Your response to the monthly reflections is welcome.  Email:  Sister Karen, Vocation Director  vocations@racinedominicans.org

June

June may aptly be described as party month with gatherings to celebrate graduations, weddings, family and class reunions, outdoor picnics, and much, much more.  Party time puts us in contact with the lives of each other.

The feast of the Visitation which recalls the meeting and greeting of two unlikely pregnant women sounded like great party time.  Mary and her cousin Elizabeth had three months of sharing their lives and their stories marveling at the wonder of being called to birth life.  Their conversations must have been filled with excitement, joy, and gratitude.

Mary and Elizabeth were women open to receiving life and willing to share that life
in the fullest possible way.  Interestingly enough, the time of celebrating the Visitation is far beyond the Advent Season and is placed in springtime when the freshness of life bursts forth in nature and our spirits soar with the lively vibration.

While we plan and look forward to vacation time, God does not take vacations. 
Or, perhaps, it is better said that God goes along on our vacations.  Meister Eckhart, a 13th century Dominican mystic, expressed it in a saying, “God is at home in us, it is we that go out for a walk.”  It’s time to make plans for taking God with on our walks, our vacations and party times. 

Bringing the blessing of God’s visitations to others is a splendid way of enriching party time.  Happy Partying!

May

What is it about the month of May that is so refreshing, so energizing?

Perhaps it’s the awakening of nature to the sacred movement of the Creator.  This dynamic movement alerts us to new growth with manifold possibilities.  Nature does have a way of responding so graciously to the warming temperatures and the gentle springtime rains.  We can learn so much from being in nature’s classroom.

The psalmist in Psalm 104 captures in vivid color and design the
magnificent wisdom and power of the Creator:

Bless the Creator, O my whole being!  O Creator, my God, you are great indeed! You are clothed with majesty and glory, robed in light as with a cloak.  I will sing to the Creator all my life; I will sing praise to my God while I live.

Nature’s awakening alerts us to the stirrings of God’s Spirit within.  We can truly celebrate Pentecost every day by listening and responding to these stirrings.  

How natural it is, like the psalmist, to express gratitude for the marvels of creation and for the stirrings of God’s Spirit within.  Would you be willing to send your expressions to me so that I can share it with others in the upcoming monthly reflection letters? 
Email to:  vocations@racinedominicans.org with just your first name. 

April 2008

What’s in your wallet? This clever advertising question gets our attention and might even have us reaching in our pockets to check the multiple cards that we carry for identification and security.

Let’s rephrase the question and ask: what do you have your hand wrapped around?  The photo below was taken on Easter morning in the home of one of our associates.  As a newborn last Easter, her grandson watched the peace pole being placed in the front yard.  Now, a year later, it looks like his hand is firmly wrapped around the peace pole constructed by his grandfather. 

This young child’s yearning for peace resonates with the message of the Risen Christ who stands in our midst daily with a greeting, “Peace be with you!”  Jn. 20:19
 
Isaiah’s prophecy describes peaceful relationship as:  “then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together with a little child to guide them” Is. 11:6

Do we need a little child to guide us as we strive to live in peace and harmony with one another and with all of God’s creation?

Together can we wrap our hand around the peace pole and wave a blessing of heartfelt compassion to people of all nations.  We will not have to check our wallets because our identification and security will be protected by our reverence for one another.  Blessings in this Season of Easter rejoicing!

March 2008

We become well seasoned in the stories of our ancestors and of Jesus as we make the Lenten journey each year.  It is, indeed, graced time for cherishing our heritage and for reflecting on how we are living faithful to our relationship with God, ourselves, and others.

John’s Gospel captures many of the conversations of Jesus with women and men yearning for a fuller life.  The details in the story are so clear that we can readily enter into the conversation and touch the empty spaces in our own lives. 

The third Sunday of Lent presents the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.  It’s an intriguing exchange in that both Jesus and the woman were in need of water.  “Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well.   It was noon.  A woman of Samaria came to draw water.  Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ “ This scene told in John 4:5-42 conjures up a lot of questions.  It also gives insight into the person of Jesus and the nameless Samaritan woman.  The questions and the insights lead us through our desert Lenten time into the celebration of Easter. 

Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  How could a non-Jewish woman know the gift of God in Jesus?  Jesus takes the initiative in disclosing who he is to her.  How do you know God’s gift of Jesus? What was it that enabled her to believe Jesus?  What was it that moved her to leave her water jar and go into town and invite others to come meet “the Christ”?  Are there times when I have met “the Christ” and been so moved that I have shared “the Christ” with others?

How was Jesus’ thirst quenched at Jacob’s well?  How did the Samaritan woman drink the water that Jesus would give and never thirst again? How can we receive from Jesus “the water I shall give that will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life”?

Happy Easter 2008!