Tag Archives: reflection

Deck Our Hearts

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A friend just sent me an internet meme with the Grinch and this note: “This year I decided to do something different. I stole the last week of Advent.”

Today is the 4th Sunday of Advent AND Christmas Eve. I love Advent, perhaps because of the contrast with the hustle and bustle of this season in our society. This year too there has been the added weight of war and suffering, well sadly always there is war and suffering. This year it hits closer to our spiritual home as millions are at risk of starvation and death in the Holy Land while bombs and weapons have already killed tens of thousands, including children.

It is in the midst of this chaos and indifference that we are called for four weeks (more or less) to practice expectant waiting and hope as we yearn for love and peace. More than that, WE are called to make room for the incarnation of Christ in our world, hearts, and homes.

In the words of Margaret Anna Cusack, founder of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, in her reflection for today, Christmas Eve (well written in 1866 but you know what I mean): “Today we are decking our houses for His divine visit: let us not forget to deck our hearts.”

Happy last day of Advent as we await the coming of Christ our love and peace!

Re-membering our history

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My latest contribution to the conversation was posted today on Global Sisters Report where I reflect on my childhood connection to land where children, men, and women were enslaved by the Catholic Church – on grounds where I prayed during my confirmation retreat as a 13 year old.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1285) quotes from Pope Paul VI’s 1964 Lumen Gentium (11) when speaking of the power and promise of the sacrament of confirmation. Shortly after that retreat, my classmates and I received the sacrament through which we were meant to be “more perfectly bound to the Church.” Which church, I now found myself wondering? The church that enslaved generations of human beings for profit? The church that hid or ignored this history for convenience? Or the church that re-members — finds and claims those who have been lost — and seeks reconciliation and restorative justice?

It is important to re-member those who were lost in the telling of our history, to bring them into the whole fabric of our story, the good and the bad. We are better for the bringing together of all the members of our human family into our memories. The first step is telling the truth, no matter how hard it is to face. 

Visit Global Sisters Report to read the entire column – “Re-membering History is painful, but necessary”