Month: April 2022

I must admit that I am tired of storms. I’m worn out trying to find my life story—my Covid pandemic life story—reflected in the apostles’ experience of storms at sea.

I’m exhausted trying to outsmart an invisible enemy.

I’m finished for a while with helping people make sense of what has been senseless suffering in their lives for these past two years.

The global consequences of the pandemic are so overwhelming I want to just sit down and cry. I long for the former days that seem in misty memory to have been more carefree and happy.

So the words that attracted my attention in the Gospel reading in today’s liturgy were these: “the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading.”

The apostles wanted to take Jesus into their boat. They were prepared to take charge and figure out the next best thing to do.

Oh, how much of my life I’ve spent doing precisely this. These past two years that have been not only pandemic-riddled but also have been years of great loss on different levels have finally worn me out. I certainly don’t know the next move and I’ve finally acknowledged that I certainly don’t have what it requires to take the situation in hand and plot a way forward.

If you feel this way, just a little, trust in the Lord who brought the boat immediately to the shore to which they were heading. Sometimes we get taken to places in our lives that we would never have gone on our own, places that we would never have chosen, that we still don’t entirely comprehend. Somehow through it all we are taken by God to a shore where we are safe, yet we don’t how we got there, where we are to go, or how we are to get there. We simply realize that God himself did it for us because he loves us poor storm-weary children.

It is a place of trust and of magnificent wonder: God is taking us somewhere, and he is doing it on his own, surprising us with his power, surrounding us with his love. “Do not be afraid,” he says. “It is I.”

I want to finish this reflection with three lines that perfectly express my prayer in these days. They are from a poem by Marie Noël (The Hours: Prime) found in the book Born from the Gaze of God: The Tibhirine Journal of a Martyr Monk (1993-1996).

Father, carry my soul in its carefreeness
To where you want, and let it sleep in your hand
Without asking the meaning and the goal of the road.

Dear Friends,

The 40 days after Jesus rose from the dead, began in great silence. At the final meeting with Pilate before Jesus was ultimately condemned to death, the crowd was “shouting,” “howling,” and “shouting at the top of their voices,” (words from Luke’s Gospel in the New Jerusalem translation). The first lines of the narrative of the Resurrection are filled, instead, with silence, awe, rest, and joy.

“On the morning of the first day of the week, at the first sign of dawn, they went to the tomb with the spices they had prepared….”

And the first words are those of the angels. A few verses later Jesus joins two disciples who share with him the confusion within their own hearts and desires, their disappointment at Jesus’ death, the disintegration of their dreams. And Jesus’ voice cuts clear through all of that, a quiet, clear, strong voice.

The only people that populate the narratives of the Resurrection appearances are Jesus and his disciples. It is like Jesus took them on a 40-day retreat with him. He wanted to comfort them yes. But he had so many things he wanted to tell them. He wanted to shape them in his image so they could love the world as he did, serve as he did, preach as he did…with his voice, his heart, his wisdom and love.

The Easter season is a wonderful time to listen for the voice of God as did the disciples during those first beautiful days after the Resurrection.

Last night on my Facebook group we began a series of meetings in which we will be meditating on the Easter Gospels in relation to how God communicates with us. We began to explore how we can grow in our interior awareness and hear more clearly his voice through the muddle of our disappointments, confusion, dreams, desires. We began last night with two gospel passages that recount Mary at the tomb and talked about what makes an experience “spiritual” and some of the ways we can tell the difference between our voice and God’s voice.

Together during the Easter season we will be developing the art of spiritual discernment along with the apostles and women who followed Jesus.

If this sounds like it would be a great way to spend the Easter season, learning at the feet of Jesus how to hear his voice as it clarifies your heart and orders your desires, I’d love for you to join us. We meet on Tuesdays at 8pm EST. Even if you can’t come at that time, most people watch it in the days after since the video remains. In fact, you can still catch this week’s video if you’d like. Here’s the link to join the group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes

And here’s the link to sign up for my mini-retreat this Saturday offered free on SmartCatholics. It’s just an hour (3-4), and you’ll receive an email link for 9 days to a daily prayer guide, leading you to a more silent, restful prayer in which you will more deeply abide in God and God in you. Again, if you can’t come Saturday you will be able to watch the re-run after. The link for the retreat is here: https://hopin.com/events/abide-in-me-retreat

Both of these opportunities are wonderful ways to transition from the “penance” focus of Lent to the “growth and transformation” focus of Easter which culminates in Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, and the amazing changes we see in the Apostles who then go out to the ends of the earth as witnesses to all they have seen and heard.

Know that I am praying for each of you in these days.

Christ is Risen indeed!

Thanks for joining me on the journey,
Sr Kathryn

 My friends who join me on the journey, Happy Easter. Christ has risen, and with him you and I have also risen. God exalted Christ who humbled himself even unto death. Not only did he raise Jesus from the dead, his whole plan is to raise up the whole of mankind through him from the death of sin. 

We can be certain that the whole of God’s will, the entirety of God’s plan, his ultimate end toward which everything tends is to establish all things in Christ risen and exalted at his right hand. The picture above is of Christ leading the souls out of limbo after his death. He has burst open the doors of hell, to the consternation of Satan, and has brought joy to the first Adam and Eve and Moses and Elijah and Isaiah and all those who were being held captive waiting for him to free them.

Lent, and retreats, are a time when we look back over our lives. We might experience this captivity in our own experience. We wonder why things happened the way they did, or why things we so wanted didn’t happen. These things might seem to have trapped or imprisoned us. We look at where we are and where we’ve come from. We see the tiniest details of our lives and how they have affected us, and we mourn the great losses which we have borne.

Jesus, in his life and death, submitted himself entirely to the details of his life, trusting in the care of his dear Father, in the wisdom and purpose of his Father. He also mourned, wept, feared, felt deeply the pain of loss. The Father’s one purpose is to establish all things in Christ, and that is why we can ultimately let go of all we try to make happen and surrender to the merciful and magnificent plan which God is unfolding in us day by day, as he establishes us in Christ. We may still mourn and weep, but we believe.

This is such a grace to receive: this vision, this hope, this faith. 
That even in the dark there is light, in the wandering there is purpose, in the fear there is courage,  in the visible there is always the invisible working of grace, in the end always a beginning.

May you have a blessed Easter Season, all of these amazing days that lead up to Pentecost.

Thanks for joining me on the journey,
Sr Kathryn 

Holy Saturday…

A day of quiet and calm. A day of intimacy and hope.

A day when all creation sighed in exhaustion after witnessing the sorrowful and tragic events of Calvary the day before.

A day when the earth trembled as it held the sacred Body of the Savior as it lay in the silent darkness.

A day of waiting….

The liturgy of Holy Saturday, the magnificent Easter Vigil, teaches us the divine art of waiting.

We wait in the dark around the Easter Fire, usually shivering in the early spring evening for the service to begin. We wait as the Paschal candle precedes us into a darkened church and our tiny candles gradually become a sea of lights punctuating the shadows. We wait for everyone to take their place before the lovely Exultet is proclaimed in song. And then finally we wait for the reading of the Gospel of the resurrection as the Liturgy of the Word “takes us by the hand” in the words of Benedict XVI and walks us through the whole trajectory of salvation history. If your parish proclaims all the readings for Holy Saturday Liturgy there will be seven Old Testament readings and one from the Epistles in the New Testament.

As these readings follow upon each other, one after another, I feel that in some way I take my place in the long centuries of creation waiting for redemption as I look through the “scrapbook” of memories and miracles, of suffering and assurance that is the heartbeat of the Liturgy of the Word of the Easter Vigil. Story after story is read from creation through the promise made to Abraham and the miraculous freeing of the Hebrew slaves as they raced across the path made by the Lord for them through the Red Sea, to the prophecies of how God has chosen Israel, making with them a covenant, inviting them to fidelity, through to God sorrowing over his unfaithful people to whom he promises a new heart and a new spirit.

Every baptized person stands in this arc of salvation, this mysterious longing of the Father’s heart for our return to him. We are baptized into Christ’s death and rise with him.

In the Easter Vigil, the readings assure us with the unmistakable echoes of a Father’s heart: “I love you. All of this was for love of you. I have always stood by my covenanted people and I will do so forever. I will stand by you. Even if you walk away. Even if you are weak and wobbly in your love for me, I will love you. You do not need to be afraid.”

And lastly, the community breaks out with joy as we celebrate the Baptisms of those who have waited many months of preparation. I always feel more complete as we welcome them among us, each of us holding them spiritually to our hearts.

If you have never been to an Easter Vigil, someday give yourself that gift. Don’t wait any longer!

Photo Credit: Cathopic, paulcamposraw