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We Can Always Gamble On God’s Mercy

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Today’s Gospel gives hope to the heart of any parent, to any of us really. Any creature who is desperately in distress, as this woman was, can gamble on the mercy of God and win. 

This woman walked from the Gentile district of Tyre to meet Jesus in order to submit to him her desperate need. This Canaanite woman had a daughter possessed by a demon, and she was pleading for his help. The depths of the despair of the human heart can be touched most easily in the frightened pleas of a parent begging God for a child’s life. This one mother’s anxiety for her child, as recounted in the Gospel of Mark, stands in stark contrast to the 23 verses that preceded it. In these earlier verses, the Pharisees also had come to Jesus, but their purpose was to gather around him and quibble about how the disciples kept the law. For them, Jesus was not their healer, their Savior. He was someone who had to prove his authority to them, to measure up to their expectations, to fit into their religious understanding. Theirs was a calculated relationship that held Jesus at arm’s length, a dance devoid of love and intimacy.

But this woman from the district of Tyre was not a Jew. She was not a believer. She was a Gentile, a pagan. Her story leaps from the pages of Scripture to assure us that Jesus’ heart is by nature, attuned to his creature’s cry of distress. He led this woman on a gentle journey toward a loving tryst. She searches for him and finds him even in the place where he was trying to escape notice. She risked rejection as she approached this Jewish healer whom she had probably heard stories about. She was willing to fall at his feet to beg him for help for her daughter. This anxious mother didn’t come with a demand or an argument why Jesus should help her. She simply threw herself on his mercy, trusting that a mother’s plea for her child would move this teacher who himself had a mother.

Jesus is moved by our humanity, a humanity that he took up when the Word became flesh. Everyone who makes desperate intercession for another can trust that the heart of Jesus will be moved as it was for this Canaanite mother. 

Even though she presented her request to Jesus with the audacious and visceral faith that seemed almost to twist God’s arm, she remained at his feet in humble homage, in submission. And it was by this confident humility that she won his heart. God wants to be overcome by us. He wants to say, “I can no longer resist you. Be it done as you say.” He desires that every intercessory prayer be a moment of greater intimacy with him. 

Take with you today this mother’s courage. Where do you need a miracle? Where do you or a loved one need saving? Where are you in complete dependence on God with no other recourse? Like her leave behind your fear, take up your heart’s courage, and cast your cares upon the Lord. Do not debate with yourself or doubt, but set out. Bow down before the One who is the center, who is God’s loving tenderness on earth seeking to make us truly and forever happy.

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Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Thank You, God, For In-Between Spaces

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“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia… [I was] brought up… [I was] educated strictly in our ancestral law… I persecuted the Way to death…” Thus Paul tells his story.

We are who we are as adults because of who we were as kids. Our habits, attitudes, and beliefs are often rooted in what we learned before we were three, what we heard, what we experienced, the values of those who cared for us. Imperceptibly we were shaped and formed by those who loved us, certainly, but who also were struggling with their own inner issues. Their own demons. We bear each other’s burdens.

Today I sit at meals still struggling to engage, carrying forward attitudes and habits from long ago. And so did Paul. His persecution of the Way was a faithful carrying out of his strict education on the ancestral law.

On the way to Damascus, Paul was leaving Jerusalem behind. He was leaving his native territory. His friends. His memories. The network of relationships, expectations, and boundaries that had defined him. He walked outside what was certain and at the same time Jesus was coming toward Paul. Jesus had summoned Paul mysteriously through Paul’s own plans to persecute the members of the Way. And in the liminal space between Jerusalem and his planned appointment in Damascus, in the place of vulnerability, Paul and Jesus encountered one another. 

The strict adherent to ancestral law discovered that Jesus was, as his followers had claimed, alive. In some way, by hurting his followers he was hurting Jesus. 

Jesus called Paul further into the in-between-space where transformation can be initiated. Paul lost his sight on the outskirts of Damascus, lay in bed for three days in a desert-dependence on the God who had reached out to grasp his heart and then had plunged him through the hands of Ananias into the baptismal dying and rising in which Paul left his very self behind. Not just his plans. Not just his agency and protagonism. But his self. His old self. In what he would describe in Ephesians as “the lifestyle of the ancient man, the old self – life, which was corrupted by sinful and deceitful desires that spring from delusions” (Eph. 4:22 TPT).

Jesus is already walking toward you. Be certain that when you are drawn into that liminal no man’s land where you lose your sure footing before the God who reveals himself to you in some way, that you are on the Pauline path of conversion. 

Be sure that you will, like Paul, lose the clarity and certainty of being able to see through the filters firmly in place through a lifetime of reinforced belief. You will lose your power and as you walk through a desert you will have no way forward except what God will give you. You will lose the illusions of your old self. Your values will be refashioned, your priorities will change, your plans will be torn up. Heart will replace the violence of forcing on the world around you the stories that have shaped you since childhood’s early experiences. Your inner being will be renewed.

I love the way St Paul put it in the letter to the Ephesians:

“If you have really experienced the Anointed One, and heard his truth, it will be seen in your life; for we know that the ultimate reality is embodied in Jesus!

And he has taught you to let go of the lifestyle of the ancient man, the old self – life, which was corrupted by sinful and deceitful desires that spring from delusions. Now it’s time to be made new by every revelation that’s been given to you. And to be transformed as you embrace the glorious Christ-within as your new life and live in union with him! For God has re-created you all over again in his perfect righteousness, and you now belong to him in the realm of true holiness” (Eph. 4:21-24 TPT).

Today is the only day in the liturgical year that we celebrate the feast of the conversion of a saint. That day, and Paul’s response, were pivotal to civilization and Christianity from that day to what one day will be the end of the world. That’s how powerful a conversion is! 

Jesus is walking towards you, calling you out from your net of attitudes, thought-patterns and security into his arms because Jesus wants to send you, as he did Paul, to proclaim that you have met him and been transfixed by the love of his heart.

In this space of the heart’s being discovered we find re-creation, new life in union with Jesus, and true holiness.

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Here I am Lord: 4 Spiritual Lessons

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A favorite memory of my younger years as a Daughter of St Paul is the diocesan catechetical conventions where we would meet hundreds and thousands of volunteers and teachers dedicated to educating the next generations in the Faith. These wonderful, gifted, and generous women and men I will never forget. My heart was always full as we’d join together at Mass at the end of the day, often singing the popular hymn by Dan Schutte, “Here I am, Lord.” Our voices would rise in a chorus of YES. Lord, we are here. We are here for you. We are here to be used by you. We are here to be used by you for others. We are ready and willing. We are HERE. 

I was always so grateful to be among such generous Catholics as we drank from the source of life in order to become life in the world.

The rousing cheer “Here I am!” is rooted, in part, in today’s first reading and responsorial psalm. Even though the story of Eli and Samuel in today’s first reading is much more complex than the hymn would lead us to believe, there are four important lessons for our own life that we can learn from Samuel’s response to the Lord, “Here I am. Speak, Lord, for your servant, is listening.” 

1. Our “Here I am” is more often a solitary commitment than a rousing hymn in community. Eli, the priest, was old. Samuel was just a boy. Eli’s two sons were sinning against the Lord and would not listen to their father. Samuel was serving Eli, the priest in the temple. After several times being woken by the boy running to him and saying, “Here I am; You called me,” the priest understood that it was God who was calling the boy. Eli sent Samuel back to sleep in the temple with the words, “Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” No one knows the words that Samuel heard that night. His response to the Lord was his own. His response didn’t depend on Eli or Eli’s sons or anyone else in Israel. It was his and his alone to make. And so is ours.

2. Often our “Here I am. Speak Lord. I’m listening for your voice” happens in the night. The night, as in our reading, of the infidelity of the larger community. The night of solitude. The night of our unfamiliarity with the ways of the Lord. The night when God is leading his people through us into ways that are new. The night of a yes that claims our entire life in prophetic obedience to the Lord. We cannot make the outer situation an excuse for not answering the Lord as he calls you and me. It is these personal decisions upon which the health and holiness of the community ultimately depends.

3. We can help others understand the ways of the Lord, even if we ourselves aren’t perfect. Eli understood the Lord was calling the boy, and he gave him a single piece of advice that helped Samuel make himself available to the encounter with the Lord. Eli told Samuel to say, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” With that one simple sentence, he taught the young boy this stance before the Almighty: I am listening. I am ready. I believe you speak. I believe you have a plan that is good for me, for us. I am willing to submit my life to your plan. Even as Samuel grew in wisdom and grace as a prophet, even as Eli grew older and less influential, even as Eli’s own sons were killed in punishment for their wickedness, I can imagine Eli continued to give pointers to Samuel on how to respond to God.

4. Our life has a purpose, a meaning, a vocation, that in some sense springs from our earliest communication with the Lord as a child and continues through our life. Biblically, we see this with the story of Moses, with Jeremiah, with John the Baptist. Only in hindsight can we see how God has led each of us in his ways. We each have an important part to play in the mystery of salvation, which overarches our world’s history. We will stand, and we will fall and stand again. In our struggle to listen, to learn, to follow, to give ourselves over to the Lord, we carry out our vocation. Ultimately, however, it is the fidelity of the Lord that guarantees the fulfillment of his plan.

Today you may want to take a few quiet moments to take stock of your own, “Here I am, Lord. Speak, for your servant is listening.” Maybe just for today, you will want to repeat these prayerful words over and over again as you open up your life once more to the plan of God for you: “Here I am, O Lord. Speak, for your servant is listening.”

My point is this: if your family is not the epitome of harmony, take heart. God specializes in redeeming messes. See yours as an opportunity for God’s grace to become visible to your loved ones and pray hard that God will make it happen.

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Living Tabernacles

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Mary set out in haste and traveled to the house of Zechariah, where she greeted Elizabeth.

Let’s try that again: Mary, carrying within her the Son of God, set out in haste to bring Jesus to the house of Zechariah, where she greeted Elizabeth. The older woman instantly felt the presence of God in Mary, and the child in her womb leaped for joy.

This is the image of the Christian. Blessed James Alberione, the founder of the Daughters of St Paul, often told us that we were to be living Tabernacles who, like Mary, when she visited Elizabeth, bring Jesus to the world. We could imagine ourselves as a monstrance that exposes the world to Jesus, who is the world’s Light shining within us.

You, too, are a living Tabernacle. At the end of every Mass, we are sent forth to bring the Good News we have heard and received and now carry within us. We are sent forth in haste to everyone with whom we will come in contact so that they will feel through us the living and loving presence of God-with-them, what Good News is ours to share with others! And today that can be quite a lot of people. Mary went straight to Zechariah’s house. She wasn’t documenting her trip on Instagram or posting on Facebook to thousands of friends and followers. But we do. We can bring Jesus to more than the person in front of us. We bring him to all we “meet” through social media. For everyone who encounters us through our digital “footsteps,” we pray that they will encounter not us, but Jesus.

In the Christmas narrative, Mary presents Jesus to the shepherds who followed the angels’ song to the stable, and to the Kings who found her Son by following a star. Her entire life was characterized by this manner of showing Jesus to others, by giving him away so that the world would have Light and Life.

So as we approach the end of our Advent journey and make our final preparations for Christmas festivities, let us take a moment today to imagine ourselves taking part in them with a Marian heart as a Tabernacle that quietly brings Jesus into others’ presence. In situations both difficult and joyous, prepare yourself to radiate the quiet and steady Love-with-us in Christ that will warm the hearts of those you are with. It will be the greatest gift you can give them this Christmas.

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Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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How Can I Know This?

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Zechariah. Elderly. Devoted. Righteous. Carefully carrying out his priestly duty, entering the sanctuary to burn incense. Focused on his duties…

I’m chuckling to myself as I think of it. How often I am focused on my duties. Keeping track of details. Attentive to relationships. Planning and managing… And like good Zechariah I am totally not expecting an angel to announce to me the joyous news that what I have longed for my whole life, prayed for over and over again, was about to be given to me over and above anything I could have dreamt of. “Your wife will bear you a son, and you shall name him John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth….”

You can almost hear in the angel’s words the blaring of trumpets in heaven by excited angel choirs…

And Zechariah deflates the joyful party with a question that can’t escape his tattered and sorrow-worn idea of himself: “How can I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.” That question is repeated by every human being down through the ages at some point or other in their lives: “How can I know this?” How can something be different from what I have experienced in my life? How can I be sure before I commit? How is it possible that I could be happy? How is it that my life could be part of something bigger? How is it that I could matter to God after what I’ve done or what has happened to me?

Friends, this is what Advent and Christmas are all about! You matter! Your life matters! You are part of a plan bigger than you! You can bring forth joy! You can be happy again!

I am not talking about throwing a party for ourselves or pretending we have high self-esteem. I am talking about the Christmas mystery that God intervenes in individual lives and in the collective history of mankind. We are that important to him. And for that we can be humbly and gratefully at peace and filled with at least quiet joy.

So what good news of great joy has been announced to you in your life by angels—heavenly or earthly—that you have been slow to believe? Today, why not change your response to that of the Virgin, and tell God simply: Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your word.

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Hope and Action

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It’s the end of the liturgical year with its amazing readings that remind us of three things: 1) God has a purpose that unfolds in history; 2) individuals, groups and nations can thwart that purpose but cannot overturn it; 3) hope requires taking the long view if we are to act courageously and effectively for the coming of the Kingdom.

I can imagine Mattathias standing with his sons on the edge of the mingling and nervous crowd as the king’s messengers set up the altar of sacrifice. At that point, did he have a clear plan for what he should do? What did he feel? Angry? Devastated? Defeated? Afraid? Determined? Uncertain? Because it isn’t really about Mattathias that the Church has given us this reading. This reading is about us who live in this tumultuous era of disorienting defeatism. Watching the world and national news unfold in tweets and posts and commentary is almost too difficult to comprehend. The changes that are engulfing the globe are not straightforward. They are complex and inexorable. With “fake news” added in, it is almost impossible to know what really happened before it was twisted into the service of someone’s agenda. We might find ourselves standing on the sidelines, wondering what is going to happen and, perhaps, what is this going to mean for my family and me.

It was clear that Mattathias and his sons knew one thing. They knew who they were and had already decided to remain faithful to the covenant of their fathers. “God forbid that we should forsake the law and the commandments. We will not obey the words of the king.”

They did not seem to have a plan for what they would do next. It was when a “certain Jew” came forward to offer sacrifice on the altar that Mattathias sprang into action, filled with zeal, and tore down the altar, marching through the streets calling forth the zeal of the others in the city, leading them to the mountains where they would continue their resistance. This example of Mattathias and his sons is a delicate and unmistakable intertwining of hope and action. Hope is an essential foundation for a response, for zeal, for action. But hope doesn’t replace action. Both are needed.

In confusing times of uncertain change, we can follow Mattathias example. He may not have known exactly what part he was meant to play in the history of his people, he may not have known the next step he should take, but he had the hope that in the long view of salvation history, God has a plan that cannot be defeated. Because of that hope, he could risk facing what needed to be changed with purposeful action at the service of God’s glory.

Jesus, in the Gospel, weeps over Jerusalem, which has not known the time of its visitation. His sorrow did not lead to hopelessness, and his hope was not mere wishing it was different. It led him to lay down his life for the salvation of the world so that God’s Kingdom would come; his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

These November readings are not the cozy, comforting readings of earlier months. As we approach the Feast of Christ the King and the Advent-Christmas meditation on the amazing mystery of God’s birth in time, these readings help us find our feet in this world in the light of the Kingdom and the world to come.

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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If God Is For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?

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“What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” (A. W. Tozer)

The first sentence in today’s second reading would be enough. Because the reading goes on, we miss it. “If God is for us…” There. Stop right there….

Do you wake up every morning ready to proclaim, “God is FOR US! God is FOR ME!” How about this morning? Do you feel yourself backing away even now from such a proclamation? After all, the “anguish, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril and the sword” that Paul later talks about might make us wonder if God is actually on our side. If he does in fact care about us.

Life beats us down, and in today’s world, we can feel this weight of anxiety more than ever. But Paul cries out: “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” Not these burdens! No, he says, “in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.”

For if God is FOR US, nothing is as powerful as God. If God says he cancels the condemnation against us, then no one else can condemn us.

The stuff that scares you cannot separate you from this love of God that has been shown to us in Jesus Christ. Even as you carry your cross, you can proclaim the victory of the cross!

So what has happened to you, or someone you love, that’s caused you to lose heart, to be swept away by the storm? Where do you feel abandoned? What have these done to your trust in God?

For many, many years following a serious illness, I questioned God’s love for me. I even questioned God’s very existence. I glowered at him from the back of the chapel while I was supposed to be praying (I’m sure God took that as a prayer….).

I never received a revelation or vision. I one day simply realized I was no longer thinking that way. In a very silent and hidden way, God had convinced my heart that he was there for me and that everything was okay. And I’ve never questioned it since. I have seen again and again that each of the unhappy events that have broken into my life have truly blessed it. It may have taken me years to be able to receive the blessing, but now I absolutely know that even when things are not okay, they are still okay.

My friend, God is FOR YOU! Every morning, wake up with this cry! In the words of the responsorial Psalm:

“I will speak my thanks earnestly to the Lord,
And in the midst of the throne I will praise him,
For he stood at the right hand of the poor man,
To save him from those who would condemn him.”

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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An Eternal Choice

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Psalm 1 always makes me think of Sr. Mary Augusta. For a number of years I sat next to Sr. Augusta in chapel and assisted her with finding the pages for community prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours. One Saturday morning, as we prayed Psalm 1, she turned to me with the most mischievous of smiles as we prayed this verse found in today’s Responsorial Psalm:

“He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.”

You see, Sr. Augusta was a mere 98 years old that Saturday morning. And yes, her leaves “had never faded.” She was young at heart. Happy. Blessed.

I wish I knew Sr. Augusta’ secret formula. The moment she made the decision to flourish no matter what happened to her in life. Or maybe it wasn’t a single moment, but a gradual deepening, letting go into greater freedom, as she pursued the Lord.

Both the second reading and the Gospel warn us that the fiery love of Jesus will demand a choice on our part,
a choice that has eternal consequences. As Paul puts it:

“For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness.
But what profit did you get then
from the things of which you are now ashamed?
For the end of those things is death.
But now that you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit that you have leads to sanctification,
and its end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So let us, as Paul, consider everything else in our life to be rubbish compared with gaining Christ, with being found in him, taken up with his interests, living with his preferences, desiring him above all other things.

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Life’s Humbling Actions

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I recently saw on my Facebook wall a quote which read: “The older you get, the quieter you become. Life humbles you so deeply as you age. You realize how much nonsense you’ve wasted time on.”

Until we come to terms that life is a gradual, difficult, gloriously transformative undoing of everything we have built up for ourselves and of ourselves, it will continue to perplex and, in some cases, embitter us.

Just the other day I sat beside a priest friend, sharing my spiritual journey, my self-discoveries that were not that pretty. Of course, I had explanations ready at hand. I thought they added perspective. My friend said, “Those are just excuses. Everything you’re saying is just ego.”

Just ego…. The nonsense I’ve wasted time on.

We get caught up in our younger years in wildly exciting things, dreams for what we could do or be, determination to make improvements, change things, build things….

But life tends to lead us out of these sunshine beginnings into the stormy years of our undoing. Then back into the sunshine, then onward to shadow….

The elders of the Jews who were tasked with rebuilding the house of God in Jerusalem had been sent there from their captivity in exile in Babylon. The glories of the former Temple, all that Jerusalem had been for the Chosen People since King David, had been lost. They were beginning again, and anyone who has begun again to rebuild from the ashes knows that it is hard and discouraging work. To rebuild is to face the unknown, to construct in faith, to hope in God, to place ourselves under his mercy, to walk blindly along the paths marked out for us…at his bidding, for his glory, according to his plan.

In the Gospel, we can imagine Mary standing on the outside of the crowd that surrounded the house where her Son was preaching. With his words, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it,” Mary’s heart had to have skipped a beat. The relationship of mother-son that she had known since Jesus’ Bethlehem-birth had now to give way to something larger that she didn’t yet understand. These words, certainly a confirmation of her holiness, defined the moment when she realized definitively that her motherhood was not her own, that it never was meant to be her private joy. All that she had been in her mysterious and magnificent YES to the Father was now public “property,” so to speak, for everyone else’s benefit. She had to move over to make room for us. I often think of what Mary must have been thinking and feeling as she turned and walked home that evening….

In our lives, we are led into progressively deeper poverty in which all we once knew as normal becomes shrouded in a future of uncertainty. We walk forward lighter, simpler, more quiet and humble, perhaps less significant. If this is happening to you rejoice. You are being led on the path of holiness which can only culminate in glory.

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Good and Faithful Servant

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“Well done, my good and faithful servant.” “You wicked, lazy servant.”

Secretly I hope one day to hear the first sentence addressed to me by God and not the second. And you?

One thing we can learn from the parable today, among its many lessons, is the paralyzing effect of anxiety. The one who received only one talent stated he was afraid of his master so he hid his talent in the ground so he could safely return it to him.

This anxiety gnaws at the human spirit as we grow into our middle years, even if we consider ourselves someone who believes in God’s love and mercy. “I just turned 51 last month. I’m beginning to ask myself: Have I done what I was supposed to in this life? Have I wasted too much time? What if I don’t figure out what God wants of me before my life is over?” These questions my friend began asking herself are typical mid-life questions we ponder as we sense that “time is running out.” At 51, those questions started to pop up into my own consciousness unbidden.

“I hope that God doesn’t remember what I did before I got married.…” “I’m praying that God is watching the good things I’m doing now and forgetting about the past.” The variation is as infinite as the hearts that voice them….

In the parable in today’s Gospel, the one thing that is missing is the thoughts, the questions, the excitement or anxiety of those who received the talents from the master who went on a journey. Jesus doesn’t make these explicit in the parable. However, it is this inner world that we are most familiar with, particularly as we grow older. The early heady days of celebrating the adventurous and smart successful things we do with our personal talents and spiritual gifts are long gone. Now our memories stretch over decades as regrets and uncertainties begin to surface around the edges of our grateful and happy memories. And the anxiety shows up with them.

The anxiety, I believe, begins to haunt us because we know clearly now that we can’t control life as we believed we could when we were younger. And we know that judgment approaches with the moment of our death, and judgment, by its nature and in our human experience, implies another having power over us. I know my desire—my urgent need—to have a straight A report card to present at the heavenly door to my Savior has not been achieved. Too much has transpired in 56 years. A weight of struggle, trial, and temptation has accompanied the joyful, beautiful, and grace-gifted events of my life. When I appear before my divine Spouse and infinitely loving Redeemer, it will be now with the empty hands of St Therese, the Little Flower. No, Jesus, I trust myself entirely to your merits. I have no virtue, no merits, no glory. I take yours and that is sufficient for me. I am but a little child…. 

There is a story of St Francis de Sales who was tortured as a young man with the fear that he was going to hell. I don’t remember how long he endured this trial, but I’m sure some of you, as I, have at some point in our life had this perhaps unspoken concern. It was only when Francis finally, at the foot of the Blessed Sacrament, cried out in his pain to the Lord that he found relief. “If I am doomed to hell,” he said at last, “then at least there will I love Thee, my God, so that Thou art loved even in the midst of that place of darkness and pain.” And immediately the weight of sorrow and fear lifted.

If you are experiencing anxiety like this, do not bury your heart in the ground. Reach out to someone you trust. Share your story. Get perspective. Enter a journey of healing. Experience the joy of confession.

This parable convinces me of how serious life is. From beginning to end it is a journey that we make as we emerge from the hands of a loving Father and in our sunset years return it into his hands. A gift that we have carried through the storms and songs of many decades of living in often uncontrollable and incomprehensible situations that weave their way through the lovely experiences that have made our hearts swell with gratitude and love. The gift of this life we invest by making responsible choices to love our Creator and Father, conform our lives to Jesus our Brother, and open our hearts to the sanctifying presence of the Spirit. But in the end, we return to him with the joy of our holiness, yes, but we recognize as the first Preface for the Saints declare:

 “You are praised in the company of your Saints and, in crowning their merits, you crown your own gifts.”

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Feast of St. Augustine

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My friends, today on the memorial of St Augustine, the Church has given us readings in the Liturgy and in the Office of Readings that focus on the amazing attraction of Jesus on our souls.

St Paul so clearly describes our experience in the First reading. He says that sometimes we are “shaken out of our minds,” “alarmed,” “deceived.” A person in this spiritual space is the one who is fearfully trying to find his or her way to salvation amid the sometimes terrifying realities around them. Paul indicates that the Thessalonians were alarmed at the imminent coming of the Lord. We are alarmed at many things that also strike at that very basic core of fear within the human heart: survival. Take a deep breath. What are you alarmed about? What news upsets your peace of soul? What family matters are overwhelmingly oppressive at this moment? Where do you worry about your or another’s salvation?

Immediately St Paul refocuses our vision: you are called to possess the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what the Gospel calls you to, promises, lays out before you as an infinite horizon toward which you can walk as far as you want, and as quickly as you desire. We are called to a magnificent hope! Promised eternal glory in the Lord Jesus Christ!

I remember assuring some very fearful women who had come into our book center in Metairie, Louisiana to purchase candles in preparation for the imminent three days of darkness prophesied by someone on a television program they had been watching, “Jesus never encouraged us to be afraid of him,” I told them. “He said instead that he was going to prepare a home for us in his Father’s Kingdom and that he would come to take us back there with them.” They exchanged their candles for the Chaplet to the Divine Mercy and left with much peace in their soul.

God our Father has loved us and given us this everlasting encouragement that we might not live in fear any longer, but might have “good hope through his grace,” and experience encouragement and strength so that our lives would flow with every good deed and word.

Certainly, this is a process. It could be that the scribes and Pharisees whom we encounter in the Gospels never had the courage to risk the trust of this adventure in truth. However, Saint Augustine, whom we celebrate this day in the liturgy, did. The reading for the Office of Readings so beautiful describes this journey made by Saint Augustine, and which is documented in his book Confessions of Saint Augustine.

Here we learn from this great convert, the essential ingredients for the spiritual growth Saint Paul calls all Christians to:

 

Augustine “reflected upon himself.”
He entered under God’s guidance into the inmost depth of his soul. This is a journey that God is inviting each of us to. He himself makes this journey possible. Through his grace he is the helper of our soul.

When Saint Augustine entered within the inmost depth of his soul he discovered with the eye of the soul what was beyond him, beyond his spirit. He saw the immutable light of God’s glory shining in him. ”This light was above me because it had made me; I was below it because I was created by it.” Within our soul we find not ourselves, not even our best selves, we discover God himself who wishes us to possess the glory of the Lord and to lay hold of the promises of the Gospel. This, as both Saint Paul and Saint Augustine say, is the truth and beloved eternity.

Discovering this truth within him, creates within Saint Augustine a sighing day and night for the one who was drawing him closer to himself so that he might see him there within him.

This truth, then, burst forth in his entire being as one great cry of love: “Late have I loved you. O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside… You called, you shouted, you broke through my deafness… You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.” This journey of spiritual transformation is not one of personal growth for the purpose of becoming a better person. It is a journey to lose oneself in the ocean of Divine Splendor who touches us and burns our hearts that they might be transformed into one great longing for God himself to the point that we gradually, and finally at last, leave ourselves and self-interests behind.

May this journey that God is right now leading you into, become your chosen path, your only desire, your greatest satisfaction! Amen.

Contact the author

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.

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Have Eyes Only For Jesus

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Much ink has been spilled around Jesus’ words to Martha: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing.” Does this mean the contemplative life is better than the active? That time in prayer is more important than time doing our duties? That there is no way to integrate the battling aspects of our life for solitude and responsibility?

If Jesus was holding Mary up as the epitome of the one who has chosen “the better part,” then what exactly did he mean? If he meant that contemplative life was a more truer form of discipleship than any other, then every other person in the Scriptures who was called as a prophet, priest, king, apostle, evangelist, was invited into a lesser form of discipleship. Jesus himself chose to stay and teach the multitudes rather than take much earned, and much wanted time away with his apostles in prayer and rest. His heart reached out to them who were like sheep without a shepherd. The many nights Jesus spent in prayer were followed by days of intense teaching and healing. Jesus even called his mother into a lifetime of daily chores and hospitality.

Is the life of witness and testimony and servant of less value than sitting at the Lord’s feet? Or is that what the Lord was talking about at all?

Perhaps what the Lord may have been holding up to us all, was Mary’s single-heartedness, her “undistractedness,” her poverty of spirit in the face of her sister’s complaints. Mary’s eyes were only for him, and her ears listened only for his voice. Mary, Jesus’ mother, had a similar round of duties to prepare meals and care for Joseph and Jesus. But I can only imagine the singleness of purpose, the gentle focus, and intentionality, the deep and quiet love, with which the duty of every moment was carried out by the Mother of God. Perhaps Jesus was suffering for all Martha was going through, knowing that the vexation she was experiencing was hurting her, and was not necessary. He wanted so much more for her to be at peace with her soul soaking in his tender love.

So, the Lord sent his apostles to the whole world to baptize people in the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Spirit. However, they were first to go back to Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Spirit. Their work was not to be their own, marred by competition, rivalry, anxiety and stress, and other “distracted” emotions. Through the Spirit they were to have their eyes only on him, be the conduits of God’s grace to the world, be obedient servants of the Word, and spend themselves for the Master they loved up to and including their ultimate death.

Therefore, on this Feast of St Martha, let us look to our own hearts that we might have the grace to live without distraction as we eagerly fulfill all that God calls us to do in life.

Kathryn James Hermes, FSP, is the author of the newly released title: Reclaim Regret: How God Heals Life’s Disappointments, by Pauline Books and Media. An author and spiritual mentor, she offers spiritual accompaniment for the contemporary Christian’s journey towards spiritual growth and inner healing. She is the director of My Sisters, where people can find spiritual accompaniment from the Daughters of St. Paul on their journey.

Website: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Public Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

For monthly spiritual journaling guides, weekly podcasts and over 50 conferences and retreat programs join my Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/srkathryn.