Break off from your cares and troubles (St. Anselm of Aosta)

   Escape from your everyday business for a short while, hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labours. Make a little time for God and rest a while in him. Enter into your mind’s inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him; and when you have shut the door, look for him. Speak now to God and say with your whole heart: I seek your face; your face, O Lord, I desire (Proslogion, 1). 

--St. Anselm of Aosta 

Image source: https://christianfellowshipucc.org/meditation/
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If we live in fear (Fr. Patrick Michaels)

    When I was growing up, we were taught to be very afraid of the Lord, because the judgment was coming. Many people who grew up in the Church in the fifties and the sixties were nursed on fear. It became their constant companion, and too often, it was all they had. They didn’t have faith because there was too much fear in the way. 

    Fear refers to being afraid and it is the opposite of love. Where there is fear, there is a closed heart, and where there is love, there is an open heart. If we live in fear – and many were taught to do so – when will we ever get around to the work of our baptism, which is to love the world we are in, to love the people in it and to allow them to love us? When can that happen if our hearts are closed? 

    If we are afraid of God, we can’t love God. If we can’t love God, no matter how much God loves us, it won’t get in. But as St. Paul says, you are in Christ – why are you afraid? Why do you worry about when Christ comes? You can’t know when it will be. But as long as you live the life he has given you, as long as you open that life and share it, you have nothing to fear. 

--Fr. Patrick. Michaels,
Homily, November 19, 2023 

Image source: Detail of the Last Judgment, mosaic dome, Baptistry of San Giovanni, Florence, Italy (1240-1300), https://artandtheology.org/2018/06/12/get-ready-artful-devotion/

Time gives us a chance to grow (St. Gerard Majella / Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen)

Consider the shortness of time,
the length of eternity,
and reflect how everything here below
comes to an end and passes by.

 --St. Gerard Majella 

    Compared to eternity, time can seem inferior, degenerate. But this is an abstract speculation. If we look at man’s purpose and destiny, which is to be introduced into the life of the Trinity, then it is clear that time is a gift. Time gives us a chance to grow. Thanks to time, what God has placed within us can germinate and become a tree. Because of time, we have the possibility of participating in God’s creation ourselves. 

--Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen, OCD,
Eternity in the Midst of Time

Image source 1: https://marketplace-website-node-launcher-prod.ol.epicgames.com/ue/marketplace/en-US/product/clock-1920s
Image source 2:  Statue of St. Gerard Majella, found in the pantheon of saints lining the walls of Mill Valley institution Joe's Taco Lounge.  Look for it next time you're there!
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Remember your death (Mark Halprin / Bishop Robert Barron)

Anticipation is the heart of wisdom.
 If you are going to cross a desert,
you must first anticipate that you will be thirsty,
and you take water.

 --Mark Helprin 

    Jesus directs us to be vigilant about his coming again. But his words also warn us to prepare for the day of our coming before him in death. On that day, our world will end. How are we going to deal with that day? 

    Most of our interests, pursuits, and entertainments are designed to stave off this question. And this is why so many of the spiritual masters emphasize the importance of forcing ourselves to address this matter. St. Benedict tells his monks to hold their own death before their mind’s eye every day. All forms of prayer are, in one sense, coming face-to-face with eternal things. 

    Be a person of steady and regular prayer; don’t allow your relationship to the Lord to fall into disrepair. Avail yourself regularly of the sacrament of Reconciliation; bring your sins before Christ and seek his forgiveness. Don’t let grudges and resentments fester; keep your relationships in good repair. Memento mori; following the Christian spiritual tradition, regularly “remember your death.”

--Bishop Robert Barron,
Gospel Reflection,
November 25, 2022

Image source 1: https://thenextchallenge.org/kit-crossing-desert/
Image source 2: Georges de La Tour, The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame (17th c.), https://piolog.com/2019/10/04/pams-masterworks-series-features-painting-by-la-tour/ 
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Love is stronger than death (Henri Nouwen)

    True friendships are lasting because true love is eternal. A friendship in which heart speaks to heart is a gift from God, and no gift that comes from God is temporary or occasional. All that comes from God participates in God’s eternal life. Love between people, when given by God, is stronger than death. In this sense, true friendships continue beyond the boundary of death. When you have loved deeply that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. This is the core message of Jesus. 

    When Jesus died, the disciples’ friendship with him did not diminish. On the contrary, it grew. This is what the sending of the Spirit was all about. The Spirit of Jesus made Jesus’ friendship with his disciples everlasting, stronger, and more intimate than before his death. That is what Paul experienced when he said, “It is no longer I, but Christ living in me” (Galatians 2:20). 

    You have to trust that every true friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those, living and dead, who have truly loved God and one another. You know from experience how real this is. Those you have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences. 

    Dare to love and be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as to those whom God has given you to love. 

--Henri Nouwen

In November we remember All Souls... 

Image source: Benny Andrews, Mourners (1974), https://www.arthistoryproject.com/subjects/feelings/mourning/
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Stand ready! (Henri Nouwen)

    When Jesus speaks about the end of time, he speaks precisely about the importance of waiting. He says that nations will fight against nations and that there will be wars and earthquakes and misery. People will be in agony, and they will say, “The Christ is there! No, he is here!” Many will be confused and many will be deceived. But Jesus says, you must stand ready, stand awake, stay tuned to the word of God, so that you will survive all that is going to happen and be able to stand confidently (con-fide, with trust) in the presence of God together in community. That is the attitude of waiting that allows us to be people who can live in a very chaotic world and survive spiritually. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: https://tinybuddha.com/blog/when-life-gets-hard-how-to-find-peace-within-the-chaos/
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, November 17, 2024: Of that day or hour, no one knows...

Of that day or hour, no one knows…
Do you worry about what is to come? 

    In the Book of Daniel, probably written during the persecutions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd century BC, the prophet speaks of a time unsurpassed in distress, but assures the people that those whose names are written in the book of truth shall escape. In his description of the cataclysm to come, the author was not speaking of eternal life, but simply of those who would survive past the events predicted: the wise shall shine brightly, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever. Clearly, the author of Daniel believed his community needed reassurance about the future! 

    Jesus similarly offers reassurance to his disciples in Mark’s Gospel. Yes, tribulation will happen, he says, but they are not to worry themselves about the precise timing of the events: of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. So, rather than stress over the future, get ready now! Don’t wait until later, until it’s convenient or imminent. Get ready now by recognizing who you are and what you have already: God is already at work in you. Even Jesus himself is waiting for the end times, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us: Jesus took his seat forever at the right hand of God; now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool, that is, until we on earth have completed what he began and all, former enemies included, now serve him, know him, and believe in him, aware that he offered one sacrifice for sins, theirs included. Thus, all may be made perfect forever, consecrated, set aside for a holy purpose. 

    We gather daily at Mass to participate in Christ’s sacrifice for all. As Psalm 16 reminds us, only when we place ourselves under God’s care, allowing the Lord to direct our existence through prayer and Eucharist, can we set the Lord ever before us, confident that with him at our right hand, we shall not be disturbed. Thus, there is no need to worry about what is to come, for he shows us the path to life, fullness of joys in his presence, the delights at his right hand forever. Get ready! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com