Pentecost 2013

Back home - Just in time to wish everyone Happy Pentecost  !!

Taize Experience.... Veni Sancte Spiritus





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A Journey and A Blessing

As I'm away from the blog for a couple of weeks here's a parting gift until we meet again. 

May you be blessed with God’s love, hope, peace and joy.
May these gifts that are in you be passed to everyone you meet.
Click here for previous posts for Ascension and Pentecost.

The Wild Goose is a symbol of the Holy Spirit.



The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again 

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky. 

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens 

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you. 

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart. 

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out 

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life. 

You are not leaving
you are arriving. 

From The House of Belonging by David Whyte


The Blessing ~ Connie Dover 
From her website here

Refrain 

  Soiridh leibh 'us oidhche mhath leibh
Oidhche mhath leibh, beannachd leibh
Guidheam slàinte ghnàth bhi mar ruibh
Oidhche mhath leibh, beannachd leibh 
 
Mathair uisge 'n tobair fhìoruisg'
Cainnt ar sinnsir brigh na loinn;
'S faochadh tlàth o ànradh m'inntinn,
'Nuiar bheir rann na glinn a'm chuimhn' 

Astar cuain cha dean ar sgaradh
'S dùrachd daimh am bannaibh toinnt'
Gleidgh an t-àgh na dh'fhàg a bheannachd
Oidhche mhath leibh, beannachd leibh 

Thuit ar crann air saoghal carach
'S coma sud, tha 'mhaitheas leinn
Bidh sinn beò an dòchas ra-mhath
Oidhche mhath leibh, beannachd leibh 

English translation from Scottish Gaelic

Farewell to you and goodnight to you
Goodnight to you, and blessings go with you
Wishing that good health be yours always
Goodnight to you, and blessings go with you 

The goodness of water drawn from the well of pure water
That is the language of our ancestors, the essence of our joy
A gentle soothing of the mind's distress
When a verse reminds me of the glens 

The width of an ocean will not separate us
And our good wishes will go to those
Who are connected to us with enduring ties
Keep in good fortune those who've made their farewells

Goodnight to you and blessings go with you
Our lot has fallen in a deceiving world
But in spite of that, virtue will be with us
We will live in constant hope
Goodnight to you and blessings go with you 

Words and Music: John McFayden (ca. 1897)

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Happy May Day



Happy May Day To All !!

Yo Yo Ma
This is a beautiful video with a background of nature's sounds and quotations.
Fifteen minutes- to reflect on and say thank you to God for this beautiful world.
 Stirrings of Spring. Yes, I know that today it's officially the first day of Summer but as we didn't really have a Spring here, it still seems appropriate.




From The Macro to The Micro


Pollen from a variety of common plants: Sunflower, Morning glory, Hollyhock, Lily, Primrose  and Castor bean. The image is magnified x500 and falsely coloured. The bean shaped grain in the bottom left corner is about 50 μm long.
 
When one is united to the core of another,
to speak of that is to breathe the name hu,
empty of self and filled with love.
As the saying goes,
“The pot drips what is in it.”
Rumi

James Taylor and Yo Yo Ma - Here Comes The Sun



 
The May Magnificat
 Gerard Manley Hopkins
MAY is Mary’s month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
    Her feasts follow reason,
    Dated due to season—
Candlemas, Lady Day;        5
But the Lady Month, May,
    Why fasten that upon her,
    With a feasting in her honour?
Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?        10
    Is it opportunest
    And flowers finds soonest?
Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
    Question: What is Spring?—        15
    Growth in every thing—
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
    Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
    Throstle above her nested        20
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
    And bird and blossom swell
    In sod or sheath or shell.
All things rising, all things sizing        25
Mary sees, sympathising
    With that world of good,
    Nature’s motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind        30
    How she did in her stored
    Magnify the Lord.
Well but there was more than this:
Spring’s universal bliss
    Much, had much to say        35
    To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
    And thicket and thorp are merry
    With silver-surfèd cherry        40
And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
    And magic cuckoocall
    Caps, clears, and clinches all—
This ecstasy all through mothering earth        45
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth
    To remember and exultation
    In God who was her salvation.
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Fr. Richard Rohr Videos

 Three thought provoking videos from
 Fr. Richard Rohr. O.F.M.

Hope you enjoy them.

The first is "The Christian Meaning of Enlightenment."




This is quite a lengthy one at just over 50 minutes: "St Francis - Turning the World on Its Head: Subverting the Honour/Shame System."

Just a word of warning that this video has background music : it's lovely music by Swedish pianist/composer Christian Lindquist, from his "Solo Piano Diary" http://www.solopianodiary.com/ but at times I found it really annoying and it interfered with following what was being said.



Finally, "The Pattern Of The Trinity:- The Trinitarian Design Of The Universe."



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Sixth Sunday Easter 2013, Advance Posts on Ascension and Pentecost

I'm on a blogging break for two weeks as from Friday of this week but should be back by Pentecost Sunday. I may get time to do some more posts this week but just in case I don't here's some advances.
 
Scripture readings for this Sunday's Mass are here.
A variety of reflections on the readings for this Sunday from St Louis University Centre for Liturgy are here.

Sermon Nuggets from here

Reflection on The Gospel here.
My reflections from last year are here ( different readings)

As I'll be away for Ascension Sunday here's a few previous posts fished out of my archive posts...

Mid May Reflections

Somewhere in the middle will be one of my favourite Saint's feast days
 Click here for my post on St Brendan The Navigator from last year  

Click here for Feast of The Ascension 2012

The Clouds Veil

 Click here and click here for a related post.
 
and these two images just make me smile...

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Feast of St Catherine of Siena


Image source



Today is the feast day of St Catherine of Siena, a lay Dominican, Doctor and Reformer Of The Church.

Image source

 Click here for a useful summary of her life.
  I was taken by this quote from iBenedictine's post.

"All the nails in the world could not have held Christ to the cross had love not held him there."

But I am still so often left wondering why Christ chose to take this route.
It's a paradox !

"What I hate I love. Ask the crucified hand that holds
the nail that now is driven into itself, Why ?
Catallus: Id Faciam
Frank Bidart
 Dante begins La Vita Nuova:
“In quella parte del libro de la mia memoria dinanzi a la quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si trova una rubrica la quale dice: Incipit vita nova.
In that part of the book of my memory before which little could be read,a rubric is found that says: "Here begins the new life.”

 It's that time of year when so many beautiful trees are coming into leaf again and new life is visible on every corner. So I'm thinking how the word ‘tree’ literally means ‘wood’ and is also a euphemism for the cross.

Three trees come to mind. The ‘Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil’ in Genesis.  That time when the first humans stepped out of our intimacy and close relationship with our creator and God's response to the devil, personified as a serpent, was that that someday Christ would come and deal a death blow to evil but in the process of the conflict the devil would cause Christ to suffer. 

Fast forward to the image of the second tree, at the first Easter and Christ’s execution on the cross, by the hands of Roman soldiers at the behest of Jewish religious leaders.   

Then roll forward again to the Book Of Revelation which describes the last tree, the Tree of Life which stands on each side of the water of life which flows from God and down the middle of the great street of the city (Revelation 22:1 to 5). This tree constantly bears fruit and its leaves are for the healing of all the nations. The tree itself is not the source of this healing but is a symbol of God’s life-giving presence. This tree will mark the return of the cosmic risen Christ to the earth where He once walked after His resurrection from the dead. 

At this time all powers and people will acknowledge the supremacy of Christ. Here under these trees, all rebellion will cease, all evil will be destroyed and death will be no more. This is the point to which all of history is moving, when Christ will reconcile all things to Himself and restore a suffering world to its original blissful state. Then all things will be made new and all tears wiped away.

 I know that my existence is joined to Christ and all Christians in what God, Christ and The Holy Spirit are doing somewhere between that first Easter and Christ's coming back to earth. So I think of these three trees and The Trinity of God The Father/ Mother, God The Son And God The Holy Spirit. 

"All theory, dear friend, is grey, 
but the golden tree of life springs ever green."
                                                           Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

There is an interesting article here on the symbolism of heaven and earth and the cross and the tree.
Image source        
 "This Word played life against death and death against life in tournament on the wood of the most holy cross so that by his death he destroyed our death, and to give us life he spent his own bodily life. 

With love, then, he has so drawn us and with the kindness so conquered our malice that every heart should be won over. For a person can shown no greater love (he said so himself) than to give his or her life for a friend. And if he praises the love that gives one’s life for a friend, what shall we say of the consummate blazing love that gave his life for his enemy? For through sin we had become God’s enemies. Oh, gentle loving Word, with love you recovered your little sheep, and with love gave them life. You brought them back to the fold by restoring to them the grace they had lost.” – Catherine of Siena.

 
Sometimes it's hard to write isn't it ?
There are days when it all seems Blah Blah !!
 
by Ilonka Karasz

 






Image source
The master said You must write what you see.
But what I see does not move me.
The master answered Change what you see.
Louise Glück, Vita Nova
In an interview with Bill Moyers, the double Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin, shared that the author Russell Banks once shared a story with him about a device he used when teaching, it was said that” Banks would often give his students a text, a short story by Chekhov or Conrad, and ask the students where does the language leave the surface?” to see which student “got it.”

I think Merwin's own poem below is a good and humorous way of getting out of stuckness ! 

Exercise

First, forget what time it is for an hour.
Do it regularly every day.
Then forget what day of the week it is,
and do this regularly in company for a week.
Then forget what country you are in,
and practice doing it in company for a week,
and then do them together for a week
with as few breaks as possible.
Follow these by forgetting how to add
or to subtract.
It makes no difference.
You can change them around after a week.
Both will later help you to forget how to count.

Forget how to count,
starting with your own age,
starting with how to count backwards,
starting with even numbers,
with roman numerals,
starting with fractions,
with the old calendar,
going on to the alphabet,
forgetting it all until everything
is continuous and whole again.”

W.S. Merwin

So, here's a few more quotes from St Catherine of Siena to finish on. 
Can you see where the language leaves the surface ?



So we wait for Pentecost


Related articles on Catherine of Siena
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