From Season to Season

In his Gospel, Saint Luke relates that after the Annunciation, Mary “went in haste” to see her kinswoman, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist (cf. Luke 1:39-56 ). This is the event that is at the heart of the Feast of the Visitation (celebrated on May 31). And yet, as with so many of the Church’s festive celebrations, the significance of the Feast of the Visitation extends well beyond a simple remembering of past event. The Visitation by Romare Bearden In the story of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, we are presented with two women who are living in expectation. Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, and Mary, carrying God within her, embody the hopes and expectations of Israel. Theirs was a waiting full of promise: “People who have to wait have received a promise that allows them to wait. They have received something that is at work in them, like a seed that has started to grow” ( Henri Nouwen , from the essay “A Spirituality of Waiting”). This kind of waiting...

Ordinary Time (which resumed the day after Pentecost) is the longest season of the Church year and is often dismissed by many people as being, well… ordinary. As the “Green Season,” Ordinary Time spans those late-winter weeks between the Baptism of the Lord and Ash Wednesday and the summer and fall months, ending with the great celebration of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe on the last Sunday before Advent.   Summer from the Tree of Life Chapel at First Presbyterian Church, Kirkwood, Missouri designed by Martin Erspamer, O.S.B.   On the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Ordinary Time is described in this way:  The Sundays and weeks of Ordinary Time… take us through the life of Christ. This is the time of conversion. This is living the life of Christ. Ordinary Time is a time for growth and maturation, a time in which the mystery of Christ is called to penetrate ever more deeply into history until all things are finally caught up in ...

In his book Desert Banquet: A Year of Wisdom from the Desert Mothers and Fathers , David G. R. Kelly reflected on these words from Pseudo-Macarius : “The heart directs and governs all the organs of the body. And when grace pastures the heart, it rules over all the members and the thoughts. For there, in the heart, the mind abides as well as all of the thoughts of the soul and its hopes. This is how grace penetrates throughout all the parts of the body.” Pseudo-Macarius understood that the heart is that place where a person’s spirit and the Spirit of God exist together. The mind, the seat of rational thought, is made complete when it abides in the heart and becomes enlightened by “all the thoughts of the soul and all its hopes.” Although our mind is an essential part of who we are, we are only at our best when our minds and hearts move together.  Pentecost by He-Qi   In the Gospel of John, Jesus promised his Apostles, “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the Father wil...

In her novel, Gilead , Marilynne Robinson shares the fictional autobiography of Reverend John Ames who, looking back on a life of pastoral service, love, loss, faith, and hope, tells his young son: Sometimes the visionary aspect of any particular day comes to you in the memory of it, or it opens to you over time. For example, whenever I take a child into my arms to be baptized, I am, so to speak, comprehended in the experience more fully, having seen more of life, knowing better what it means to affirm the sacredness of the human creature. I believe there are visions that come to us only in memory, in retrospect. The New Testament is the story of the expanding vision of the early Church. Having lived alongside Jesus, Mary, the Apostles, and all of Jesus’ followers had to discern what his life, death, resurrection, and return to the Father revealed about who Jesus was and what God was asking of each of them and of the Church. But, the New Testament also shows us that this process...

  This post is adapted from a reflection delivered during an ecumenical vespers service at Pepperdine University, Malibu, California, on May 10, 2013, the commemoration of Saint Damien de Veuster .     At the beginning of the second act of the musical, Rent , a question is asked: “How do you measure a year?”   For those of you who know the show, you’ll recall that a number of answers are given: “In diapers, report cards, in spoked wheels, and speeding tickets; in contracts, dollars; in funeral, in births.” For those of us who might be a bit more pragmatic and practical: “525,600 minutes.”   All of these are good answers—true answers. The best answer, however, was saved for last: “measure in love—measure your life in love.”   Tonight, we remember that for us, as disciples of Jesus, love is the only measure for our lives—not doctrines or devotions, customs or conventions—only love.    The theologian Karl Rah...

In his Rule , Saint Benedict instructs the abbot to call the community together whenever there is important business to discuss: “Let the Abbot call together the whole community and state the matter to be acted upon. Then, having heard the brethren's advice, let him turn the matter over in his own mind and do what he shall judge to be most expedient. The reason we have said that all should be called for counsel is that the Lord often reveals to the younger what is best” (Ch. 3). As with so many of the Rule’s precepts, Benedict bases his teachings on a balanced understanding of the human person and community dynamics, as well as the experience of the broader Church.   Synaxis of the Apostles 14th century icon  In the Acts of the Apostles , Saint Luke presents the first generation of believers as living an almost idyllic existence: “They devoted themselves to the teaching of the Apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers… A...