Composed by: Sr. Magdala-Aquino
 
A few weeks ago I was out in my yard, eyeballing my plants and pulling a weed here and there.  Next door the neighbor’s two young boys were playing basketball in their driveway.  I heard the younger say to the older, “Guess why I can’t wait until tomorrow?”  No answer from his brother.  So he said again:  “Guess why I’m really excited about tomorrow?”  Still no answer from his brother.  Now I was intrigued and actively eavesdropping; I wanted to hear why he was so excited.  Little brother asked again, but at that moment his sister came out of the house to play, and the moment was lost. 
 
Even though I didn’t get to hear what that little boy was so happily awaiting, I’m pretty sure he was looking forward to something wonderful.  We adults also express our desire for the future, but often our expression is for a future not of something exciting coming, but of some difficult thing ending.  We can’t wait until the work week is over … the doctor’s visit is done … the difficult family member leaves … a worrisome work project is completed … training is finished.  
 
Maybe we need to remember and recapture our joy in what’s coming next.  For sure, adult life is complicated and full of sorrow, but as Christians, we’re called to be joy-filled, even in the midst of our trials and tribulations.  And more than anything, we need to latch onto the most wonderful thing of all, our own resurrection.
 
Bishop Robert Barron in his homily for Easter Sunday talks about how incredibly different and exciting the Resurrection of Jesus was, to a people who had a long history of various ideas about the life hereafter.  Amongst the different views in first century Judaism was one in which the righteous dead would rise at the close of the age.  But what happened to Jesus was different.  He didn’t rise from the dead at some future end of the age; he rose while people were still alive who knew him, and he rose in time, not at the end of it.  Barron says, “It was the very novelty of the event that gave such energy and verve to the first Christian proclamation….  They were trying to tell the whole world that something so new and astounding had happened, that nothing would ever be the same again.”  Jesus rocked their world, to put it simply.
 
But does He rock ours, in this way?  If we’ve been Christians for many years (cradle Catholics come to mind), we’re used to hearing about heaven and the beatific vision that hopefully await us.  We probably feel grateful for this most tremendous and undeserved gift, but do we get excited about it?  How do we capture the wow of it all, the holy-mackerel-can-this-really-be-what-awaits us, of our ultimate destiny? 
 
By remaining faithful.  And open.  And humble.  And by using our brains to periodically do some thinking about what it all means.  If the Lord wishes to inject in us an excited feeling about such things, He will.  And if He doesn’t, we remain in Christian hope.  The hope that is more than earthly hope, because hope on earth really isn’t sure (e.g. I hope I don’t meet an untimely death).  In the hope of our resurrection, there’s a promise behind it, the promise of Jesus, who said, I go to prepare a place for you.   
 
WOW.  So hey, guess why I can’t wait until my “tomorrow”?
 
Peace to you, and may this Easter season fill you with joy and hope!
 
 

Composed by: Sr. Caterina

The truly amazing thing about sacred Scripture is the multi-layers of truth that can be gleaned from a single passage.  While reading the Gospel for Easter Tuesday, I found myself reflecting upon Mary Magdalene,   “weeping outside the tomb.”  We know, from the text, that she was greatly grieved at not having found Jesus in the tomb where they had laid him after his death on the Cross.   Heaven intervened twice in this scene by asking Mary, “Why are you weeping?”

I was pondering this “weeping at the tomb” and I found myself reflecting upon the metaphorical “tombs” in my life that I am weeping over and that do not contain any life within.  I have spent hours weeping at the tombs of lost relationships, unrealized dreams, life’s many twists and turns that I never saw coming, and the tomb of “this is not how I thought my life would be.”  The Lord was showing me that I have been weeping and mourning long enough and that I have been “holding onto things” that are part of a tomb that is empty and lifeless.   I see the Lord’s great mercy in asking me to say farewell to these “losses” and to grieve no more at their tombs.

If I keep peering into these lifeless tombs, I cannot recognize Jesus present and actively engaged in my life.  Jesus wants me to ascend with Him to the heights of the Father; however, I have been clinging to a past that serves no purpose other than to sadden my spirit and to keep me from hearing Jesus call my name.  Life’s griefs have dulled my ability to perceive the Lord.

When scripture speaks truth to us, it cuts to the core of our being.  When Jesus says to Mary, “stop holding on to me,” I can apply this to the frequent visits to my tombs.  “Stop holding on to the empty tombs” in my life.  Jesus wants me to see Him and to see His Father so that I can experience a resurrected life of healing and hope.

Mary no longer peered into the empty tomb and she came to recognize Jesus and her grief turned to joy!  She joyfully announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”  Just as the tomb could not contain Jesus, I cannot dwell there either.  Our past does not define us, nor do we have to bring the hurts and disappointments into the present.  We have a great Teacher in Jesus.  Not only does He resurrect from the tomb, but He leaves behind the burial cloths that bound Him in death.  His death shroud has no part in His resurrected life.  So too, with us.  We cannot be tethered to the past and the things that rightfully belong in the tomb.  The Lord has a better plan that is before us.  Look to Him who will gently navigate us away from our lifeless tombs.  The past is the past – allow it to rest peacefully and disturb us not. 

Requiem in pacem!

Image Source: Station of the cross, Saint Symphorian church of Pfettisheim, Bas-Rhin, France. XIXth century. Detail of the 13th station : Mary Magdalene weeping.

Composed by: Sr. Catalina Rosa

I realized about two months ago, while brainstorming how I would embark on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving this Lent, that, for various reasons, my past years' Lenten practices of food sacrifice and social media sacrifice likely wouldn't have the same effect on me this year.

I also realized at that time that one daily comfort of mine on whose reliance I had never thought of addressing (let alone addressed), ever, is my automatic reflex to listen to music that I could listen to for free on my smartphone with earbuds while walking about or riding public transportation. Since I have an affinity for several genres of music, it's very easy for me to use this habit as a way of clinging onto comfort. Am I upset? Am I tired? Am I impatient? Let me find what piece of music would soothe me just the way I want to be soothed right now!

This habit had become an emotional crutch for me.

So, I decided that this Lent, I would either listen only to religious choral music, or listen to nothing at all, while walking about or riding public transportation in order to commute or run errands.

I'm writing this blog entry with Easter Sunday only a little over two weeks away. So far since Ash Wednesday, I've usually found myself electing to listen to no music at all, although I've still worn my earbuds for the purposes of detracting attention from strangers.

 I've realized the following about myself:

 (1) I'm frightened whenever I could overhear precisely the unsavory words a stranger could say to me as I walk by, or sit nearby on public transportation. If I'm playing music softly enough for me to, say, hear a car honking but still loudly enough for me not to hear those words clearly, it's much easier to ignore the stranger and feel comfortable.

(2) Also, I need to learn to be patient whenever I'm sitting on public transportation and listening to someone talking loudly, or someone playing music from a smartphone without any earbuds or headphones plugged into it, or even the whirring of engines coupled with the noise of traffic.

(3) I struggle with realizing I cannot let my surroundings control my inner peace. When riding public transportation or even walking in downtown urban streets near my workplace during rush hour, it's already easy for other non-aural senses to be assaulted: vision in terms of litter, in terms of seeing unsightly sights, in terms of human excrement on the sidewalks, in terms of overweight pigeons waddling and nibbling on fried chicken bones and fries; touch in terms of walking on irregular sidewalks or even sitting on a bus that gets jarred easily every time it rolls over a pothole; smell in terms of trash and human excrement. Listening to any music that I chose had become a way for me to make it easy to ignore these uncomfortable elements in my surroundings. Forcing myself to listen either to nothing or only to a specific type of music on my earbuds helped me learn how to acknowledge that it's possible to find an inner peace amidst any environment outside me.

(4) Did I say I need to learn to be patient? I mean, this morning, I was groggy, and one person was talking on the phone loudly while sitting behind me, and another person was having a conversation on speakerphone. Speakerphone! Would you believe it? Oh, and the traffic was bad! Ugh. Oh, right--I need to learn to be patient.

I had thought my Lenten sacrifice would lead me to become more comfortable with silence. In some ways, it has. What I hadn't expected to experience, however, was an exercise in patience with others, acceptance of conditions around me that I cannot change, and even growing in trust in God to help me get out of instances of discomfort--or, even more, to be with me in the midst of discomfort.

I also have realized how I still struggle with control. I had thought, rather foolishly, that I had addressed my issues with control. Oh, I know that I can only earn so much money, not only through my own situation but also through friends and acquaintances who struggle with underemployment or unemployment. Oh, I know that relationships with the other people in my life cannot be controlled entirely by me, because I can control only my own behavior. Oh, I know that in a workplace, I can only do so much to rectify problems and that I'm not going to save systematic issues alone.  Oh, I know I'm limited in what I can do recreationally due to financial, logistical, and even health-related constraints.

But, somehow, in my habit of listening to music on earbuds daily for years, I had somehow thought that, for at least a few hours a day, I could control my environment by pumping into my ears only what I want to hear while going out and about.

It hasn't been pleasant to acknowledge this problem within myself.

I cannot control my environment. All that I can control are my thoughts, words, and actions. Music, live or recorded, isn't bad. However, I had falsely let myself slip into a reliance on recorded music to avoid addressing the reality that whenever I walk or ride to my daily goings-on, I also must be aware that even that routine isn't entirely within my control, just like the other areas of my life that I already had known for a long time aren't entirely within my control.

I'm looking forward to using my daily commute once more as a way to listen to various types of music, familiar and unfamiliar, come Easter.

I'm also now hoping that, by God's grace, this habit won't be a way of avoiding an opportunity to address my impatience and fear--but, instead, a way of exposing myself to beauty.

I needed this Lent to let God help me reset my approach to this habit. For that, I'm grateful.

I'm even looking forward to see what other opportunities may arise in my future to grow. Sweet!

I’m just a woman at the well
With a thirst I do not know;
He and I and time will tell
Where roads will lead and breezes blow.
 
A cup of water for His tongue,
A lingering and mercy spent;
And yet to me refreshment comes
and by His word both called and sent.
 
I drink the Love born from His Truth;
I thirst the more for all it pours
into a heart whose chains are loosed
both satisfied and thirsting more.
 
And so the woman at the well
Trades her bucket and her need,
Gives her heart unto her Lord
With deep desire for where He leads.