Inspired by Scholastica

Stories permeate our lives. We hear stories from our families and friends about what is happening in their lives. We read stories to our children and read books filled with mystery, romance, and history.   We hear stories in sermons to teach us and programs to entertain us. Jesus taught important truths with stories or parables. He used the parable of the Prodigal Son to teach about unconditional love and forgiveness. He used the story of the woman kneading bread to instruct how we are to be leaven in our world. The woman seeking a lost coin and the Good Shepherd going after the lost sheep show how God searches for us when we are lost. Familiar images like a woman kneading bread or searching for a lost coin fill the parables in Scripture. Stories have a way of conveying abstract concepts and making them clear. They also make them easier to remember through the familiarity and even humor contained in them. Who could forget the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, gro...

Once stately and graceful full of impish gaiety, now bowed and turtle-gaited, she hobbles toward the chapel, wedded to prayer as a farmer to his plow, arthritic fingers finding the page, dimmed eyes searching for the words. She shuffles back to her room, too tired to read or knit, content to watch finches feed and leaves rustle.          Her mind wanders to former days when eager faces listened to her lectures on imagery and symbols, feasted on her lavish servings of Hopkins and Dickinson, relished her Irish wit and tales of life on a Kansas farm. She brightens when a visitor appears, a rare treat these famished days.

Wraithlike strands cradle the leaf caught unawares floating in the air, oblivious to things like spiders weaving webs, helpless in a sticky filament hanging from the branch. I thought of the psalmist crying, “Hide me in the shadow  of your wings!” God too can catch creatures unaware,  gather them into a warm embrace like an eagle  hovers over its little ones.  When we least expect, he seizes us and will not let go, enfolding us with loving care, knowing how fragile, how feeble we are. We cannot escape this nurturing, loving God who clasps us in his Spirit wings. Like leaves caught in a web,  we surrender to the Divine  Weaver,  sheltered from the raging storms of life.

Most of us are on automatic pilot much of our day. We waken to an alarm, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, grab coffee, drive to work, etc., without really thinking about what we're doing. It's good that we don't have to relearn routine actions everyday, but being alive ought to be more than that. We need to be aware of  our world. If we just go through the motions every day we are missing a lot. Each day is new and we need to see things in a fresh way. Beauty surrounds us if we take note of it. Whether it's new leaves on a tree, or a weed growing in a cement crevice, or longer days as winter wanes, there is cause for wonder. If we take a walk we are more likely to notice changes and drink in the splendors of nature. Also reading a book can make us conscious of the mystery of words. Even the smell of clean laundry can make us appreciate the marvel of automatic washers and dryers. Life in a monastery or a senior living facility tends to be very routine. ...

This year on January 27, Europe marked the 75th anniversary of  the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau prison. At a ceremony, the Catholic bishops issued a statement condemning "anti-Semitism and the manipulation of truth for political aims."  In 1945, at the end of World War II, the majority of  the world was horrified to learn of the Holocaust which killed six million Jews, cryiing out, "Never Again." The political atmosphere is much different today with the rise in Holocaust denial and nationalism. The bishops called for "reconciliation and peace, for respect for each nation's right to exist and to  freedom, to independence, to maintain its own culture." They emphasized that truth must be upheld, and never twisted for political purposes. Although Jews and Catholics  have a long history of distrust, in 1965, the Second Vatican Council offically condemned anti-Semitism in the remarkable document "Nostra Aetate." Since then relations...

On Jan. 20, the U.S. celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Day. This little-known Baptist preacher in  Atlanta in 1954 came to be celebrated in all 50 states with a holiday and more recently a Service Day. He would have been proud to see the movement grow in observance yet much of his dream still needs to be fulfilled. Beginning with Rosa Parks refusal to sit in the back of the bus, he organized boycotts of buses, lunch counters, and other public places until they changed their biased laws. A man of moral character, King was able to motivate thousands of blacks and whites to march for racial equality and to counter violence with non-violence. Fifty years ago, he had a dream "that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood." Yet fewer than half (45%) of all Americans and only 32 percent of African-Americans say the country has made significant progress toward ac...

Although environmentalists and scientists  are telling us that climate change is already happening and we have only a small amount of time to make the  changes needed before we reach the point of no return, many people seem unconcerned. Thank goodness for Greta Thunberg and other young people who are speaking out about the urgency of  making drastic changes in our  lifestyle. There are also many environmental groups like the US Climate Symposium, the Nature Conservancy, and Greenpeace, that are involved in education and consciousness-raising about how to save our planet. But action is slow and spotty in most parts of the world.When people are given the facts about global warming, the extinction of animal species, the pollution of water sources, the effects on weather such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and drought, they become alarmed, but then their concern fades amidst other issues. The changes loom so large that solutions seem out of reach. The Nature Conserv...