From a grateful heart

Luke 1 46-49 The Magnificat 

Thanking God for the blessings to come as well as blessings received - makes you far more attentive.

"If the only prayer we ever said in our life was Thank You, that would be enough" - Eckhart

 Iris Murdoch -" a saint is a person who is warmed and vitalised by a spirit of thanksgiving."

 "For everything in my life so far, thank you, and for everything still to come, Yes." 

For the gift of life - a most precious gift. Enjoying being alive, enjoying being me! With all my pluses and minuses, my light and shadow side, this is how you made me and I thank you for it. 

For the gift of faith - that we don't live in a blind and meaningless universe, we come from God and we return to God, in love. Faith is to see life whole, not just the little segment, life as part of God's loving plan.  

For the gift of my own vocation, whatever God called me to and however long it took me to work it out! The bright and dark side of what we are called to, which both plays to strength and seeks out weakness.

For Pope Francis - and how much our Church needed him. We needed energy and a fresh vision, and he has restored joy and mercy to the heart of the Church. He reminded us that we are not just a teaching Church, we are a learning Church. 

For both the celibate and the married life, both with their difficulties, and joy. 

For the gift of friendship - maybe impossible to live a fully human, fully spiritual life without friends. 

For Your abiding presence in my life, Lord. You often lie hidden and I don't know where You are but you are always faithful.

For the hard times and my mistakes, because I have learned from them.

I renew my desire tonight to live from a grateful heart and not a lamenting heart. 

Perhaps the one question God will ask us at the end of life is "Did you enjoy my creation?"

Encouragement

Acts 4 vv 36-37 

Encouragement. 

Try to be attentive to everything - be present to the person. 

Turn a blind eye to most things! 

Be ready occasionally to challenge a little for the sake of the Kingdom. 

Encourage a lot.

 "Choose life" 

 To be a person of encouragement is a choice, and for most of us it is a learned art.
We have great power over others - to build others up or knock others down.
Look at Christ's witness - "I have come to give you life, life to the full."
Remember the woman washing Christ's feet - when Simon the Pharisee criticised him Jesus answered "Simon, do you see this woman?"

The mission of giving one another courage is central to our mission.

Ignatius of Loyola was a hugely perceptive psychologist - he spoke of the human being as a battlefield roamed over by a good and a bad spirit - the bad spirit dispirits us, drags us down, the Spirit of God can challenge us but always leads us upwards. 

Before we can be encouragers to others, we must be given courage ourselves.

2 main ways - by our fidelity to prayer, going the hard miles in the midst of the sweeter moments, over the long haul it gives us courage. "The less I pray, the worse it gets!"

The other main source is the witness of other people - other people make God real to us.

Constantly renewed desire to look for the good in others. If we look for the good we will find it, if we only look for the angularities, we will find those! 

"If only I knew the full story of another person's life, I would find everyone lovable" 

Choose to live life in a spirit of praise and thanksgiving.
The people we know who live life with a lot of gratitude are life givers.
Live life not from a lamenting heart, but with praise. 

St Paul - "the authority which the Lord has given us is for building up, not for knocking people down"

Hebrews " every day, as long as this day lasts, keep encouraging each other so that none among you is led away by the lure of sin."

The journey we all make alone

Mark 15 vv 33-34. "My God, My God, why have you deserted me?" 

Luke 23 vv 43-46 - the tearing of the Temple veil. 

Death, as the high point of our life.

The fears of death at night, when alone - our demons can come in the hours of darkness. 'Alone with none but thee, My God, I journey on my way.  What need I fear when thou art near, O King of Night and Day?" 

We are all united in the reality that we are all going to face our death some day. 

We are born alone, and we go out alone. 

The journey is individual. 

What are the key supports to which we will look for courage and strength? 

Our own cloud of witnesses, the loved ones gone before us who are ( in the beautiful New Testament term) saints of God. 

The alternating experience that many go through, the times of consolation and the times when the veil comes down and we are held by naked faith alone. 

At the heart of our living faith is our Risen Lord, 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life" 

Two passages of scripture - Romans 8 vv 31-39 - " Nothing can come between us and Christ"and John 6 vv 35-40 - "I am the Bread of Life" 

The link between these two readings is one word in common - Nothing - an absolute. "It is my Father's will that I should lose nothing of all that he has entrusted to me." 

We believe that our closing eyes will open to the Face of God 

 Psalm 17 - "As for me, in your justice, I shall see your face and I shall be filled when I awake with the sight of your glory"

Qualities of the searching heart

Qualities of the searching heart 

Matthew 22 vv 34-38 - "which is the greatest commandment?"

A rabbinical story - the rabbi said to his students " can you tell when the long night is over and the dawn has come? Various suggestions about shadows becoming shapes but the answer was - "When the dawn has come when you see a man and a woman coming down the road from the distance and you recognise them as your sister and your brother."

5 qualities for this morning - a non judgemental heart, a reflective and prayerful heart, a humble heart, a today heart, a loving heart. 

Non judgemental heart - " we rarely if ever see another person as they really are, we see them as we are."
Judge not and you will not be judged. If we ever knew the full story of another person's life, we would find everybody lovable.
Pope Francis speaks often on mercy - he calls himself "a sinner on whom God has looked with mercy."
Gossiping can kill, because it kills a person's reputation (Pope Francis)
If I hear something to a person's credit, I should pass it freely. If I hear something to someone's discredit, I should bury it, so I am the weak link in the gossip chain.

A prayerful heart - to be aware of God's presence in everyday life.
To walk in this world in the presence of God with the familiarity of someone walking the streets of their home town.
The disciples in the boat after the resurrection - it was John who with the eyes of love first said "it is the Lord!"
Ronald Knox - " the person who has learned the practice of the presence of God in daily life has discovered more than the happiness of heaven, he has discovered peace on earth." 

A humble heart - realism, recognising ourselves for what we are. No good comes from thinking we're lousy, but humility is keeping feet on the ground and never seeing ourselves as better than others. It is a gift, we can't make ourselves humble but we can be open to the gift. Good deeds by stealth!
A real concern for the poor - compassion is the first cousin of humility.
Opening paragraph of Gaudium et Spes.

A "today" heart - God's name is "I am" , not "I was" or "I will be"
Embracing the present with passion - live for today. 

A loving heart for others. Sr Elisabeth of the Trinity - " I raise my eyes to gaze upon God and then lower them to look upon you, exposing you to the rays of God's love"

Reflecting on the Word of God

"In the Scriptures, by the Spirit, may we see the Saviour's face". Hymn from the Office.

 Reflecting on the Word of God

 Psalm 17 - "I love you, Lord, my strength." Really about the ebb and flow of life. The Psalm begins in the bright morning of life, then leads into life's troubles and pain. But there is a line - "he brought me forth into freedom, he saved me because he loved me" that leaps out of the page.

Psalm 33 (34?) - "Glorify the Lord with me, together let us praise his name" , and another beautiful line "Taste and see that the Lord is good" - taking time to savour the presence of the Lord. "This poor man called, the Lord heard him and rescues him" . The psalm has many moods but one pice of excellent advice. "Look to the Lord and be radiant"

Bernard of Clairveaux - " The whole of the spiritual journey revolves around these two things. ...from the contemplation of ourselves we gain fear and humility, from the contemplation of God we gain joy and hope" 

From the breviary - from the canticle of Habakkuk - Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

A psalm for times of humiliation and when times go wrong. Psalm 49/50 "call on me in the day of your distress. I will free you and you will honour me"

Hymn from the Office, " O Christ, the light of heaven, and of the world true light". "The love that we have wasted, O God of Love, renew." 

God as the ultimate recycler - even our sins, our failures, our shortfalls are grist to the mill of God.

"O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a Redeemer."

The four hungers

First letter to the Corinthians -11-23 - the remembrance of the Lord's Supper. 

Fittingly on a Sunday we think about the Mass on a day where Christians come together in the breaking of the bread. 

"Priest of God, celebrate this Mass as if it were your first Mass, your last Mass, your only Mass." - words in the sacristy of Mother Teresa's church. 

Beware in the daily Mass goer the sense of numbness or routine - can be a difficulty. This talk then is an attempt to recapture what Saint John Paul II called "Eucharistic amazement"

The four hungers in life to try to be in touch with- hunger for meaning, for good food, for a context for my suffering and a context to my hope. 

Hunger for meaning, for guidance, for wisdom - much in life superficial; quick- fix wisdom does not satisfy. Your word, Lord, is a lamp for my path, a light for my eyes. At Mass we are fed from two tables, the table of the Word and the table of the Bread and both are equal. There will always be something in the readings that will feed me. Jeremiah - " when your words came, I devoured them" 

Hunger for good food - the Mass is not just the table of the Word, but also the Last Supper. "I am the Bread of Life, who comes to me shall not hunger, who believes in me will never be thirsty." So much in our lives is fast food - it distracts and it fails to satisfy. In the Mass when I receive You, it satisfies in so many ways but it makes me hunger for more.

The Mass is also the sacrifice of Calvary, it is here I look for context for the suffering in my life so that I can give it a meaning and a shape. United with Your Cross, my pain can start to feel different - I have somewhere to put safely the pain in my life. Cardinal Hume said there is a difference between scuffing your cross along the road and lifting it - do you drag your Cross behind you or take it up and tuck in behind Christ? There is a life giving sweetness in the heart of pain carried this way - there is no way around suffering, but there is a life giving way through. 

The Mass is above all Easter Day, we are celebrating the Risen Christ, we are receiving the Risen Body. when life is dark, or puzzling, or dispiriting, I can come to Mass and renew my trust that the last word in our life will belong to God. Remember Julian of Norwich - all will be well. 

"I am the Resurrection and the Life" 

 Touching the four hungers is the guard against the Mass ever becoming routine.

Try not just to say the words, but to pray the words - the switch changes! 

Rolheiser says something in a article called The One Great Fidelity - the Church has fouled up most of the commandments down the ages, but we have always managed to be true to the instruction "do this in memory of Me". The important thing is to be there!

Bonhoeffer - instructing young engaged couples - he used to tell them that it is not the love that will sustain their marriage but the marriage that will sustain their love.

The Mass is a ritual container, just as the marriage is a ritual container to hold the love

"Lord, teach us to pray"

"Lord, teach us to pray" 

 The life of prayer - looking again at our own prayer life, a retreat is a good time to do this. 

Human friendship - the qualities that are important. Four indispensable qualities - give time, have self disclosure, listen and be affectionate. These four qualities carry through to our friendship with God.

Firstly time - if you really are friends with someone, you show this by being delighted to spend time with them. It isn't all time, but sooner or later you have to invest quite a chunk of yourself and your time. It takes courage, because human as we are and trying to make contact with a God we cannot see, we may pass through boredom and emptiness first. Jesus prayed a lot in the Gospels - because, utterly human, he needed to pray to remain in touch with His father's will 
John Paul II warned about "spending so much time on the work of the Lord, you do not spend time with the Lord of the Work. Jesus in Gethsemane. Also the prayer on the Mount, that the prayer changed how he seemed to His disciples. It works the other way too, we look at people differently through the prism of prayer. 

Secondly self disclosure - trusting God enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable, with a person who will never betray our trust. The road to Emmaus - Jesus first as a stranger, then as a person the disciples were glad to have with them, then at the breaking of the bread someone they knew intimately. God passes from being the neighbour over the fence, to the friend in the home - God moving from a third person to a second person, from Him to You. The first thing that we find in silence is that we are loved (Teresa of Avila). Beware of too much formal prayer - remember the conversation between two friends. Sharing both sorrow and joy. 

Thirdly listening - hearing what the other has to say - that's why the silence of a retreat is so important. As Elijah found, in the silence the still small voice of God comes through. Building zones of silence in our lives. How do we listen? In the Living Word, but also in the Bible of everyday life, where God starts to speak to us in the events of everyday life, even in the great difficulties. The Examen at the end of the day shows us the traces we missed - finding all things in God and God in all things.

Last but not least affection - shown to a friend in look, in touch, in word. Jesus as warm and human - saying to his friends "I have longed and longed to eat this meal with you before I suffer" - the language of love. Asking Peter three times 'do you love me' - healing and reassurance.

Have an affectionate dialogue with God. "you know I love you, though I am often distracted and I don't love you often or well enough.'