Reflections

Feeling Unloved

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As I am wont to do when I wake up in the night, I ease open my 8th-floor balcony door and gaze out into the night, checking that the moon is in its place, counting how many vehicles are travelling by (not many) and seeing if there are any people out and about at 3 am.

On a recent night,I observed a young woman shouting as she wandered down the street to the shelter for homeless women located nearby. She was wailing, “the person I love most in this world is my baby father but he doesn’t love me!” It was heart-rending her calling out her pain into the darkness.

The anguish of not feeling loved. Is there a worse feeling? I don’t think so.

“When was the last time we let our people know that we cherish them deeply?”

Though in this case, it was a specific person’s love she craved, it reminded me of the love that each of us has to share. When was the last time we let our people know that we cherish them deeply? Today would be a good day to remind them of our love. And who else can we reach out to that needs our care and compassion today? Let that person not need to feel unloved today.

-Sister Nancy Sullivan, csj

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Easter Sunday

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Easter Sunday

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Maybe it was the phone call from a friend who mentioned how wonderful it was to be able to share a meal with her extended family again, even though their tables were separated by plexiglass and the music in the restaurant was too loud, that caused me to notice the phrase in the first reading of Easter Sunday: “we… ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41)

The disciples and Mary Magdalene did not recognize him immediately. In the gospel, Mary thinks she is talking to the gardener until he speaks her name in love and opens her heart and eyes to see him. The disciples on the road to Emmaus had their eyes opened and only recognized him when he broke bread with them.

During this year-long Lent of a pandemic, we have been starved of so many ordinary, everyday things that we took for granted:  family celebrations, hugs, visits, the ability to celebrate together the death of a loved one, etc. How do we celebrate Easter joy in such a time which is not over yet although, with vaccines, there seems to be a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel?

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John O’Donohue in his book Anam Cara reminds us “Behind the façade of our normal lives eternal destiny is shaping our days and our ways” (p.90) We need to wake up and see behind the façade of the familiar where God is woven into our lives. Can I sing with the psalmist: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad!” (Psalm 118) My friend could marvel at being able to eat with family again although it was certainly not as she would normally have wished it to be.

““Behind the façade of our normal lives eternal destiny is shaping our days and our ways” ”
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Maybe the gift of this Easter for me is to decide to begin to shape in my life the “new normal”. Try to live my life with my eyes wide open to the beauty of Springtime coming alive all around me. To accepting each day as a gift and to look for ways to be a gift for everyone I have contact with even if it is only by Zoom or a phone call. Thus, in my own small way, I hope to be ready to participate in a kinder and more loving world when we leave this time of Covid19.

-Sister Catherine Stafford, csj

TRANSFORMATION

OH, THE DEPTH

When I read this poem I felt the depth of our Sisters of St. Joseph charism and wholeness of the evolutionary process of all of Creation. The person who wrote this poem is my classmate, Sister Caroline Bering.

She told me that it “just came to her”. My impulse to share this poem with you is that I felt that it would resonate with many of us and together we would feel its beauty, goodness, and truth.

Here is the poem as originally written by Caroline without punctuation. Just let the poem speak! -Sister Mary Vandersteen

 

                                                 TRANS

                                                      FORM

                                                           A

                                                              TION

                                 is it the fuzzy caterpillar letting go of its very self

                                                              to become an amazing butterfly

                                         or maybe it’s the excited bud imagining what it will be –

                                                                              a rosebud

                                     or even a yellow head dandelion always turning to the sun

                                                                                       or

                                                is it me looking inward through layers and layers

                                                                         until I reach down to

                                                                               the divine spark

                                                                     that calls me to flare forth

                                                                         in a blazing fire of love

                                                       to ignite cold hearts to burn with compassion

~Sister Caroline Bering