I Met God Today

Reimagining Prayer This Lent 2020. ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ Be careful what you pray for!   Lent can be a little like New Year. In some senses, both have a penitential flavour to them, albeit driven by quite different motivations: January’s “New Year, New You” becomes Lent’s “Return to the Lord.” We start with great intentions to clean up our life – giving up those things we have determined enjoyable but bad for us or taking up habits we consider good for our body or for our soul. We might resolve to fast from social media, chocolate, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes (insert your favourite poison!). Alternatively, we might commit to attending daily Mass, making time for prayer or Bible reading, giving to charity (insert your chosen virtue!). Of the many possibilities we might consider, drawing closer to God needs to be at the heart of our living of Lent. The forty days of Lent are a graced time, an opportunity to satisfy our thirst for God, a chance to rediscover the gift of relationsh...

What is love? On St Valentine’s Day this year, during evening prayer with my community, I renewed my vows as a Dominican sister. I chose to enter religious life because of love of God. That’s not to say that to love God is the same as falling in love with another human being. Neither is it to say that religious are somehow superior, making the better choice. If there are similarities between these expressions of love, there are chasms too. My friend offers this analogy: imagine finding yourself in a dark room, with no electricity. Which would you prefer: to know that God is with you always or to have somebody sitting by your side, a real flesh and blood person? Which would make you feel more at ease? I know which I would choose! As a religious, as a consecrated celibate woman, my vow represents a decision to leave an open space - that space filled for others by their love for one person - and to hope that this space can be or is filled by God. But it’s not a turning my back on love, on...

How much greater would our world be  if we could  all  just do this -> -> ->   It's not new advice!! See: Deuteronomy 10:18; Matthew 5:44; John 4:21; John 13:34; Ephesians 4: 2-3; etc; etc; etc.       #BeKind #Kindness #LoveOneAnother #GodIsLove