark
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Trust in God
There’s an inspiring passage from The Book of Habakkuk where the author describes the attitude of a person whose world has come apart –they have lost their livelihood and income, everything! The bottom has fallen out of their world, as happens to countless numbers of people every day, especially in war zones and many other areas of life. Yet the author, faced with such a huge calamity, can still say, ‘Yet I will rejoice in the Lord / and exult in God my saviour / The Lord my God is my strength’ (Habakkuk 3:18–19). That is just one of the extraordinary acts of trust in God found throughout the Bible. That’s the kind of faith involved in ‘I believe in God.’ At such times, many of us may not be able to make such an act of trust as it seems to defy the odds. We simply allow ourselves to be carried along by the prayerful trust of our faith community as if we’re stowaways on their prayers. Experience also confirms that those with a deep trusting faith are supported by their conviction that God can be relied on, especially during difficult times, because the Bible reassures us that God is on the side of the broken-hearted.
Jim Maher SJ, Reimagining Religion: A Jesuit Vision
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Come into a closer relationship with God
Reflection on the journey of life invites us to appreciate our gifts as well as our areas of struggle so that we can grow in openness to the Lord and to his way. During their time in the wilderness, the Chosen People were changed in their relationship with God, with Moses and with each other. Sometimes, these changes were positive, but on other occasions, that was not so. The Commandments taught them about a God of love who called them into a true relationship with God and with each other. They reminded them that God was close to them, concerned about them and committed to them. Their image of God underwent change, as did their relationship with God. The covenant made them into a people bonded with the Lord in a special way. The law of love was to guide their relationships. While that did guide them at times, on other occasions, they went their own way, even making and worshipping false gods. Selfish interests took precedence at times, and the bigger vision was lost. Similarly, we are made in the image of God with the potential to grow. As people of the New Covenant, we are given a special dignity and invited to a closer relationship with God. Our image of God and of the self can undergo change. Growing in self-knowledge, we can expand the freedom we have to respond to the Lord in living the commandment of love. We can also go our own way, however, by finding and worshipping false gods. The choices we make have implications for our relationship with the Lord and with each other. By reflecting on our experience and learning from it, the way is opened to change and more faithful living in the truth the Lord reveals to us.
Extracted from See God Act: The Ministry of Spiritual Direction by Michael Drennan SJ
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Things haven’t changed that much
I’m sure Noah would never get his ark completed today. The flood would well and truly have passed over him before he started building. There are so many rules and regulations governing the simplest of tasks. There are mountains of paperwork that have to be completed, forms to be filled in, permissions to be got, and standards to be reached.
He’d have to complete an environmental impact statement, let the planning authority know he was creating a temporary structure, undergo a health and safety audit, let the tax office know where he got the money from just in case he was laundering, and he’d have to ensure that all the animal rights organisations were happy with the accommodation he was hoping to provide to the animals.
The world has become a very complicated place. Some of us may dream of an idyllic, simple life where things can be done with ease and basic camaraderie, but that dream is getting further and further from view. It’s as if the world has been made to destroy initiative and keep the status quo in place. On reflection, this is not new. I’m sure Noah had equivalent problems in his day. Sure, Jesus was a leader, too, and it was the status quo that had him crucified.
Excerpted from Dipping into Life: 40 Reflections for a Fragile Earth by Alan Hilliard
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The source of Love
February has many themes, starting with St Brigid and ending with the possibility of a leap year. In the middle of it all is the feast of St Valentine. There were many Valentines in the early church. The first Valentine, who may be the original St Valentine, died around AD 270 for reputedly celebrating the marriage of the early Christians, a practice forbidden by law.
When love is celebrated we sometimes wonder what is being celebrated. Is it a passing, fleeting moment of emotional ecstasy? Or is it the pain of loss? Or are we marking something that is eternal, joyful and beyond words?
A starting point might be to name the source of love –we may think that we are the source of our love. Or we can ask does love come from somewhere else? If love comes from somewhere other than the self, then it doesn’t depend on us. The love from elsewhere can be my strength and sustenance in the act of loving and being loved. It can also tell us how to repair that love. Our Christian faith gives us the story of Jesus of Nazareth as he teaches us how to weave forgiveness, sacrifice, support, care, memory and healing into our story of love.
‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God’ (1 John 4:7). Believing this, we know that loving doesn’t depend on us, but on the source of it all.
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, Alan Hilliard, February 2021
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‘Sitting with God’
Sometimes, people don’t pray because they feel they’re not worthy of it. They think it’s not for them. Mention the word ‘contemplation’, and they just run a mile. They think it’s for monks and people who have all sorts of qualifications. Prayer and contemplation are nothing more than simply ‘sitting with God’.
The world we live in can be very distracting. Everything gets broken down or torn apart, important concepts are shredded into little bits and pieces. Prayer, and particularly contemplation, allows you to enter into the heart of God, knowing that this world beats as one and that there’s harmony in the world. You are more than broken bits and pieces and individual parts. To be at peace, you have to see the whole, get the picture of the whole, and get a sense of the whole. It is prayer and contemplation that help you achieve this.
I find that when I pray in the morning, I go out into my day with a greater sense of purpose. I’m not just fiddling with little bits and pieces and trying to fit them together chaotically.
Alan Hilliard, Dipping into Life: 40 Reflections for a Fragile Earth
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Trust in God
Worry is the cause of many of the world’s problems, and it can be a warning sign that God is not first in my life at this point in time.
A day of worrying can be more exhausting than a day of hard work. Nothing wastes more energy than worrying. It’s a total waste of time and it’s useless. Worry can damage your health. It can raise your blood pressure, cause depression, increase your stress levels and give you sleepless nights. It can be a slow killer.
There is no pill you can take to stop you from worrying; no seminar, book or CD will stop you from worrying. The answer is to put God in control of your life. Trust him. Leave tomorrow to God. Don’t cross bridges until you reach them. Don’t open your umbrella until it starts raining.
Hand over everything to God: yourself, your problems, plans and health, everything. Surrender and abandon yourself to him. Your future is in God’s hands and in God’s hands you are in safe hands. Trust him and all will be well. Easier said than done. It may take time. But it works.
Terence Harrington OFMCap, excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, December 2023
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God accompanies us in times of fear
In a strange city, I had been told to attach myself to a native of the city to cross the road – with him, I’d be safe. Otherwise, I was scared stiff in a city crowded with traffic. The fear that time was overcome with the help of another person, of someone who could help me cross.
Many of our fears dissolve if we share them; they don’t exactly go away immediately, but they’re different. We can help each other because we’re all afraid at times, just as people had their fear (and still do) of COVID. In bereavement, we’re frightened of being lonely, being left alone. It’s the same in our older years. All of us have fears like these, and we can bring them into our relationship with God. Job in the Old Testament was like that. He even feared he was losing his God, but by being honest with God, he could live with his fear. Jesus was afraid in the Garden of Gethsemane, but later, with trust in his Father, he went to his death unafraid.
May God bless us with the joy of walking with him, accompanying us at times of fear, helping us to live our lives with trust and confidence. A saying of Jesus in the Gospel is ‘Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come, follow me.’ Our prayer can be: ‘Lord, help me believe that nothing can happen that you and I together cannot face and overcome.’
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, July 2023
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Our Guiding Star
We often pray, ‘Heart of Jesus, make our hearts like yours.’ We pray to be as large-hearted as Jesus in compassion and care for all creation.
The god of Herod in the story of the Magi is tiny, created in Herod’s image and likeness. His god is as small as his influence, which did not last, and as small as the precious stone in his crown. He has made God as tiny as the outreach of his heart, which looked to others only for what he could get, not what he could give. His zest for power is so strong that he kills even tiny children who might threaten him. A bit of him wanted to see and hear Jesus later in life, but only to condemn him.
The God of the Magi was a big god! Big enough to bring the wise men on the long road to Bethlehem. They followed the star of love, goodness, faith, courage, endurance and justice, guided by a star whose light, the light of God, never fails. Their God was big enough to be recognised in a small baby. They searched and found what they were searching for, even though they may not have been sure what they would find.
The star that guides us is the star of the loves and questions, joys and sorrows of our life’s journey. It lives in the hearts of all we meet. Like St Francis of Assisi, we see in a crowd of people not a mob, but the love and image of God multiplied in all. His God was wide, and, like Jesus, his care for God’s world went to every person God created, every blade of grass and everything that has life.
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, January 2023
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The Greatest Gift
Silvano Fausti SJ wrote a version of the Christmas story that is popular in Italian elementary schools. Caleb was the poorest of the shepherds near Bethlehem on that holy night. He had just two sheep. When the angel appeared to the shepherds and told them to go to town to find their Saviour in a manger inside a cave, they quickly gathered up some gifts, whatever was to hand. One brought a chicken, another some freshly baked bread and another a basket of fruit. Caleb followed them but being so poor, he had no gift to bring.
When the shepherds reached the cave they proceeded inside, each bearing their gift, kneeling before Jesus. Soon, other people arrived, each bringing some gift to honour the sacred child. Caleb remained some way off, too embarrassed to approach the scene empty-handed.
Mary and Joseph felt overwhelmed by their visitors. They found it difficult to manage the crowd and all those useful presents, especially as Mary was also holding Jesus. Noticing Caleb standing some way off, with his empty hands and sad expression, she asked him to come closer, and then she placed the baby in his arms while she arranged the gifts. Caleb’s hands were no longer empty. They were, in fact, holding the greatest gift of all.
Even if we have little or nothing to offer the Lord this Christmas, that poverty, in itself, may be enough of a gift to welcome the Son of God.
Excerpted from The Sacred Heart Messenger, December 2023
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