Texas OP Nuns

Ash Wednesday, 2014

Ash Wednesday begins the liturgical season of Lent. It is the time of preparation for the commemoration and celebration of Christ\’s Passion, Death and Resurrection at the Easter Triduum. Ashes, the result of burning the palms from last year\’s Palm Sunday procession, are blessed and placed on our forehead to remind us that we are God\’s people, created, redeemed, forgiven and \”raised up\” again by God\’s merciful love.

God created us from the dust of the earth and unto dust we shall return. He created us into being out of love, his love, and our being, our soul will live forever. Hopefully we will choose to live with him!

God redeemed us through his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, so great was his love for us. As a people we turned away from him to serve \”other gods\”. Some of us are still doing that! And so the prophet Joel begs us to return to God with a sincere and contrite heart to obtain his mercy. Psalm 51 provides us the heart and soul of this desire.

Again and again, God forgives us. Some people may think, \”God has forgiven me once; he will not forgive me again!\” This is not true. No matter how many times we sin, God, our loving Father, is ready to forgive us. This is because he is God, not man. He says, \”My ways are not your ways, and your ways are not my ways.\” (Is. 55:8) God is bigger than our sins! Our Father in heaven, who \”sees the secret of the heart\”, will reward all those who turn to him with a contrite heart, are humble and sincere, without desire for personal gain at the expense of the poor, grateful and loving.

8th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2014

The image of the mother who can never forget her child is one of the most beautiful in the Bible. In today\’s first reading it is used to describe the love that God has for his people. God\’s goodness is like the mother who cares for and loves her children with tenderness. At the same time, the Lord shows us the value of the ordinary things of life by calling us to put our priorities in order and trust in God\’s fatherly providence.

In today\’s Gospel, Christ uses simple examples and comparisons taken from everyday life to teach us to abandon ourselves into the arms of God. \”Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?\” (Mt. 6:26) Then he asks a question, and explains it: \”Why are you anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.\” (Mt. 6:28-29) He continues with his teaching about the kingdom of God: \”If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?\” (Mt. 6:30) The words of Christ may have sounded impossible and irresponsible. But he meant to announce the coming of his Father\’s kingdom. In his preaching, he wanted to show the necessary things in this life. This means nothing more than living a life that trusts in God\’s goodness, care and merciful love. God shows his love like a mother who has borne mankind and nourished it; he shows his love like a father who has taught his child with patience and understanding.

7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2014

In the first reading from Leviticus, God is really repeating himself! He really wants us to love one another. But why? Because God is love! And he loves each and every human being with an infinite love. The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, can be summarized in one word–Love.

At the dawn of creation, the Creator-God lovingly fashioned the human creature from the \”dust of the earth\”. All other creatures came into being by a single, generic and indirect word. Yet God creates humans directly, intimately, with his own hands. God touches and holds Adam, and finally breathes his very life into him by means of a kind of \”divine CPR\”.

Let us ponder the act of creation for it will give us insights into today\’s Scripture readings. God stops what he was doing and humbly kneels down in the dirt. He takes into his hands the dust of the earth which he had created, he mixes it with water and he molds it, that is, he slowly gives it the form he desires. The Hebrew verb \”to mold\”, to model, to give form, always expresses a concrete work, an intense application, a desire for beauty and perfection, a loving gaze upon the figure in one\’s hands. He looks at it; he scrutinizes it with impressive care, until he adds the crowning touch, an exact image of his eternal Being.

Benedict XVI has said that we are all \”a bit of dust that God loves.\” If God loves each of us so tenderly and even \”knits us together in our mother\’s womb\” (cf. Ps. 139:13), shouldn\’t we try to love one another as fellow creatures of the same Father?

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2014

At the beginning of Christ\’s words in the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God\’s plan to restore creation to the purity of its origin and set all man\’s loves in order. \”You have heard it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.\” (Mt. 5:27-28)

In order to enter a communion with divine life, our affections and emotions need to be redeemed through grace and sound teaching, and so the Lord teaches us here the virtue of temperance. What is temperance? St. Augustine says, \”The function of temperance is to control and quell the desires which draw us to the things which withdraw us from the laws of God and from the fruit of his goodness…\” Temperance is a virtue of moderation. It does not mean emptiness, withdrawing from others or from the beauty of creation, but enjoying in moderation the good things which God created for us. We allow the life, power and grace of Christ to transform us completely in order to enter a new and beautiful life.

Blessed Pope John Paul II once commented on the writings of St. Augustine, reminding us that the saint invites us to love beauty. It is not only the beauty of bodies, which can easily make one forget the beauty of the spirit, nor only the beauty of art, but the interior beauty of virtue. Christ implanted the gift of communion of grace with the Trinity deep within each human heart. This divine life springs out of the full manifestation of the beauty of marriage and the beauty of consecrated life and the beauty of single life lived chastely for the sake of the Kingdom.

Monastery Bells…and Raffle 2014–UPDATED

We just sent out our latest issue of \”Monastery Bells\”–which you can read online here if you can\’t wait for the mail! We are also having sending out our raffle tickets in this issue. If you would like to participate in the raffle but do not receive our mailings, just send us your name and snail mail address and we\’ll fill out some tickets for you. It\’s that easy! Sorry, we can\’t send prizes outside the USA for various reasons. You can see our prizes (well, most of them) here. Raffle drawing will be on Easter Sunday so send those tickets in!!

UPDATE: We just added pictures of the jewelry (that\’s the 4th raffle prize) so you can check them out here. Remember we just draw randomly for the prizes…you can\’t specify which you prefer! Thanks so much for your help and support!

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2014

At the time of Christ, salt was a valuable commodity. The Greeks called it divine, and the Romans offered it to their gods. Romans soldiers were often paid with salt (sale), and even today in Italy the colloquial term for money is saldi. Jewish rabbis used the image of salt for the Torah, because both are necessary for life. On the peaceful, sloping hills of Galilee overlooking the Sea of Gennesareth, Jesus instructed the people on what it means to be his disciple. At one point he said, \”You are the salt of the earth.\” (Mt 5:13)

Salt has three special qualities:

First, salt purifies. The Romans said salt was the purest of all things, and this is why they used it in religious sacrifices. Christians still use salt as a sacramental against evil influences. Just as salt purifies, Christians must also purify. Today the standards of morality and values are almost leveled. A Christian must be the one to live a life of integrity.

Second, salt preserves. Salt is the most common preservative, used from antiquity up to our own day. It keeps food and other things from going bad and becoming corrupt. In the same way, Christians must have a cleansing, antiseptic influence on life. People usually avoid dirty jokes or foul language when a Christian is around, because his or her presence defeats corruption and makes it easier for others to be good.

Finally, salt enhances. Christianity is to life what salt is to food…it makes it more enjoyable, brings out its best flavor. Salt is ordinary and inconspicuous, disappearing when mixed with food, but you can taste the effects! With this salt we remain serene in a worried world; joyful in a depressed world; radiant and full of life.

Jesus says, \”You are the salt of the earth.\” Not, \”You will be,\” or \”You should be,\” but \”You are.\” This salt is given to us in the Holy Spirit and fidelity to God\’s word. Christ\’s disciples are the salt of the earth, purifying the world of its greed, lust, indifference, overcoming the culture of death with the vitality, trust and joy of life in God. May we never lose our distinctiveness of salt!

Groundhog Day

Today, the feast of the Presentation, used to mark the official end of the Christmas season–that was before the liturgical changes after Vatican II, we believe. Some of our sisters here can remember leaving the Christmas decorations up until February 2–wow! February 2 is also known in the secular world as Groundhog Day, the day when groundhogs (or other rodent-like animals) are supposed to predict either the coming of spring, or six more weeks of winter. Believe it or not, this has a certain Christian angle to it–and we don\’t mean the use of the film \”Groundhog Day\” to help discern a vocation! As we celebrate today\’s feast, we begin to make a remote preparation for the season of Lent–which will begin in about a month (March 5, to be exact). Regardless of what the groundhog predicts, the seasons are gradually beginning to change from winter to spring, as we see the nights becoming shorter and the days longer. We put away the infancy narratives of Christ for another year; we focus anew on his public ministry and soon on his passion.

We don\’t have groundhogs in Lufkin–at least, not that we know of. We have lots of other native creatures, but if we do have groundhogs they\’ve never ventured onto the monastery grounds. So when we want to know whether spring is coming, or six more weeks of winter, we consult the squirrels!

Looks like this squirrel is expecting spring to come!!