Video Reflection: Easter Alleluia!
A sister speaks about the special significance the Easter Alleluia has for her.
A Reflection for Palm Sunday
WE ARE ALL FAMILIAR WITH THE PASSAGE of the Passion Narrative in St. Mathew’s Gospel in which Jesus is brought before Pilate by the chief priests and elders to condemn Him to death. Pilate is convinced of his innocence but weak in his resolve to free him. He washes his hands and declares “I am innocent of this man’s blood. It is your concern! The rabble respond “His blood be upon us and upon our children.”
Think deeply for a moment—–‘Jesus loves us and washes away our sins in his own blood.’ He poured out the very last drop of his precious blood Just to save you and me. That is the reality; his blood is upon us and our children. We are bathed in this blood particularly at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacrament of Penance as St Catherine of Siena is so fond of telling us. The saintly Sr Mary Jane, of our community, always said when asked to pray for anyone, “I will go directly to the Chapel and pour the Precious Blood over her or him”, she realised the treasure she had and used it for the salvation of others.
In a reading on the feast of St Agatha, virgin and martyr, we are told that Agatha kept continually in her thoughts the death of her eager lover, Jesus and bore it in her heart as if he had only just been drenched in his own blood.
As we enter with the whole Church into this most solemn of weeks we can accompany our eager Lover on his journey through death to resurrection. Eager in his love for suffering and death? Can that really be true? Listen to St […]
A St Patrick’s Day Poem
On St Patrick’s Day we usually have a little Celebration/Concert in the afternoon. This year one of our Sisters recited this poem (her own composition), which we would like to share with you.
IRELAND, DEAR IRELAND
Ireland, dear Ireland
So fair, so green,
Proud of her Mother –
Our Lady, Our Queen.
Proud of her Patron,
St. Patrick, so dear,
To each Irish heart –
Especially near.
Shepherd of souls,
God’s gift to us all,
Man of deep Prayer,
Who answered God’s Call –
A Call to bring
Gospel tidings of Joy,
Which God had taught him,
As a young Shepherd boy.
Called to teach the Irish,
In this special land,
All that God’s goodness
For them had planned –
To spread the Faith,
God’s gift beyond measure,
And to spread His Love,
A priceless treasure.
Dear Father in Heaven,
On this beautiful day
With pleading hearts,
We earnestly pray –
In this Emerald Isle,
Please strengthen anew,
The Gift of Faith,
With trusting hearts, we ‘thank You’.
Amen.
Ancient Antiphons for a New Year
Speaking about God and speaking with God must always go together.
The liturgy is not a secondary theme next to the preaching about the living God,
but the realization of our relationship with God’ (p. Benedict XVI)
The different times in the year- ordinary time, Advent, Christmas, Lent and Ester- should feel different, different melodies, different colours, as different as the spring is from the summer, and summer from the autumn. Often the modern liturgy does not communicate this.
In our 2019 Calendar we share with you some images of a beautifully illuminated antiphonary from our archives, which was used for Vespers of the Major Feasts through the year, until the liturgy changed after Vatican II. The work of illustration was accomplished by the sisters over many years and completed in 1910.
Liturgical celebration is a constant thread running through our days so that we might be woven in our ‘consecration to the truth, which is the Word’.
The liturgical celebration of the Hours, repeated several times a day in community, must be a time when the Word of God, and not ourselves, comes to be our centre. It is when we allow the Word to seize us, to take hold of our desire to give our life and enable this desire to do far more that we could ever do ourselves. This celebration repeated each day and in each liturgical Hour gives us the courage to expose ourselves to the Word; to listen to the words of Scripture and the prayers of the tradition; to become accustomed to the familiarity that the Word wants to have with us; to discern through the words of Scripture the face of the Son that is revealed and who is the […]
A Reflection for Week 4 of Advent
With the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Lord’s Birth is at hand. With the words of the prophet Micah, the Liturgy invites us to look at Bethlehem, the little town in Judea that witnessed the great event. Unfortunately, in our day, it does not represent an attained and stable peace, but rather a peace sought with effort and hope. Yet God is never resigned to this state of affairs, so that this year too, in Bethlehem and throughout the world, the mystery of Christmas will be renewed in the Church. Today, as in the times of Jesus, Christmas is not a fairy-tale for children but God’s response to the drama of humanity in search of true peace.
(Pope Benedict XVI)
A Reflection on the ‘O Antiphon’ for the 22nd of December
O King whom all the peoples desire
You are the cornerstone which makes all one.
O come and save us whom you made from clay.
What is my desire? Do I really have desire for this King, as today’s ‘O Antiphon’ proclaimed?
‘O King whom all the peoples desire’
The desire for God is part of what we are.
Christmas time offers for us a lot of wishes… But as soon as we open the gifts there will be a inevitable sense of disappointment. ‘Is that it?’ the small child asks when all the presents have been unwrapped. The desire remains even if you get what you asked for, and especially, if you get what you asked for! The longing is unsatisfied…
Much later the child learned the lesson of Augustine and come to know that there is a space inside us that nothing but the uncontained God can fill.
I remember when in my 16th year I spend a night at the Disco, and next morning was not able to get up for Sunday Mass, later on my confessor asked me “Do you know why you spent all night at Disco?’I say: ’No, I really do not know why.’ He answered:’ Because GOD LOVES YOU SO MUCH! You have in your heart a big desire for Him. You spent a whole night to feed your desire for God, but only God can do it.”
It was a revelation for me, it change a lot in my life. I do not mean that I stopped to dance. No, my relation with God went deeper and I started to dance with Him, as at last Sunday we heard from Zephaniah 3.14-18:’He will dance with shouts of joy for you’. God is still dancing!
‘Man can […]
A Reflection on the ‘O Antiphon’ for the 21st of December
On this the shortest day of the year it is appropriate that our ‘O Antiphon’ has the theme of light bringing us hope that darkness can never overpower Eternal Light.
Recently while reading an article in the National Geographic on ‘Solar Sailing in Space’- which I did not fully understand! – one sentence caught my attention: scientists in the last century have discovered that “light is pure energy – that property in nature that makes things go, run or happen.” These four words ‘light is pure energy’ seemed to jump out of the page and immediately all the references to light in relation to God in the Old and New Testaments flooded my mind. Light is pure energy! What a wonderful image of God! And how appropriate! Is it possible to describe light? – yet we live and move and have our being in the light.
What scientists are now discovering about the energy of light, the Prophet Habakuk recognised many centuries earlier when he wrote: “His brilliance is like the light – Rays flash from his hands – There his power is hidden.” (Hab 3:4) The author of the Book of Wisdom describes Wisdom as being “quicker to move than any motion – she is so pure she pervades and permeates all things – she is a breath of the power of God…. a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God’s active power and image of his goodness.” (Wis 7:24,26). Perhaps the author of the Book of Genesis did not get his facts wrong when he says that God created Light on the first Day of creation – before the sun, moon and stars.
St John in the Prologue to his Gospel, referring to […]
