A Birthday and a Jubilee

Nativity of Mary by Domenico Ghirlandaio

Today is the Feast of the Nativity of Our Blessed Mother. I wrote a little about the birth of Mary in a post last May as part of my look at Marian art. It is one of three feasts in the liturgical year that celebrate a nativity. The other two are John the Baptist and of course our Lord Jesus. Today is also the Golden Jubilee of a former professor of mine's entrance into religious life and we will celebrating with her on Saturday.  

Mother and Infant by
Mary Cassat

In reflecting upon these two events I am drawn to meditate on the two womanly vocations of motherhood and consecrated life as a woman religious.  Mary is the model for both vocations.  As a mother, I look to Mary as a mother and a wife, as a woman who kept a home and raised her Child to adulthood. She experienced the joys and sorrows of motherhood.  I will always remember after my first child was baptized the women from the parish Legion of Mary came to my home to deliver my daughter's baptismal certificate to me.  One of the women told me that I have been given a gift  that I share with Mary and that I should pray to her to help me in my motherhood.  I have not always followed that advice and there have been times when I have felt that Mary really didn't have any relevance in my life. But lately I have tried to increase my devotion to her.  I still don't "feel" any consolations or sense her watching over me, but I have learned that faith is more than feelings and that I should not seek consolations (thank you John of the Cross).  However, I do have evidence that Mary is listening to my prayers and that she intercedes for me with her Son.

While I am not a consecrated woman religious, I do know that Mary serves as a model for them as well. Throughout the centuries, nuns and sisters have imitated Our Lady in her prayer, in her obedience to the Father, in her chastity, in her care for others and in her hospitality.  In their consecration to  a life dedicated singularly to the Lord, religious women are a sign to all of us women of what we all hope to strive for in our dedication to Christ. Although not mothers, they too have nurtured and educated children as Mary nurtured and educated Jesus in the ways of His Father.  Mary is also a model of humility, which is not a sign of weakness, but of strength in knowing who we are as women of faith who trust in the Lord and who work to bring the love of God to our families, our children, our students, our neighbors, our community, and to all we meet.

So, today we offer prayers of thanksgiving for the birth of Mary, for her "yes" to be the mother of Jesus, and we gift her with our devotion and honor her with our imitation of her virtues and her love of God.  And today I also offer prayers of thanksgiving for Sr. Mary Alice for her 50 years of dedication to the education and formation of so many priests, deacons and laypeople for ministry in the Church. May she continue in the good work God has called her to.

New Beginnings

Today was our annual Mass and luncheon to kick off the new school and parish ministry year. Here on Long Island Catholic schools begin classes tomorrow, and parish ministries which have been on hiatius for the summer will begin to meet again.  Our parish is one of two unique parishes on Long Island as we have both an elementary and a high school as well as over 60 active parish ministries. Over 130 members of our parish staff, faculty, and maintainance department gathered to ask God's blessing on this new year.

Even though my own kids are well beyond school age, I still get a bit of a thrill seeing kids in nice new clothes and backpacks standing on the corners with their parents waiting for the big yellow busses to scoop them up and carry them off to school. Today our kindergartners, in their neatly pressed new blue and white plaid uniforms, came in a day early to meet the teachers and explore their new classroom.  I get excited too about the new ministry year. I have several projects in the works, a few new ministries that are waiting to begin, and of course preparing the parish for the revised texts of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal. Then there are meetings and meetings and more meetings.  I think my impending surgery in two weeks will save me from only a few of them.

Yes, there is something exciting about new beginnings. In parish work it is time to get back into a routine, set priorities, meet new people and spread the Good News. It seems that the quietness of the parish suddenly ends come Labor Day and that interest in things with regard to our faith increases in September. We get calls for RCIA, interest in volunteering, and inquiries about courses.  There are last minute registrations for Religious Ed and more parish registrations. I think we all live in that "school year" mentality, but for God there are no seasons, no vacation time and every day is a new beginning.  God in His gracious Love for us gives us the opportunity each and every day to begin again, to let go of all that keeps us from His Love, and to start again.  Taking time each night to reflect on our day, to do an examen of consciousness, to see how we have failed living our Christian faith, where we have done well, and resolving to live our lives in Christ the following day.  It is a wonderful way to end the night.

So as the busses arrive in our parking lot tomorrow morning with kids from three to seventeen eager and ready to begin a new school year, I offer a prayer for their success and that they are open to their academic study and to learning about our wonderful faith.  I pray for the teachers happily greet their new students, that they will treat each student as Christ would. I pray for the parents, especially those whose children are just beginning their school career. and I pray for all in our parish and in parishes all over as they begin the new ministry year that our evangelization efforts, through the Grace of God, will bring new people into the faith, awaken the faith of those who are Catholic in name only, and create in our regular parishioners a deeper desire to know Christ and to live the Gospel.

Happy Labor Day

Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the community members should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading - Rule of St. Benedict

Today is Labor Day, and the day to celebrate all those who labor to support themselves and their families and contribute to the economy of our nation.  It is a day to be with family and friends, bar-be-que, and even though there are over two weeks left until the autumn equinox and the days and the ocean are still warm, it is the traditional end of summer and for most of us it means going back to our normal routine.

Labor Day originally began as a day when people who worked hard and for long hours would get recognition by the government and given a day off.  It was a day to acknowledge the hard work that people did in factories, in the fields, in service to the community, and has expanded to include all kinds of work in offices, schools, in anyway that people earn their way.  It acknowledges that work is important. It is important not only in an economical and financial sense but in a spiritual sense as well.

St. Benedict knew the value of work.  He made it an important part of the rule of his communities...ora et labora, prayer and work are the foundations of monastic life. "Idleness is the enemy of the soul", he wrote.  We have all heard it reworded "idleness is the devil's playground" or "idle hands make the devil's work."  These saying are not suggesting that we work until we drop, or push ourselves beyond what is reasonably required, but when we work, when we engage in labor of any kind, we keep our minds and our bodies focused on what we are doing and thus avoiding temptations that idleness can bring.

Work, when done in the sense of giving glory to God, can be a very spiritual experience.  When I start my workday with prayer all seems to go better.  OK, I admit, I work for the Church, so it might be a bit easier to focus my work on the Lord, but, as anyone knows who has ever worked in a parish office or in Church ministry, it can bring it's own kind of challenges and sometimes we can easily lose that focus.  When that happens, it is time to stop and say a brief prayer.  St. Benedict knew this when he established hours of prayer throughout the day when work would cease when the work of God or Opus Dei would be prayed with the community.  Try it when things on the job get tense or overwhelming.

I discovered that work is mentioned 480 times in the Bible.  Right at the beginning, God put Adam in the garden "to cultivate and to care for it (Gen 2:15), yet because of the fall, man's labor and toil increased (Gen. 3:17b-19). In the New Testament, Jesus teaches us in parables about workers in the fields and vineyards.  Paul writes,

aspire to live a tranquil life, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your own hands, as we have instructed you, that you may conduct yourselves properly toward outsiders and not depend on anyone. (1Thes. 4:11)

The Church too views work as something that is important and necessary to the human state. Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote in his 1981 Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens (On Human Work):

Work is a good thing for man-a good thing for his humanity-because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes "more a human being".

All too often today however, work  has become a means to an end, so to speak for many.  It is a way to increase what we have but really don't need.  It has created a society where consumerism and materialism have become more important than earning our keep and keeping food on our table and a home over our heads.  On the other side, there are those who work tirelessly for unjust wages and in oppressive conditions.  I am thinking of those around the world in sweat shops and fields, especially children who are forced to labor like slaves, while those who "employ" them get rich.  There are those, many undocumented, who stand in front of home improvement stores or in parking lots waiting for a contractor or landscaper to choose them to work just for the day, for less than minimum wage.  I think of the elderly men and women in my supermarket who, at a time when they could be retired and enjoying their last days, are forced to keep working to make ends meet. The mothers who are forced into working instead of raising their children because of the high cost of living. And those, who because of our consumer mindset, are working this day in stores so we can take advantage of the best sales.  These are the forgotten laborers, the ones we really don't celebrate today. Many of them are working today while the we relax in our yards.  We need to remember them and to see that unfair labor practices are eradicated so that all may enjoy rest and fruits from their work.

What ever we do, where ever we work, we must always remember that we are called to work in the Vineyard of the Lord, to do His bidding, and to labor tirelessly so that His Kingdom will come.  It is this kind of work that we should never rest from.  Today is the fourteenth anniversary of the death of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. If ever a woman worked for the Lord, it was she. She labored physically every day to help the poor and the dying, to protect the unborn, and to bring Christ to the world.  Her work brought glory to God.  She writes:

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.

There is a lot to think about in that quote. Whatever we may do to earn a living, do we do it just for the sake of work, or do we, in some way, consider our work as a means of living the Gospel and bringing Christ to others?

Happy Labor Day, enjoy your rest, but don't rest from praying.

 

Celebrate who we are.

Deacon Greg over at The Deacon's Bench posted this video yesterday. Isn't it great to see young people celebrating our Cathoic faith!  This is what the New Evangelization is about...getting the word out to our young people (and us older folks too).

Be Prepared

It is interesting how my impending surgery is causing me to meditate on my own mortality.  The other day I filled out a Health Care Proxy, which, please God, will not be necessary. But then again one never knows what might happen. Today after Mass I found myself paging through the hymnal at funeral songs as people were arriving for a funeral.  I am not trying to be morbid, but these are things that most people don't want to think about, but perhaps should.  I am not anxious or frightened, or expecting the worst. I just want to be prepared.

I also find my nesting instinct is being put into action.  Given the fact that I will be home recovering for at least two weeks, I want everything to be nice and neat since I won't be able to do much. Yesterday I washed the remains of Hurricane Irene off all my windows and we cleared the yard of the rest of the leaves and branches. Everything we took down is mostly back up again.  I bought paint samples for the dining room but I am not sure if I am going to get around to that.  It reminds me of my pregnancies when the nesting instinct took over just before I gave birth. I was painting the house shingles the day before my youngest was born, which could account for the reason she was two weeks early.  

My spiritual instincts are also in high gear. Of course I am praying for no complications, and for the doctors and nurses who will care for me, but I am also praying that the Lord reveal to me where I stand before Him. Am I ready, as we heard in today's first reading from Colossians, to be presented to God "...holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before Him"?  During the next two weeks before my surgery, I am thinking this will be the basis for my meditation, but it is also something to meditate upon, or at least keep in the back of my mind, at all times.  We know that the Lord might call us at anytime, even when we least expect it.  I was prepared for Irene, I am getting prepared for surgery and recovery, and I am working on always being prepared to meet Jesus whenever He might call me home.

LISTEN

As a Benedictine Oblate I read the Holy Rule of St. Benedict three times a year. Today, September 1st, we again begin the Prologue.

L I S T E N carefully, my child,
to your master's precepts,
and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20).
Receive willingly and carry out effectively
your loving father's advice,
that by the labor of obedience
you may return to Him
from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.

To you, therefore, my words are now addressed,
whoever you may be,
who are renouncing your own will
to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King,
and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.

And first of all,
whatever good work you begin to do,
beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect it,
that He who has now deigned to count us among His children
may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds.
For we must always so serve Him
with the good things He has given us,
that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children,
nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions,
deliver us to everlasting punishment
as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.

The Prologue sets the tone for the whole Rule. It is a loving father speaking to his children and teaching them the ways of God and how to live a life prefering "nothing to the Love of Christ."  Holy Father Benedict begins with the word "LISTEN." In Latin the word is "obsculta" which not only means to listen but to obey.  Humble obedience is the hallmark of the Holy Rule. To obey someone is to listen carefully to what someone in authority has to say to us and then to follow what is asked of us.

To someone who first picks up the Rule it may seem harsh and difficult, but as one delves into the fatherly guidance and loving admonitions found in its brief pages, he or she begins to understand that the path outlined in the Rule is not harsh but challenging. To live the Rule is to live life in union with God.  We are to "listen" not just with our ears but with the ears of our hearts for God speaks to us in our hearts. Obedience to God and to the Rule brings with it a freedom and opens our hearts to be truly human, truly children of God.

On Beauty as a way to God

Zenit has published the text of Pope Benedict's Wednesday audience .  It was good to read that he included architecture as one of the types of art that express our faith. He said, in speaking about the great Gothic cathedrals, "We are ravished by the vertical lines that reach heavenward and draw our gaze and our spirit upward, while at the same time, we feel small and yet yearn to be filled."  Who does not stand in awe when confronted by this "theology" in stone.

The awesome majesty of God is reflected in nature, the work of His hands.  Yet, God also created us with the ability to create things of beauty. When we as artists produce works of art, we are participating, through the Grace of God, in His creative power, and we have a responsibility to create art that is truly beautiful and becomes "a moment of grace that moves us to strengthen our bond and our converstion wit the Lord."