Fifth Sunday of Lent

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…. I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people.   (Jeremiah 31:31; 33)


“The hour has come….Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat;  but if it dies, it produces much fruit…..I am troubled”( John 12:23 - 24 ; 27)

With the readings from Jeremiah and John we are given deeper understandings of Jesus relationship with God.  We are also invited to a deeper embracing of the relationship God offers to us.  Throughout scripture we have been told of God’s covenant relationship with God’s people as first spoken to Abraham and then given to Moses in the Ten Commandments.  In both of these scriptures God promises, I will be their God.  In Jeremiah, that covenant relationship initiated by God is deepened.  It is not a covenant governed only by external laws but rather by God’s law written within the hearts of the people.  Let us ponder for a moment what this might mean for us.  Here God is promising us that God’s Spirit will be given to abide within each of us, within our deepest, most intimate being, within our heart.  So that if we listen, really listen, we will know God’s ways.  We will never be separated from the life and way of God.

In John’s Gospel we hear Jesus listening, really listening to the unfolding of events that will eventually lead to his crucifixion.  Jesus listens to the movements of the people, to the questions, to the wonderings, even to the acclamations.  And yet he knows that this “Grain of Wheat” must fall in order to bear fruit.  He senses that if he is to remain true to his own teachings, to his own relationship with God the Creator, then he will suffer.  How poignant it is when he says, “I am troubled.  Yet what should I say.”  Listening to his heart, listening to the voice of God which resounds within him, listening to the “thunder” of his soul, he trusts in that covenant relationship he has with God the Creator who is within his heart.  Such fidelity to one’s own knowing of God’s way is not easy. Yet it is the only way to new life.

We are invited this week to spend some quiet time with Jesus’ words “I am troubled.  Yet what can I say?”   What must that time have been like for him?  Where in our lives do we find ourselves faced with embracing fidelity to our covenant with God, in conflict perhaps with our culture, with our society, with our neighbors and colleagues, family and friends?

Can we remain faithful to our covenant relationship with God, as given to us through Jesus the Christ?  What does that yes ask of us today?

Fourth Sunday of Lent

“God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life….People who live by the truth come out into the light, so that it may be plainly seen that what they do is done in God.”  (John 3:16 & 21)

This week we reflect upon the text from the Gospel  according to John.  We find words that remind us of why we celebrate the Christ, stopping for a moment within Lent to remember that Jesus came so that we might come into the Light, the Light of God’s love, the Light of God’s continued covenant, the Light which brings us out of the darkness of fear, into the Light of trust and love.

I find it interesting this year that this Fourth Sunday of Lent falls right between the liturgical feasts of St. Patrick and St. Joseph.  What models they are for us, both men of faith. Certainly both experienced darkness within their lives.  As we are told, Patrick was captured and enslaved as a young boy. The fears of that time, the darkness  he must have experienced at that time we can only imagine.  As well with Joseph, the fear and uncertainty he surely experienced as described in the Gospel of Matthew (1:18 – 25) was a darkness.  Yet both of these men, hearing God’s word within them were led to the Light and became for us mentors of faith, faith in God’s unconditional love, even when all seems dark.

“God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love God has for us…brought us to life with Christ.”  (Eph:2:4-5)

So this week may we remember, as did Joseph and Patrick, that in the midst of our darkness, by faith we know that we have been given the Light of God in Christ Jesus.  Neither fear nor darkness can keep us from the Light of God’s Love.

This week, let us stop to notice the beams of light which are inviting us to life and love in Christ Jesus……notice in nature, notice in the faces of those you love, notice in the quiet moments.  As the Exultet will proclaim on Holy Saturday…” The Light of Christ surrounds us.”

What are you doing for another to make the world a better place?

Universal Call to Holiness and Service College Retreat

Reflections for Single Young Adult Women and Men in their College Years

Click here for more information about this special online retreat

We are inviting you to take a few minutes out of your hectic schedule to reflect with us and your peers around what are you desiring in life, now and in the future. Does your relationship with God have a role to play in your decision making, in your life choices? What gifts do you have to give to society and how might you find ways to make a difference in this very complex world in which we live?

The next question we propose is:

What are you doing for another to make the world a better place?

Please respond below in the comments section.

Third Sunday of Lent

The readings for this week are so rich in their instruction for us.   The First Reading from the Book of Exodus gives us the instructions which we have come to name the Ten Commandments.  We all know these Commandments probably from the time of our childhood.  I wonder however, how many of us remember that the Commandments begin with God’s proclamation, God’s promise to us:  “I, the Lord, am your God….”   With this statement God reinforces the covenant that God has made with the people, a covenant of care and fidelity, and in return we are asked to live a certain way, a way of justice, a way of fidelity to not only God but also to one another.  Herein is the core of God’s instruction to us.  In the covenant that God offers us there is also a clear call to our oneness, to our covenant with one another.

Our Gospel  is the well-known story of Jesus “Cleansing the Temple.”  This story is found in all four of the canonical Gospels, however at different places. In John we read this passage near the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  The three Synoptic Gospels place this event near the end of his public ministry, closer to the Passion.  In the Synoptic Gospels  Jesus says that the money changers have made God’s Temple a den of thieves.  It has been noted that the den of thieves is where the thieves abide, where they live with one another.

As we reflect upon these words in light of the previous reading, it is striking that both passages speak not only of how we praise our God, but also how we live with one another.  Have we made God’s Temple, be it the Church, our neighborhood, our State, our community, a den of thieves?  Do we in fact treat one another with justice and caring?  Do we honor the covenant relationship God has established with us?  Do we honor the covenant relationship God has called us to have with one another?  Or, have we isolated ourselves from the care of the broader community?

This we week we are invited to consider our lives and relationships carefully.  How do we live out the covenant relationship God has established with us, including our relationship with one another?  Are there areas in our lives that need cleansing?

Am I willing to consider spring house cleaning a spiritual practice which invites me to cleanse my own temple, my own life, so that God’s Temple of Creation may reflect God’s covenant with us all?

Sister Sharon

What are you doing with your time and talents?

Universal Call to Holiness and Service College Retreat

Reflections for Single Young Adult Women and Men in their College Years

Click here for more information about this special online retreat

We are inviting you to take a few minutes out of your hectic schedule to reflect with us and your peers around what are you desiring in life, now and in the future. Does your relationship with God have a role to play in your decision making, in your life choices? What gifts do you have to give to society and how might you find ways to make a difference in this very complex world in which we live?

The next question we propose is:

What are you doing with your time and talents?

Please respond below in the comments section.

What are you doing these days to keep yourself on track and healthy?

Universal Call to Holiness and Service College Retreat

Reflections for Single Young Adult Women and Men in their College Years

Click here for more information about this special online retreat

We are inviting you to take a few minutes out of your hectic schedule to reflect with us and your peers around what are you desiring in life, now and in the future. Does your relationship with God have a role to play in your decision making, in your life choices? What gifts do you have to give to society and how might you find ways to make a difference in this very complex world in which we live?

The first question we propose is:

What are you doing these days to keep yourself on track and healthy?

Please respond below in the comments section.

What Are You Doing?

Universal Call to Holiness and Service College Retreat

Reflections for Single Young Adult Women and Men in their College Years

An invitation for shared reflection in an online community
from Nazareth Retreat Center in Nazareth, Ky.

As your semester is coming to a close and summer is lingering in the background, you may find yourself wondering about just “what are you doing with your life.” And yet, the papers are pending and the exams are looming — who has time to wonder!

We are inviting you to take a few minutes out of your hectic schedule to reflect with us and your peers around what are you desiring in life, now and in the future. Does your relationship with God have a role to play in your decision making, in your life choices? What gifts do you have to give to society and how might you find ways to make a difference in this very complex world in which we live?

You are invited to participate in a three part online community in which we will share our thoughts and experiences around “What Are You Doing?” You may join this online community at any time during parts one and/or two. Part three is limited to those who have participated at some time in part 1 and/or part 2. You may discontinue your participation at any time.

Here is how it works …

Part 1 — March 5 – April 22: consists of reflection and your input on diverse areas of “What Are you Doing?” For eight weeks, questions to aid in your reflection will be posted on a designated web site. You will have the opportunity to respond/reflect and receive the responses/reflections of your peers.

Part 2 — April 30: consists of a one time “ God’s Hangout Conversation” via the web. This opportunity will give us a chance for a face-to-face conversation around some of the issues, reflections and wonderings that have surfaced from the group over the past eight weeks.

Part 3 — May 23 – 27: (requires some previous participation in parts 1 and/or 2) consists of a 5 day retreat at Nazareth Retreat Center, Nazareth, Kentucky for this online community. This retreat will provide a time for you to meet some members of your online community, continue your reflections with input and shared ideas, as well as an on campus service opportunity.

Should you wish to join us, simply leave a comment below and join our mailing list here.

Good luck on your final weeks of this academic year, and blessings.

Nazareth Retreat Center Staff

Second Sunday of Lent

This Sunday’s reading (Mark 9:2-10) is one of my favorites … the Transfiguration.  Just imagine the wonder of those moments on the mountain top for Peter, James and John as they received a glimpse of the fullness of the person of Jesus the Christ. Yet somehow Peter knew to respond, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here.”  To savor those moments of transfiguration in our own lives, to be open to those mountain top experiences when the Divinity is known as ever so immanent is simply gift.  As rare as such clear revelation was for the disciples, so too for us, such clarity may seem just beyond our grasp.  However, if we are attentive, if we are open, such moments of God’s revelation are actually very near at hand. Perhaps these moments of revelation are not as dramatic as the one presented in today’s Gospel, but they are there for us if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Once there was a “bag lady” who would come to the church I was attending at the time.  She would come every day, clearly a homeless person. She ate her orange every day in church before Mass started.  One day she sat next to me and ate her orange.  When it was time for the “kiss of peace” I hesitantly turned to her. She took my hands in her sticky orange hands. Never have I been so blessed as by her countenance, aglow with God’s love.  I will never forget experiencing that moment of transfiguration, in a most unexpected way. She never appeared again in that church after her day of gifting me with her revelation of God.

There is a song called “Land of the Living” by Janet Sullivan.   The words of this song can help us to be attentive to those everyday moments of transfiguration in our lives.

Some may be weak and some may be strong,

but each of us is blessed in the land of the living

Don’t look to the sky when the reign of our God is here.

Let none of us fear, we do this together.

Let nothing confound in us the Gospel of peace.

For this week, notice those moments of transfiguration in your life when God is revealed in God’s wonder and compassionate love, “here and now in this land, the land of the living.”