Yom Kippur

This is a beautiful post by a Jewish blogger whose thoughtful posts I look forward to reading each day with a cup of tea. Her reflections on Yom Kippur are so lovely and absolutely appropriate for any of us who are striving to live a conscious spiritual life.

"One day, we will all go home.

To a place where our earthly possessions, our looks, ambitions, frustrations, demands, petty fights and competition with one another won't matter anymore.

Where it won't make any difference how much money we had, how big our house was, how fashionable were the clothes we wore; where it won't even matter how much we excelled in housekeeping, gardening, cooking, sewing, or any other skill we prided ourselves for.

Our blunders won't matter, either, nor will the blunders of others. The clumsy child who was scolded by his mother for smashing a cup, and had his little heart pointlessly broken over this, will be finally healed. The woman who felt torn apart because of cruel gossip, will have her heart restored....."

Read more at Domestic Felicity.

Providence

I had been feeling a bit down about a turn my life is taking (don't worry, the baby is fine:), when I picked up the stack of mail and discovered that the September issue of Magnificat had arrived. Opening it to the first page, my eyes fell across this quote:

"Nothing that happens to us is contrary to the will of Providence, and everything that is sent to us by God is for our good and the salvation of our soul. Even if it does not seem beneficial at the present moment, we shall understand later that it is what is willed by God, and not what we ourselves desire, that is useful to us...This is why we should offer thanks for all this to God."
-Saint Nilus Sorsky

Mazal Tov!

I had the privilege of attending the Bat Mitzvah of a student this weekend. I walked away from the experience impressed by the beauty of the ceremony. C. was surrounded by family and friends, leading the Shabat prayer service with their affirmation and support. Her parents and grandparents literally and figuratively passed the Torah down to her, a beautiful symbol of the legacy of faith in Judaism. I marveled at the skill and poise with which she read her Torah portion, and the grace and humor with which she presented the lessons she had learned from her reading. I wept at the beautiful blessing her rabbi bestowed on her as he compared her spirit, grace and wit to Miriam in the Old Testament, and prayed for her to be a continued source of grace and strength to her family and community for many years to come.

Throughout the service, I recognized so many readings, psalms and prayers. How often I thought, "So that's why we do this!" The symbolism was so deep. The Wall of Jerusalem Stone, the glass mosaic on the front of the Ark depicting creation, the 19th century Torah in the sanctuary that survived the Holocaust, the Eternal Light--it was all so beautiful. I loved listening to the Hebrew chanting, as I tried desperately to follow along with the translation.

I wish that we had a coming-of-age ceremony comparable in Catholicism--Confirmation, though a lovely and important sacrament, does not hold the same depth of responsibility for the candidate, nor the personal affirmation of the community as a bar or bat mitzvah does. What a beautiful experience for a young woman!

Gazing into the Fire

I'm currently reading, Eat, Love, Pray by Elizabeth Gilbert, a memoir about a woman who after going through a devastating divorce, goes on a pilgrimage of sorts, spending 4 months in Italy, learning Italian, 4 months in India, learning meditation at an Ashram, and 4 months in Bali, Indonesia, learning all she can from a medicine man. While in India, she meets a dairy farmer from Ireland who also comes to learn meditation.

This passage reminded me of gazing into the fire on a starry evening in a little cottage in Ireland last summer....

"...And now I will mention my friend the dairy farmer from Ireland--on the surface a most unlikely character to meet in an Indian Ashram. But Sean is one of those people like me who were born with the itch, the mad and relentless urge to understand the workings of existence. His little parish in County Cork didn't seem to have any of the answers, so he left the farm in the 1980s to go traveling through India, looking for inner peace through Yoga. A few years later, he returned home to the dairy farm in Ireland. He was sitting in the kitchen of the old stone house with his father--a lifelong farmer and man of few words--and Sean was telling him all about his spiritual discoveries in the exotic East. Sean's father listened with mild interest, watching the fire in the hearth, smoking his pipe. He didn't speak at all until Sean said, "Da--this meditation stuff, it's crucial for teaching serenity. It can really save your life. It teaches you how to quiet your mind."

His father turned to him and said kindly, "I have a quiet mind already, son," and then resumed his gaze on the fire."

This really resonated with me. Ah, for more quiet evenings in front of the fire with kindred spirits who don't mind the silence. It truly is good for the soul.

Oremus

Out of curiosity, I got up very early this morning and attended a Latin mass held at a local church by the Norbertines. I have to say, I was fascinated. Despite growing up regularly attending mass--and even having attended masses in Irish and Spanish, I did not "catch" as much as I thought I would! See, it wasn't just in Latin---the Tridentine service is a different service all together from what I'm used to. Fortunately, booklets were passed out before mass from Una Voce, which helped quite a bit, but I really had to pay attention, not just to the Latin, but also to the silence--and the bells. The priest faced the altar for most of the mass, and communion was distributed to us while we were kneeling. I was quite surprised that not only the prayers, but all the readings were all in Latin (Deo Gratis for the translations!--yes, speaking Latin already!) Frankly, it was the best homily I've heard in a long time (not counting you, Fr. F!) about sins of speech and how we hurt and deceive one another so easily with our words. And I have to say, it was lovely and sacred in a way "regular" masses are not.

I did not wear a head covering, though most of the women did. I brought a scarf with me, just in case, but everyone was wearing those lovely mantillas, so I didn't pull mine out. At any rate, I have to admit that I'm not sure how I feel about head coverings for women. (But the mantillas are so beautiful--I might be talked into it!)

I'm very intrigued. I'm fascinated to learn where we as Catholics have come from. It was easy to see where misunderstandings could occur in a service where so much is said in a different language, or not said aloud at all! (Again, thanks be to God for the booklet that so thoroughly explained everything!) I would like to take James sometime, and make this a part of our understanding of our faith. I'm curious to know what he will think!

Tested by Fire?

We are currently undergoing some pretty intense testing by an outside power who-as-yet-will-remain-unnamed, and by chance (!? Ok, clearly NOT by chance!), I came across these quotes from dear Lanier at one of my favorite blogs, Lanier's Books.

“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us very far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

"God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way…The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you."

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
They will run and not be weary,
They will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40: 30, 31

How perfectly timely! Thank you, Lanier for the reminder, and the resolve to soldier on towards the goal--together!

Hope Chest

I recently read HopeChest: A Reunion, compiled and edited by Natalie Nyquist. It was so wonderful to read the varied lives of so many of the contributors of this magazine for young Christian women. It is delightful to hear of the many ways that God works in lives and guides individual paths--such Divine Creativity!

There was one quote in particular that really resonated with me and that I wanted to share. One of the editors of the magazine, Fairlight Meyer, wrote, "One of my pastors frequently points out the false picture of Christianity we sometimes paint for those outside the faith: that we used to experience grief, pain, confusion, fear or other such like they do--before we knew Jesus and He fixed everything--when in reality, we still experience the suffering inherent to broken people on a broken planet, and that's why we all need Jesus."

She goes on to explain about a tragedy that happened in a family close to her, and other serious challenges going on in the lives of friends around her. And she says"...I've been thinking a lot about the Incarnation, and what it means to have a God who, though He doesn't always do what we want Him to do--make it all better or even tell us why---will come to us, and be present in our pain, and even weep with us. And I'm wondering if that might be part of our calling as Christians, too. If maybe our interaction with those outside the faith isn't all about a quick fix or well-framed answer either, but sometimes just about listening and hurting with them and being present."