Horizons - When I finally saw the new "Little Women" movie on New Year’s Day with the rest of my community, I was expecting to like it; I was not, however, expecting to be so moved by it.
The St. Paul de Chartres Sisters' school in Vietnam is a "home of love," where children with disabilities learn skills that will one day lead them to be financially independent and receive the respect they deserve.
Is the church ready to be radically incarnational? To trust that any person or event can mediate God's presence and activity. To accept that all theology is an interpretation of experience.
A sister may be in charge of the kitchen, or a farm, or secretarial work, or in charge of a house, or even just praying for others: Even then, essentially all are missionaries.
Our generation has become more conscious of destructive practices. Consciousness is an internal awareness of new ways of being that could liberate us from these destructive behaviors.
This terrible disaster, the widespread and wild-burning fires in Australia, raises for us the question of when our citizens and our government are going to officially acknowledge the reality of climate change and the implications this will have for our land and our economy.
Imagine being gold. While you would be appreciated and revered by many just for the prestige of owning you, it would take effort to keep delivering on the golden properties. Wouldn't it get tiring to always be shining? To always be unchanging?
Horizons - If the decade has taught me anything, it is that change comes incrementally. God works in our desires and our desires are realized in the slow work of the Spirit played out in daily choices and prayerful attentiveness.
Could it be that God's time is now, that "our time is now"? Is it God's time and our new time to effect both public and personal restorations in civic, church and educational organizations, all pledged to serve the common good and make Mother Earth a more beautiful, safe and humane place to live?
Horizons - There is something deeply sacred and somehow familiar about being in this place at this time. We hear the story every December: a family seeking refuge, traveling with the hope of finding welcome.
As I contemplated poor Scrooge and his sad life as revealed by the spirits, I began to see how he suffers from himself, ignorant of want and need in others, while coveting his money and all he thinks will make him happy.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Grinch. I just haven't figured out how to make Christmas "work for me." A couple of seemingly random events are changing that.
Horizons - During these Advent days, we pray about making room. We are working to prepare the way for God’s will in our lives, to prepare ourselves to unwrap and celebrate the deep meaning and joy of the Incarnation.
Aren't these migrants fleeing from slavery, government controls, poverty, drug violence, climate crises, child trafficking and prostitution — all in search of a better way, a "promised land"?
Contemplate This - At this time of increasing polarization and hatred, we need to take seriously the gift of Incarnation. Christmas is a reminder than we are children of God, and we are to live out of that reality.
For us consecrated persons in love with God, it is clear that the power of his love conquered us. Otherwise we would not have had the courage to respond promptly, with joy and courage, when we "discovered" the call during the communist regime's time of tribulation in Romania.
