Father Simion

We were blessed with the present of visiting priest at noon mass recently. Father Simion was visiting from Africa and while he had a heavy accent, his manner was charming and engaging. He and Monsignor could not have been more different – a traditional Irish priest with a black shirt compared to a short, very dark skinned man with tribal scarring on his face wearing a purple clerical shirt yet they moved together at the altar as if they had con-celebrated together every day. One of the most powerful aspects of our faith is that men from different continents could be as one in the celebration of the Eucharist. It is gives me a better understanding of what it means to be Catholic.

The second year continues

From St. Cyril writing about the Gospel according to John: (T)he Spirit changes those in whom he comes to dwell; he so transforms them that they begin to live a completely new kind of life.

It would be trite to say I have been amazed that the changes that have marked the passage of the past year and I have no wish to diminish the intensity of what has been seen, experienced by trying to describe what has happened with tired phrasing and clichéd stock responses. All we can do is to rise up in prayer and give thanks to the Holy Spirit for continuing to refresh the old with a new way of living. I am anxious to begin my second trip through Office of Readings and the cycle of the Liturgy of the Hours. I am promised that the revelations will continue to spring out of the sacred texts.

Saint Ambrose, Bishop - an excerpt from his writings

If you shut the door of your mind, you shut out Christ. Though he can enter, he does not want to force his way in rudely, or compel us to admit him against our will.

Closing my eyes and letting my mind build a visual image of this observation, the image I see is of a mud house with simple window openings unprotected by glass with plank shutters and an unframed door opening closed off by an unlatched wooden plank door.  I can see sort of a Hobbit kind of thing except without the charm and warmth of the real hobbit town we experienced in the Lord of the Rings. By securing the doors and window of our simple little hut, we not only shut out the sunlight, we are blocking out the eternal light of Christ. Try as we might, our attempts to hide ourselves away. We are imperfect carpenters and shafts of light stream through cracks in the wood and around the clumsily constructed edges. That we cannot block the light makes us uncomfortable in our seclusion because it reminds us what waits if we only open the door. To reach for the door to open it requires us to overcome the shame we feel for having tried secret ourselves from his presence. Once the door is open and we are again with him it takes but a moment for his healing grace to restore us.

 When we are healed we find ourselves living in a spiritual summer where good things grow and flourish. Inevitably we have to enter a spiritual winter when we try to answer doubts whispered into our hearts by voices that are not from God. We cannot avoid this time because we are human. The gift that growing faith brings us is that we recognize earlier that winter has settled in on us and we can take the first steps ourselves to journey back into the light of spring. The journey begins by simply opening the door to let the light of grace flood in on us and then we can again step out into the brightness.