4TH SUNDAY ADVENT- THE LORD IS NEAR

 

 

  

 The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.” Habakkuk 2:20

 

We are in the last days of Advent, which means Christmas is close, and hence the demand on our time can cause a frenetic toll on our well-being: physically, emotionally and spiritually.

 In these last days it is important to carve out time and space to go into a silence with the Lord, even if only for short periods. By doing this, we can discover a deepening loving communion with our God, as he fills us with the graces given during these very holy days. Days which should continue even after the tree and decorations have been put away.  Remember the carol- "The Twelve days of Christmas"? These days are after the feast, not before.

 May our resting in the silence this Advent as we joyfully anticipate the coming of the Child at Christmas, find us rejoicing each day,  in the loving, merciful gift of the Father, in His only Son.

Painting: Elizabeth Wang

3rd SUN ADVENT- REJOICE

 

  

St. Mother Teresa of Cacutta viewed silence as essential for prayer, spiritual growth, and finding God. She believed that silence is where one can hear God's voice, and this leads to a chain reaction: the fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, and the fruit of service is peace. This "silence" involved not just the absence of noise, but also a mental and emotional stillness—the silence of the mind, eyes, ears, and heart—to be truly present and open to God's will. 

The first reading for this Sunday, again from Isaiah (35:1-2): The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom. They will bloom with abundant flowers, and rejoice with joyful song... they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.

These few lines set the tone for the day, giving us a very descriptive picture of place- a place that many have never seen, but for those of us who live in the west, the desert is a very mysterious and almost sacred place. To the natives who have lived on this land for hundreds of years it is sacred. 

Upon reflection, I don't think I ever visited the desert, that I was not aware of the silence that inhabitated the greatness, yet the vast emptiness of space.  Through most if the year it is a colorless place, but come spring it is glorious beyond measure. 

In the heart of the vast desert lies a profound stillness, a silence so powerful it speaks volumes without uttering a single word. One must listen to the "silent sounds", which permeate the place.

The Church gives us this reading to remind us that we are in a sort of desert, not only in Advent as we await the coming of the Christ Child, but our life is a desert as we travel to the heavenly homeland. In the midst of that waiting, we at times are given a glimpse of the glory to come. What is it about the desert that makes it a good meeting place for the Lord? It is in that stillness,  that we hear the voice of the Lord who waits for us.

...all men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally. When that inner voice is not heard, when man cannot attain to the spiritual peace that comes from being perfectly at one with his true self, his life is always miserable and exhausting. For he cannot go on happily for long unless he is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of his own soul. If man is constantly exiled from his own home, locked out of his own spiritual solitude, he ceases to be a true person. He no longer lives as a man.  (Thomas Merton, The Silent Life)

Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
with divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened,
the ears of the deaf be cleared;
then will the lame leap like a stag,
then the tongue of the mute will sing. (Isaiah 35: 4-5)

Paintings:  Rick Jaramillo

SILENCE in the 2nd WEEK of ADVENT

 

 Biblical revelation and the lives of the Saints all make clear that God speaks to us the best in silence.  We need it, far more than we admit these days and Advent is a great season to make some time for it. When I read the lives of the saints, be they from ages past, or more modern ones, I am always amazed at how much they treasured silence- time alone with the Lord. Some were contemplative, living in a religious comunity, or even alone, but many had active works such as teaching or care of the sick and poor.  And many have been lay people. No matter the life, they found the time for quiet prayer.  They understood that silence is the basis for contemplative stillness, emptiness of the mind, freedom from the distracted mind, which leads us deeper into life with Jesus.

" Noise is a deceptive, addictive, and false tranquilizer. The tragedy of our world is never better summed up than in the fury of senseless noise that stubbornly hates silence. This age detests the things that silence brings us to: encounter, wonder, and kneeling before God." (Cardinal Sarah: The Power of Silence)

Living on a small island away from the hustle and chaos of the world, there is more opportunity to find times for silence, and since our community is a small one, we have more space to be alone, and more times for silence, especially in this time of Advent. In spite of the rains and damp chill, it is my favorite time in the monastery. My prayer is that all may find a small time, each day to prepare in silence for the coming of the Lord.

Icon:  “Our Lady of Silence” in the Vatican painted at the Benedictine Convent of San Giulio d’Orta in the Italian province of Novara. 

NEW ICON FOR SEATTLE

 

Our  Cathedral in Seattle has a new icon, written by an artist in New York. It portrays ST. KATERI TEKAKWITHA. It started when Corinna Laughlin, the director of liturgy for St. James Cathedral in Seattle, saw a series of 12 icons hung along a wall, including one of St. Kateri Tekakwitha.

The artist, Patricia Brintle, was originally from Saint-Michel-de-l'Attalaye, Haiti, but in 1964 moved to New York to marry her fiancé, who had moved there for work.

 Patricia began drawing and painting as a young child, developing a distinct style using bold colors. Some of her artwork has been shown at the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence, Italy, and she’s been commissioned to create a portrait of Servant of God Sister Thea Bowman for the Passionist Monastery in Queens, New York.

The 4-foot-tall icon represents the local connection along with St. Kateri’s New York roots. The nature behind St. Kateri, particularly the pine trees, represents the local environment. She’s adorned in a traditional Salish cedar hat, and a Mohawk skirt, leggings and moccasins. At her feet, among a group of lilies, sits a turtle. As part of the Turtle Clan of the Mohawk people, St. Kateri was known as the “Lily of the Mohawks.The icon also contains a canoe, two eagles and two salmon, a nod to both the Pacific Northwest and Native American communities.

The icon  traveled to local Native American Catholic communities after its blessing on Oct. 19, before being placed in its permanent home in the cathedral. “For Native Catholics to be able to recognize themselves in the iconography of the cathedral is important, but also the sense that she’s not a saint just for Native Catholics. She’s for everyone. She’s the patron of ecology — that’s so important to people in the Pacific Northwest, said the artist.

Why is this saint so important to our archdiocese?  The last miracle which put through her canonization happened in the children’s hospital just a few miles from the cathedral. (Blog Oct. 20, 2012) with the cure of Jake Finkbinner, a Lummi child suffering from strep A bacteria which started on his face after he received a cut on his lip during a basketball game. When the doctors gave up hope, telling the parents to prepare themselves, Sister Kateri Mitchell, executive director of the Tekakwitha Conference, placed a relic of Blessed Kateri on his leg.

The next morning, doctors were stunned to see that the flesh-eating bacteria had stopped. Five years later, St. Kateri was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012, with Jake and his family and many of his Lummi tribe, as well as Oblates from our monastery attending the ceremony in Rome.  Jake carried the gifts at the canonization Mass.

The artist studies each saint before her painting begins and in this case flew to Washington, visiting the cathedral as well as St. Paul Parish in La Conner on the Swinomish Reservation, which is the closest to us on the mainland.

“That was quite an experience,” Patricia said. “That was amazing. I can’t even put it into words. I was now walking on ground that the ancestors of the people who lived on the reservation over 10,000 years ago were walking. That touched me, that touched me a lot.”

“That was quite an experience,” she said. “That was amazing. I can’t even put it into words. I was now walking on ground that the ancestors of the people who lived on the reservation over 10,000 years ago were walking. That touched me, that touched me a lot.”  Her prayer is that the icon touches the many people who visit and pray in the Seattle cathedral.