We lose sight of God's love, awaken us once more to the truth of your love.

Yesterday I attended a two hundredth anniversary of the faith community of Saint Romuald Catholic Church in Hardinsburg, Kentucky. It was a beautiful celebration of faith, sacrifice, and community spirit.  I remember well my six years of serving that faith community, and it resurrects in my mind and heart some lasting relationships in my own journey of faith.  I am always humbled when young people come up and seem so grateful for my presence.  I am moved to gratitude when a woman comes up and apologizes for her past weaknesses and asks my forgiveness.  I am thrilled to see that faith has carried on and people are using their gifts for the glory of God and the building up of the community.  God, you are always so ready to open my eyes to the truth of your love.  In gratitude and celebration I am awaken once again!

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time --“Friend, I am doing you no injustice” (Mt 20:13)


The parable in this past Sunday's Gospel seems to have several great lessons for us. Don’t people who work longer and harder deserve more pay? What about those who do not make a salary?  How can it be just that all reap the same benefits when they have not worked the same amount of time?

I read a reflection that gave me a deepr insight into the interpretation of this parable. At an elderly man's funeral, the priest spoke about how he had converted to Catholicism on his deathbed. I will call the man, Rick. Rick was like those who were hired last in the parable. The priest made the analogy of how some people, when they are going on a train trip, buy their tickets far in advance, ensuring their reserved seat. Others rush into the station at the very last moment, buy their ticket and reach the same destination at the same time as those who planned ahead. The assurance that Rick had arrived at the same heavenly destination that all of us were striving for seems fair. In fact I am very trilled and comforted by this. Perhaps this is because for over the past 20 years I have walked with people who were asking to join us in our Catholic way of life.


Perhaps the key for those first hired was to love the ones who got in just under the wire. But how to foster that open and unselfish love for everyone is a question that is hard to embrace.  It is counter cultural, gospel like.


As one reflection I prayed with stated,verse 15 points out the destructiveness of "evil-eye envy in a community." The owner asks, literally, “Is your eye evil  because I am good?” The question is about God’s goodness, which is extended equally to all. How difficult it is for us not to look enviously on goodness poured out on others, even as it has been lavished upon ourselves. Is it not, however, a great relief that God’s justice does not mean that people get what they deserve?

This week I pray and ask for the grace to look with eyes of God, desiring good for all person!

POLISHING THOSE BEADS

When I was about eight years old, my mother and I took a vacation trip to Chihuahua, Mexico. We went to the market, churches, museums, and lovely neighborhoods. But my strongest memory of that trip was when (just on an impulse, I think) we ducked into a religious goods store. Mama told me to pick out ANYTHING I WANTED! My eight-year old eyes settled on a rather baroque (not to say gaudy!) rosary, whose beads were iridescent and multicolored like soap bubbles, with ornate filigreed connectors between the mysteries. I loved that rosary, for not very noble reasons, but when I left home I left it behind with my other childhood things.

Clearing out my mother's personal items after her death, I found and tucked it away where it stayed for another fifteen years, a childhood memento. When I got it out again, the luster of the beads was dimmed, and the ornate connectors were tarnished. But having "rediscovered" the Rosary as a help to meditative prayer, and having broken or lost my other rosaries, I started using that one. Now the luster of the soap-bubble beads has been restored, and the connectors are shiny again.

Every time I use it, I think about how we can rediscover old forms of prayer, about how all prayer gets "shinier" as we practice it, and I reconnect with my generous mother and with my eight-year old self that could be led to God by the beauty of soap bubbles.

What it means to be a daughter of Saint Angela Merici

I grew up in a small community with the Motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters (where my Mother’s two sisters were members), within seven miles of my home. Some ten or eleven miles in the opposite direction is the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth where several cousins were members. Equally distant from my home, and nestled between (and a little south) of these is the Motherhouse of the Sisters of Loretto.

It was to none of these three communities that I was attracted, however, but rather to the Ursuline Sisters of Mount Saint Joseph who had taught me from first grade through twelfth grade. These were the years when the Ursulines were teaching in public schools in Kentucky. I didn’t know anything about St. Angela at that time, but as I reflect back on those days, I am convinced that the decision to teach in those public schools was because St. Angela, seeing the need for educational opportunities in that little pocket of Catholicity in Kentucky, urged her daughters to "risk new things". And it was there in the little hamlet of the "Burg" that I became acquainted with the spirit of St. Angela through the Sisters who taught me. I recall opportunities that were made available to me, not because of any obligation, but because the Sisters who taught me, inspired by the example of St. Angela, wanted to help me make the most of the talents God had given me. I recall Sr. Caroline Wathen, who taught me in 4^th. and 5^th. grades, and who, in the spirit of Angela, went the extra mile to learn how to teach phonics (a totally new subject area at the time) so she could teach it to us. To this day I still use the knowledge gained in that class. Recognizing that I had some artistic ability, she also gave me art lessons after school. I recall my 6^th. grade teacher, Sr. Leona Willett, who challenged me with more advanced work when I had completed the assigned 6^th. grade work. These, and so many other actions on the part of the Sisters who taught me I recognize as the spirit of Angela at work through them to help me be a better person.

If I was impressed by my observations of these Ursuline Sisters in the classroom, I was even more impressed by their dedication and faithfulness to their spiritual life. I offer one example: On any number of occasions, when I popped into Holy Trinity Church for a late afternoon short visit, I would observe the Sisters gathered in silent prayer. Even in the dead of winter, they were there, huddled near one of two coal stoves that were the only sources of heat for the church. The spirit of Angela was alive and well!

So what does it mean to me personally to be a Daughter of St. Angela? It means trying to live an authentic religious life and community life. It means doing what I can through my living and my teaching, to help others reach their full potential. It means doing the very best that I can in my teaching, going beyond the call of duty if someone needs credit in a course that isn’t being offered on the regular schedule, being a good listener when someone needs to talk things out, offering an encouraging word when someone is struggling, and trying to take the high road when myriad other things come up in the course of a day’s work. In short, to be a Daughter of St. Angela is to wholeheartedly live a Christian life.

Contributed by Sister Mary Diane Taylor, osu

lesson on service

I would like to share a story with you that has much to teach us. It is about a little girl whose grandfather would bring her a present every time he came to visit. These gifts were never the sorts of things that other people brought like dolls, books or stuffed animals. She stated that "my dolls and stuffed animals have been gone for more than half a century, but many of my grandfather's gifts are with me still." Once he brought her a little paper cup. She looked inside it expecting something special. It was full of dirt. She was not allowed to play with dirt. Disappointed, she told him this. He only smiled at her and picked up her little teapot from her doll-like tea set and took her to the kitchen where he filled it with water. Back in her room, he put the little cup on the windowsill and handed her the teapot. "If you promise to put some water in the cup every day, something may happen," he told her. He nodded with encouragement,"Everyday, my child." And so she promised. At first, curious to see what would happen, she did not mind doing this. But as the days went by and nothing changed, it got harder and harder to remember to put water in the cup. After a week, she asked her grandfather if it was time to stop yet. Shaking his head no, he said, "Everyday my child." The second week was even harder and she became resentful of the promise to put water in the cup. When her grandfather came again, she tried to give it back to him but he refused to take it, saying simply," Everyday,my child." By the third week, she began to forget to put water in the cup. Often she would remember only afer she had crawled in bed and would have to get out of bed and water it in the dark. But she did not miss a single day. Then one morning, there were two little green leaves that had not been there the night before. She was completed astonished. Day by day they got bigger. She could not wait to tell her grandfater, certian that he would be just as surprised. But of course he was not. Gently and wisely he explained to her that life is everywhere, hidden in the most ordinary and unlikely places. She was delighted. "And all it needs is water Grandpa?" she asked him. Sweetly he touched her on the top of her head, "No, my child," he said, "All it needs is your faithfulness."

This was her first powerful lesson on service. Her grandfaher would not have used these words. He would have said that we need to remember to bless the life around us and the life within us. He would have said when we remember, we cab bless life, we can repair the world.

Be blessed and be a blessing to others today!