Take Five for Faith - Vocation-Network.com

What's between your life's bookends?

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

We know few facts about Saint Scholastica: She lived in Italy in the fifth and sixth centuries, was the sister of Saint Benedict, became a nun and a prioress, and helped found Benedictine monasticism. Yet, thanks to two brief comments by Saint Gregory the Great, we know volumes about how she lived her life. Of her childhood Gregory wrote: "She was devoted to God from a very early age," and a few paragraphs later he added that when she died "her soul ascended into heaven in the likeness of a dove." Though seemingly innocuous, these comments are like bookends of Scholastica's existence and give us a sense of the rich content of her biography. As you think about your life's journey, what do your bookends look like?

What do you choose?

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

Being chosen by God seems attractive, but God’s choice is less entitlement to special favors and more being selected for a commission—given a job to do. Further, we find that God does not usually choose as we might. We find God picking, for example, David, the runt of the litter; Mary, an unknown girl from Nazareth; the sinner over the holy man. Try to be aware of how you make choices: how you will treat a troublesome fellow-worker or that driver who is tailgating or how scrupulously honest you will be. Like God, who chose you to be one in Christ, make decisions based not on the obvious but on what is inside the other—and who dwells within you.

Don't be late to break-fast

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

With the season of Lent and its practice of fasting arriving in a couple of weeks, it’s a little puzzling to remember that Jesus was a great breaker of fasts and violator of religious food rules—that was one thing that got him into trouble with the authorities. His followers gathered grain on the Sabbath because they were starving. He ate with sinners and outcasts. He simply did not follow the rules, but for a purpose: to show how the rules should not control but rather serve to bring a person into a more loving relationship with God and neighbor. What makes a person holy is not external observance but internal faith and love, which leads to right behavior.

May God rest in peace!

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

Talk about holy sites: the Temple Mount, where King Solomon is said to have built Israel’s First Temple around 3,000 years ago, has been considered a sacred location by at least four religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Roman paganism. Competing claims on the site, and on the area known as East Jerusalem where it is located, are a central element of Arab-Israeli conflict in the region. Surely we can find a way to bring lasting peace to the place where tradition says the Divine Presence rested after creating the world and then gathered the dust to form the first human beings. Add your voice to those calling for a negotiated peace in God’s backyard.

Keep the story alive

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

Christianity came to Japan with the arrival of Saint Francis Xavier in 1549. In fewer than 50 years, however, all foreign missionaries had been expelled and 26 Christians were condemned to die, including Paul Miki, a Japanese-born Jesuit priest. The story does not end there. In the 1860s new missionaries to Japan were astonished to discover a hidden but thriving Christian community numbering in the tens of thousands. They had managed to pass along the faith informally for 200 years! Such is the power of the Christian narrative. What is your favorite story from the life of Jesus? Why? In what ways has it influenced your life? How can you pass it along?

Dear sisters and brothers: Thank you!

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

Today we pray for and give thanks to the men and women who publicly profess to live the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Monks, hermits, contemplatives, and religious priests, sisters, and brothers represent the diversity of consecrated life recognized by the church. Those who choose this life are committed to imitating Christ, engaging in his ministries of spreading the Good News, and showing that "the world can be transfigured with the spirit of the beatitudes" (Catechism 932). Their witness reminds all of us that our lives have purpose and meaning beyond this age, so we'd better choose how we live our present days wisely.

Solitude is not always confining

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

The monk and author Thomas Merton wrote: “There is no true solitude except interior solitude.” Solitude does not have to be a physical place, though it can be, nor does it have to involve silence, though it might. Rather, as Merton said, solitude is an inner space where you can rest quietly and alone in God’s presence—with no expectations and perhaps no words either—and experience the grace of God for what it is: a freely given gift you do not have to earn. Today, a Saturday and the traditional day for remembering Mary, join her in solitude to keep “all these things in your heart.”

Full-throated blessing

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

One of the most popular traditional devotions in the church is the blessing of throats on this day, invoking the intercession of Saint Blase, whose feast we celebrate. Blase was arrested in 316 A.D. during a persecution of Christians, and on the way to prison tradition has it that he miraculously healed a young child who was choking. After his death the story of the cure spread throughout the region of present-day Armenia, and through the centuries the devotion grew. Blase was also a physician, and today is a good day to give thanks for the many miracles that modern medicine also makes possible. Thanks to modern medicine, many are alive and well today (perhaps including you or a loved one) who would not have been so in centuries past.

Vow to live in service to others

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 UTC

In announcing the first World Day of Consecrated Life in 1997, Pope John Paul II remarked that February 2, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, was selected because it is “an eloquent icon of the total offering of one’s life for all those who are called to show forth in the church and in the world . . . ‘the characteristic features of Jesus—the chaste, poor, and obedient one.’ ” Today we honor and cherish those who have taken vows to religious life, and we can also reflect on how all of us are called to consecrate our lives in service to God and humanity. How will you serve?