An Advent Meditation

Advent is a time of stillness and reflection.  Sister Julia of the Verbum Dei community in San Francisco created the following presentation from pictures she took of the monastery and surrounding areas.  May this meditation help us to recognize new Advents of the Lord in ourselves and in our communities.

The Monastic Journey of Sr Godelieve

Sr. Godelieve recounts her call to the Monastery first in Belgium at the monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth and then in the United States at Redwoods. She talks of her contemplative awakening through the years and the role the monastery played in her life. Sr Godelieve at 89 years old is the senior member of our community. She is a musician, contemplative, prophetic witness to Christ in the world through social justice and most beloved sister.

Corpus Christi / Sacred Heart

These feasts of the Lord, Corpus Christi and Sacred Heart, which follow Pentecost have been especially meaningful for me this year. It seems that only after Pentecost and the Descent of the Spirit do we come to know Jesus as He wants us to know Him. And how do we know him? Through the Eucharist symbols of bread and wine that have become His very body and blood. We also know him through communion with and in His Heart.

The following is a prayer of St Aelred of Rievaulx, Cistercian Abbot of  the monastery of Rievaulx in Yorkshire England. (St Aelred died in 1167.) We read this prayer for Lauds on the Feast of Corpus Christi. In this passage St Aelred talks not only of our being fed, but of the Lord being fed also by us:

 O Lord, on what do you feed in us if it is not the sweet devotion of our heart? This devotion is a pious and sweet affection arising from the two-fold consideration of Christ’s humanity and his divinity. Happy the soul which is fed and nourished by this holy interchange. Ravished to the heights of heavenly joy, it gazes upon the glory of its creator and is delighted with the splendor of his beauty. By the ardor of ineffable desire and with the sweetness of inexpressible love, it crosses over into God, where, filled with the honey of heavenly sweetness, it tastes and sees how sweet is the Lord, how blessed is every one who hopes in him.

Candlemas at Redwoods

Watch highlights of our liturgical celebration of the Feast of the Presentation, celebrated on February 2.  It is a feast that commemorates Mary and Joseph bringing Jesus to the Temple for the Rite of Purification in accordance with the Law of Moses.  At the Temple, Christ is recognized by the Simeon and Anna.  The Song of Simeon (Luke 2:22-35 ) is  often sung at Compline, the last Office of prayer of the day.  "And now Lord, you may let your servant go in peace for with my own eyes I have seen your salvation." We like Simeon and Anna wait for the Lord, the light of the nations.