For Everything There Is A Season

The first reading for Mass today is from Ecclesiastes 3:

There is an appointed time for everything
and a time for every affair under the heavens.
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant...

This reading always reminds me of the '60s song by The Byrds and I end up with "turn, turn, turn, turn..." running through my head. Today, however, it stood out in a different way for me. 

A time to kill, and a time to heal;
And a time to tear down and a time to build.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance...

I am going through a difficult time right now, and in the midst of pain it is hard to believe that things will ever be alright again. I received a gentle reminder that this too shall pass.  Time is a sacred gift from God, times of pain and times of joy. As Psalm 126 puts it, "Those who sow in tears will reap with joy." This is seed time, but the harvest time is sure to follow. We are an Easter people, and Alleluia! is our song.

God has made everything appropriate to its time and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men's ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11)

Prayer, by Fr. Jack Farley, SVD

The only way to pray is to pray; and the way to pray well is to pray much. If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly. But the less one prays, the worse it goes. (Dom John Chapman)

 Prayer is prayer, no matter how limited in scope. It is a wedge that will, in time, open our heart wider to the divine reality. Its narrow edge allows it to penetrate more easily.
Because our behavior spills over to our attitude towards God, prayer is subjected to the ramifications of bad habits in our daily life. I am not suggesting that prayer will be impossible until all our current sins cease. On the contrary, prayer cohabits quite happily with sin. What prayer cannot abide, however, is failure to recognize sin. Efforts to rationalize our behavior effectively prevents prayer. Sin admitted and confessed renews our sense of dependence on God and fuels our prayer.

Our Sorrowful Mother

Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
She beheld her tender Child,
   All with bloody scourges rent.

For the sins of his own nation
Saw him hang in desolation
   Till his spirit forth he sent.

O sweet Mother! font of love,
Touch my spirit from above,
   Make my heart with yours accord.


Make me feel as you have felt;
Make my soul to glow and melt
   With the love of Christ my Lord.

Holy Mother, pierce me through,
In my heart each wound renew
  Of my Savior crucified.

Let me share with you his pain,
Who for all our sins was slain,
   Who for me in torments died.

(from the Stabat Mater)

There is no easy answer for the problem of suffering in the world, especially for the suffering of innocent children. Any attempt to explain it just falls flat and sounds hollow when you, or someone you love, is in the midst of pain.  Preachers of the popular "Prosperity Gospel" would like to do away with the mystery of the Cross altogether. Yet trying to remove pain from our lives doesn't  work either. Yesterday's feast, the Exultation of the Cross, and today's memorial, Our Lady of Sorrows, do add some depth to the mystery of suffering.
God Himself, living in perfect beatitude and incapable of suffering, freely chose to take on our human condition and became one of us.  In his great love for us, he embraced a life of suffering and pain, a death of agony on the cross, in order to set us free.
Our Blessed Mother at the foot of the cross watched her baby boy hanging there, struggling for each breath. She shared in his sufferings, and the sword that pierced the dead body of her Son also rent her soul in two.
Jesus and his sinless Mother experienced the depths of every pain imaginable. Suffering is still incomprehensible, but when we unite our pain to theirs in an offering to the Father, it becomes salvific. May we be united with Christ in his suffering and death and so come to share in his rising to new life.

Prayer Requests

Yesterday, Sept. 9, we received the 2000th prayer request from our web site.  Since our web site is not yet six months old, that averages to about a dozen prayer requests each day!  Some are filled with great joy, such as weddings, births, or successful resolutions to conflicts.  Others contain deep pain in the death of a loved one, battles with terminal illness, or families shattered by addiction or abuse.  Still others are simply prayer requests for events in every-day life, like safety during travel, searches for new jobs, and prayers for children, spouses, or parents.
As the Sisters kneel in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, we pray for these and all the intentions entrusted to us.  We consider our whole lives, lived in fidelity to our vocation, to be an act of intercession for the needs of the world.  We are grateful to be a part of the lives of so many; all these people become a part of our extended family.  As we pray for the needs of all, our hearts expand to cover each member of the human race with a blessing.  God is so great to allow us to participate in his saving plan for all of humanity.
We would like to invite you to join us in this act of mercy; each time you pray, include an intention for the needs of others as known to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  When we join in prayer, bringing to God our own needs and the needs of family, friends, and complete strangers, we become part of a larger community and help to hasten the arrival of the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Pray for Vocations!

Spirit of Eternal Love, it is you who open the heart and mind to the divine call. Inspire those you are calling to the religious life and the priesthood to respond with open and generous hearts. May those you are calling to married life respond enthusiastically to the call to holiness and bear witness to the sacredness of family life. Renew the face of the earth, that a new abundance of holy vocations may show forth the fidelity of your love. Amen.

Adoration

More wisdom from our retreat with Br. Joel Giallanza, CSC:
 Closely related to the verb "adore" is the verb "revere."  The root of the verb revere, as a type of adoration, means "to perceive" and "to watch out for."

1. Adoration does have a dimension of awareness, of perceiving. For this type of prayer, we must be conscious of what we are doing, who God is, and who we are. Without that level of awareness, of perception, adoration becomes an empty exercise focused on something other than God.

2. Adoration also has a dimension of vigilance, of watching out for. This is a particularly rich meaning because it communicated a sense of anticipation and expectation. We adore God with a hope, trust, and confidence in God's word and promises to us. There is a limitlessness about this dimension of adoration. We anticipate and expect that God hears our prayer and will respond, but we do not know the precise timing of that response. So we watch with patience.

We're back!

Thank you to everyone who prayed for us during our retreat.  United as one in the Body of Christ, our prayers for each other are powerful ways of supporting one another as we journey together through life.  Be assured that though we were on retreat, we didn't go "off duty" and continued to remember in prayer the needs of all.

Our retreat master, Br. Joel, lead us through our Constitutions (our rule of life) to explore the ways in which our very life is Eucharistic.  Yes, we do adore our Lord at specific times before the Blessed Sacrament, but we also must become a people who discover and adore the Lord throughout everyday life.  Adoration is about being in relationship with God, an intense way of being attentive to God's presence within and around us.

The opening article of our Constitutions reminds us to be "attentive" to the presence of the Trinity who dwells within us, to "penetrate more deeply" into the mystery of this relationship, to "live with fuller awareness" of what this means, and to "foster in others" the understanding of and love for this central mystery of our faith.

Those of you who are reading this are not Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters, but have you considered that the vocation of every Christian is intimate union with God?  You may not be called to spend your life in the cloister, but you are called into relationship— personal and intense— with the God who created you.  The purpose of adoration is to deepen our relationship with the Trinity.  Time spent with the Lord, whether in a chapel before the exposed Blessed Sacrament or simply in the silence and sanctuary of your own heart, causes that relationship to deepen and grow.  In this sense, adoration is more a life-long attitude and orientation than it is an activity.  It is a commitment that touches every aspect of our lives.