Life's punctuation marks

Life itself shows us what punctuation mark to put on our experiences. Perhaps it would be good to brush up on our grammar and remember the difference between a period, a comma, a question mark and an exclamation point.
When we insist on putting a comma where a period is necessary, or a period in place of a question mark, we not only commit a grammatical error; we create a disharmony in the whole composition.
Isn't this true with life itself?

Jesus is the face of God

I look at God in the face of Jesus and I realize that there is nothing to be afraid of.

Honor your father and your mother

To honor our father and our mother is to love them. We don’t love people because they deserve to be loved. That is not love. That is barter.

To love people because they love us is not love. That is negotiation.

Love is a higher calling. It doesn’t depend on a person’s worthiness or on our feelings. Jesus tells us the real measure of love: our Father in heaven who lets the his sun rise on both the good and the bad alike. Can anybody beat that? I don’t think so, but that is the standard. So when our love is selective, perhaps we shouldn’t call it love.

To love our father and mother is to reconcile ourselves to our personal history and to the imperfections of life.

It isn’t easy. Who says it is? But it is the only way to find peace, healing, a way to move forward in life.

May there be no more weeping children

For yesterday's Feast of the Holy Innocents

Dear God,
we pray for all the innocent children who are daily brought to the slaughterhouse, condemned to die without defense. Their crime? They are "not in our plans". They upset our projects. Please grant them eternal peace, a special place in heaven where there is no more weeping, where they can be as carefree as they want to be, for they are children, after all.
We have blood in our hands. We confess our sins of ignorance, indifference, greed and self-centeredness. We have our values turned upside down. Forgive us.
May there be no more weeping of mothers who are forced to lose their children. May there be no more Herods blinded with insecurity who turn into lunatic murderers. May there be no more children deprived of the light of day because of human decision.
Amen.

Fighting for rights

To be passionate in defending our rights means to be willing to defend others' rights, including our enemies'.

God in the most unexpected places

I woke up early, as I usually do, despite the fact that our community wakes up half an hour later during the Christmas holidays. I am already so used to my morning ritual of walking a little and breathing some fresh air before going to the chapel to pray the Office of the Readings.
Well, today something happened. One Sister had to go out early so she asked me right then and there to bring to the kitchen the bread delivered by the baker. That meant a deviation in my schedule, but I agreed to her request, without giving it a second thought. So instead of praying all three Psalms of the Office I just prayed two; yet  there was no feeling of guilt that my prayer was incomplete. I just felt in my heart that God wants me to meet Him in the need of that Sister.
That was a good occasion for me to pray, after all, prayer is to "listen and obey".

Dreaming God's dream

It is said that when we sleep at night we always dream; but often we forget the dream. I think I agree with this because lots of times when I wake up in the morning, I know that something significant happened the night before, I feel it in my heart, though I cannot remember anything. Or sometimes we remember some bits and pieces. We feel still the joy or the pain or the excitement of the dream though we don't remember the details. Sometimes, too, when something happens we feel that we have been in that situation already, like a déjà vu. Could it be that we have dreamed about it?
After John the Baptist was born, the people who knew about the circumstances of his birth were wondering what would become of him since it was sure that the hand of God was with him.
Everyone of us has this same blessing, that of having the hand of God with us. God has a plan and a dream for us. Does it mean we are not free? No, I'd rather interpret it this way: we are precious to God and each one of us is not an accident. We are willed, we are loved by God. He has a dream for us. And just like our nocturnal dreams, we do not always remember it, but there is something in our heart that reminds us of the dream, no matter how vague it may be.
Our life is a whole journey of remembering God's original dream for us.

Silence

After this time his wife Elizabeth conceived, and she went into seclusion for five months, saying, “So has the Lord done for me at a time when he has seen fit to take away my disgrace before others.” (Lk 1:24-25)

Faced with a great mystery, our only response is silence. Silence sums up our awe and gratitude. Too many words, too much noise deprives us of a deep experience of something beautiful and totally undeserved.

Beautiful music

Listening to beautiful music just uplifts the soul. I may not understand the words, but the whole song can still  penetrate the heart. After all, a song is not only words. It is also music and silence. And all together they speak to us. Perhaps if we just surround ourselves with "clean" and beautiful things, we can rediscover that slice of paradise that is in our heart.

Create life

When we look at it with our own criteria, life is not fair. But the truth is, there is goodness, kindness, love and loyalty around us. When we don't see them, perhaps it is a call for us to create them for ourselves, for the people we love, for whoever crosses our path. For though life is a gift, life is also what we make it happen.

What is beauty?

Beauty is not about flawlessness or perfection. Beauty is gracefulness in your own truth.

From faith to fidelity

 

The other day the priest who celebrated our Mass gave a very interesting insight. He said that faith is a gift from God that we have to constantly ask for; fidelity is our response to this gift of faith.
What is faith? There are so many responses and insights on this question.
At this point in my life I can say that faith is acknowledging that life is immersed in a greater mystery that is beyond myself and my concerns. This is the grace I ask from God: to see this truth and to live by this truth.
Living in faith will help me to make sense of, or at least to accept the contradictions and perplexities of life.
Living in faith will help me to live life with enthusiasm, creativity and activity even when I do not see the results of my efforts.
Living in faith will help me to see that I am connected to people, to the whole universe and to God. I am and will always be a daughter, a sister, a friend, a spouse, a mother.
And this is fidelity- a journey of living in faith.

Doors

As I looked at the open door, something poignant tugged at my heart. An open door says "you are welcome to come in" as well as "you are free to go". Both are expressions of surrender. I am not in control. I leave the decision totally to the other. Open doors are a sign of freedom. Open doors are a sign of growth.

Advent

There was an ache in my heart as I left Krakow yesterday. I was leaving behind an experience that for almost ten years have engaged me. I was cutting close ties with people whose lives have somehow intertwined with mine.
How wonderful to do it at autumn when nature itself reminds me to surrender, that it is necessary to lose, to say goodbye and to live little deaths; that somehow life goes on.
How wonderful that I do it at Advent time when the Church goes on a journey of simplicity, of inviting us to the things that reallhy matter. The Lord comes and makes his visitation. I may lose everything. Nay, I am called to lose everything for it is the law of life.  But when the Lord is present, life goes on.