Holy Saturday, 2015

Today is one of the emptiest days of the year. No Mass, no Eucharistic adoration. And it is empty for another reason, too: this is the day Christ went among the dead to release the souls of the just. The land of shadows where they stayed until Christ\’s coming has been emptied. But soon all things will be filled with the fullness of Christ. Tonight we will have the celebration of the Easter Vigil, and the beginning of the glorious season of Easter, when we celebrate Christ\’s resurrection from the dead.  May this blessed time fill you with the joy only Christ can give, and may you experience the mercy Christ is bestowing upon you today and every day!

Holy Thursday, 2015

In a few hours, we will celebrate the evening Mass of Holy Thursday. We have the washing of feet before Mass, in our refectory. The prioress chooses twelve nuns and kneels to wash their feet. Monasteries have surely been washing women\’s feet on Holy Thursday long before Pope Francis (although we do it privately). It is awe-inspiring to think that Jesus gave us Himself in the Eucharist, ordaining the first priests, just a short time before His passion began. Tonight we remember this wonderful event, and we stay awake with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, keeping adoration of the Blessed Sacrament until midnight.

Spy Wednesday, 2015

Wednesday in Holy Week is sometimes referred to as \”Spy Wednesday\” because it\’s the day the liturgy commemorates Judas Iscariot approaching the chief priest and scribes with an offer to betray Jesus for money. It\’s easy to condemn Judas Iscariot\’s act of treachery but we always have to face the question: how do I betray Jesus for personal gain? We have all done it, at some time or another, in one way or another. The good news is that unlike Judas Iscariot we can choose to accept again the infinite mercy of God, which is always held out to us. Let us fall on that mercy today, and resist the temptation to despair. 

Tuesday of Holy Week, 2015

Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly spent my strength, 
Yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God…
And I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, 
and my God is now my strength! 
–Isaiah 49:4, 5b
In the Liturgy today we continue hearing the Servant Songs from Isaiah, those mysterious passages relating to a suffering servant who trusts in the Lord and becomes great in spite of–or because of–his suffering. As Christians, we usually relate these passages to Christ, who suffered and died for our salvation and was glorified by God, who raised Him on the third day. As cloistered nuns, we are reminded that this suffering, humiliated man is our Bridegroom–and in fact He is the Bridegroom of the Church. He seems to prefer coming to us in this way, hidden, obscure, suffering, poor. Sr. Mary Laurence, O.P., a cloistered Dominican nun from England who wrote several books about the cloistered life in the mid-20th century, once commented that no bride of Christ wants to follow her Bridegroom up to Calvary carrying a bouquet of flowers! Instead she follows the same path her Lord followed, and it is not an easy one. But she continues to follow Him, because she loves Him. In the same way today let us try to follow Christ as He makes His way to crucifixion and death on a cross. We will not perhaps always be faithful all the time. But we can always keep turning back to the path, to follow Christ, in good times and in bad times.