Author: Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP

An Advent Meditation on the Way God Steps into Our Unfinished Places

Advent is a season of both hurry and stillness. We long to give the right gift, and our spirits yearn for the gift of grace that the season celebrates in the Incarnation of the Son of God.

This Advent Meditation opens up the heart of Christmas, the promise of participating in God’s life through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the way in which this hope offers new horizons for living in difficult times.

Letting Jesus Reach Down

The moment when God chose a quiet heart as His dwelling place

Mary: Scala Caelestis, the “ladder of heaven”

Run to the Eucharist

In a dream or vision, Jesus assured our Founder, Blessed James Alberione, in a time of crisis,

Do not be afraid
I am with you.
From here I will cast light.
Be sorry for sin (or as this is sometimes translated: Live in continual conversion).

In this article, I reflect on the third line of this message, in the context of life, rooted in the heart of God and his love for his people: “From here I will cast light.”

It was clear to Alberione that Jesus was pointing to the Tabernacle to illustrate where FROM HERE was referring to.

From here I will cast light.
From the Eucharist.
From the seed buried in darkness, from which sprouts new life.
From the Eucharist, seed of immortality, where we are assured that death has no more power over us!
From the quiet Center from whom love and light radiate out to the world.
From the silent Word before whom every other word is silenced by this Truth that doesn’t need military might or marketing plans to be effective.
From the Word, the Son hidden in the Father’s embrace, the Child who relies for everything on the providence of his Abba, and present ever on our altars as God-with-us, Emmanuel.

From the One who entrusted himself at the Last Supper to a string of untrustworthy followers until the end of the world…because he knows we need him and our hearts long for him.

From the Bread broken for the life of the world, where the idea of a Utopia is not entertained, but the humble, firm, feet-on-the-ground confidence in the reliability of reality.

From the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus who assures us that the way we are loved and cared for is more beautiful, more amazing, than we could ever imagine.

In the presence of the One who remains with us, among the weeds and the wheat, patient, waiting, loving, responding if and when we turn our gaze on him.

In the presence of the most pure heart of Jesus, who identified himself with his creatures who were mired in mud so thick we could not raise ourselves.

In the presence of the One who did not run away from his Father’s will, and who calls his friends those of us who so often flee this Love.

In the presence of the Lover who still begs for someone to love him wholly, even unto death.

In the school of the One who took up his cross, knowing that most of us would run from ours.

From this place, Jesus, the Lover of us all, casts light into the shadows of our souls and the confusion and darkness in the world.

Scrolling through Substack, I came across this prayer: “Shatter me, Lord. For that’s where I know you best.” (W. Tyler Allen) That’s where I know you as Love, triumphant Love. When I am in a moment of crisis, confusion, or chaos, I cry out from the bottom of my heart, that it is here that I find you, in broken dreams and shattered expectations, that let me climb Calvary and shelter there in the wound in your side.

As St. Claude de Colombiere preached:

Yes, Christians, everything that happens to us in this life happens by the order or permission of a God who always has loved us, and who loves us still more than we love ourselves. He regards us as his creatures, as his children, as his heirs, as his reflections. The benefits that we have received from him have surpassed all our desires; they surpass even our imaginings, and those [benefits] that we receive from him every day are without measure and without number. He has drawn us out of the void, and he is constantly dedicated to save our being and life. He has washed us in the blood of his own Son, and he feeds us today with the flesh of his only Son. Could a heart so tender and so loving resolve to do us the slightest evil; could it even allow that it be done to us, being able to stop it, as he can?

The light I need is this: to know that I am loved by the Father with the same love he has for his own Son.

The light I need is this: to know that even in the confusing bits of my life, of which there are many, Jesus Master is still loving and living and saving and teaching and remolding and remaking and renewing and resurrecting me. I may resist and run from his hands, but I can never escape his Heart.

The light I need is this: to know that taking up the cross is not loss, but gain.

The light I need is this: to know that when I cannot see the way forward, he grabs my hand and carries me into the future.

The light I need is this: to know that I don’t need to have it all figured out and fixed and analyzed. That unknowing and being undone is the way he remakes the one he loves.

The light I need is this: to trust in the glory of the sunset years, making myself both eucharist and lover in Jesus’ hands, for the sake of the world.

We need the light of Jesus in the Eucharist because we get caught in what we see today, as if that is all there is. The present moment can, like a hurricane, whip into fury our thoughts and feelings and imagination. Jesus is the calm in the storm who urges us: Come. From HERE I will cast light.

These days I have been sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament before Mass, listening to the Surrender Novena, soaking in the words of Jesus to another holy person, Fr. Dolindo.

“Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying? Leave the care of your affairs to me and everything will be peaceful. I say to you in truth that every act of true, blind, complete surrender to me produces the effect that you desire and resolves all difficult situations.

…Pray as I taught you in the Our Father: “Hallowed be thy Name,” that is, be glorified in my need. “Thy kingdom come,” that is, let all that is in us and in the world be in accord with your kingdom. “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven,” that is, in our need, decide as you see fit for our temporal and eternal life. If you say to me truly: “Thy will be done,” which is the same as saying: “You take care of it,” I will intervene with all my omnipotence, and I will resolve the most difficult situations.

…And when I must lead you on a path different from the one you see, I will prepare you; I will carry you in my arms; I will let you find yourself, like children who have fallen asleep in their mother’s arms, on the other bank of the river. What troubles you and hurts you immensely are your reason, your thoughts and worry, and your desire at all costs to deal with what afflicts you.

…Close your eyes and let yourself be carried away on the flowing current of my grace; close your eyes and do not think of the present, turning your thoughts away from the future just as you would from temptation. Repose in me, believing in my goodness, and I promise you by my love that if you say, “You take care of it,” I will take care of it all; I will console you, liberate you and guide you.”

What new insights into the Eucharist has this article introduced you to?

Is there a place in your life where you need to experience God’s love and compassion? Do you treat yourself with love and compassion in that area of your life?

What would be different if you prayed the Surrender Novena?

There are four lines—we could call them “words”—that are on the walls of every Pauline chapel in the world. They surround the Tabernacle. They are, for me, the roadmap to contentment no matter what life throws our way.

By the time I was 28 years old, I had read them, while I was in the chapel to pray, at least…let me get out a calculator…at a minimum 10,000 times. Every day, at least twice a day, for the thirteen years I had been in the community of the Daughters of St Paul….

These words are one of the first things you see after you enter the Daughters of St Paul. They become a path into the charism as you learn more about the heart of James Alberione to whom Jesus spoke these words in a moment of crisis. They become, over the years, a key to understanding your own life as it unfolds.

Do not fear.
I am with you.
From here I will cast light.
Be sorry for sin (this phrase is also translated: Live in continual conversion).

Breaking these down into “words”:

• Fear
• I AM
• Here
• Continual

A seed is planted

It was just a few short years after my perpetual profession. I was driving to the hospital a sister, an elder sister of the Carini family, who had been a Salesian all her life. This woman religious had been a Salesian provincial superior simultaneously with Sr. Mary Celeste Carini, who had been the provincial superior of the Daughters of St. Paul (and, actually, the first vocation from the United States).

I remember at that time my heart was fragile as it tried to make sense of community dynamics I felt unprepared to navigate. As we crossed Route 9 in Brookline on the way to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital to visit Sr. Mary Celeste, she said words I’ll never forget: “Every day of my life has been more beautiful than the one before.”

I almost choked.

I was silent.

What?  I wanted to cry out! How can you say that, after 60 years of religious life!

Unfortunately for me, I said nothing, and missed the opportunity to learn something more of her story and wisdom. I am grateful, however, that I tucked that piece of wisdom from one of my older sisters into my heart, planted it there, so to speak, where it worked its way deep into the soil, sprouting roots. I returned again and again over the years to sit beside the tiny seedling as it offered new shoots and abundant blossoms.

I was on a quest

You see, I was, in my late twenties, on a quest. I borrowed Butler’s 4 Volume Lives of the Saints from the library, and at night read through the story of every saint who had been a religious. It took me several years.

What did I learn? Every one of them suffered something in their community at the hands of some member—every one without exception.

We can think of John of the Cross, imprisoned by his brothers and yet the writer of Dark Night of the Soul and Ascent to Mount Carmel, and for centuries now the premier guide to contemplative prayer and the journey to holiness.

Or Saint Thérèse Couderc, foundress of the Cenacle Sisters, who was removed from her position as Foundress and Superior, falsely accused of mismanaging funds, sent far away from the motherhouse, and set to doing, basically, yard work and taking care of other hidden responsibilities. What prompted this? A priest decided he was in charge and put a newly received novice as responsible for the community (since she had money-connections). Thérèse Couderc had an understanding of life with God, which she sums up in a phrase: “the surrendered soul has found paradise on earth since she enjoys that sweet peace which is part of the happiness of the elect. …To surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self, to be no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God.” This story is not that different from that of Saint Jeanne Jugan, foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and Blessed Marie Ann Blondin, foundress of the Sisters of Saint Anne….and others.

Actually, we could say, in religious life there seems to be quite a lot to “fear.” Religious communities are not immune to the misunderstandings, agendas, jealousies, and injustices that can plague individuals in any relationship or group. After all, we too are still very much on the way, as yet unable to see with the eyes of Christ and to live with the open-hearted love of Christ that gives itself away without expectation of return. We are also very much trying to live, as Saint Paul teaches us, in continual conversion.

So, when Jesus is saying to me as a Daughter of St. Paul, “Do not fear,” is he saying, “Don’t feel afraid?” “Have no fear?” “Be strong!”

I think Jesus is saying that no matter what happens, nothing and no one can separate me from his love for me and his plan for me to be part of his mission for the salvation of the world.

After watching moms in our Alexandria Pauline Book Center, I like to think of this word “fear” in the context of a little child. When a child is frightened by something, it runs to its mother, stretches her little arms around her mother’s leg and buries her face, hiding herself, she naively believes, from all that frightens her. And the mother doesn’t say, “Be strong. Why are you afraid? I’m so ashamed of you!” Instead, her heart melts that her child trusts her mother to protect and guide her through the scary moments that are a part of growing up. She reaches down to be with her child. She permits her those frightened feelings while at the same letting her experience security and comfort in her presence.

“Sacrifice was never a matter of surprise”

Thinking of “childhood,” I am reminded of these words of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, who describes her early months and years in Carmel in this way:

I found the religious life just what I expected, and sacrifice was never a matter of surprise. Yet you know well that from the beginning my way was strewn with thorns rather than with roses.

In the first place, my soul had for its daily food the bread of spiritual dryness. Then, too, dear Mother, Our Lord allowed you, unconsciously, to treat me very severely. You found fault with me whenever you met me. …

On the rare occasions when I spent an hour with you for spiritual direction, you seemed to be scolding me nearly all the time, and what pained me most of all was that I did not see how to correct my faults: for instance, my slow ways and want of thoroughness in my duties, faults which you were careful to point out.

One day it occurred to me that you would certainly prefer me to spend my free time in work instead of in prayer, as was my custom; so I plied my needle industriously without even raising my eyes. No one ever knew of this, as I wished to be faithful to Our Lord and do things solely for Him to see.

… And yet, dear Mother, how grateful I am to you for giving me such a sound and valuable training. It was an inestimable grace. What should I have become, if, as the world outside believed, I had been but the pet of the Community? Perhaps, instead of seeing Our Lord in the person of my superiors, I should only have considered the creature, and my heart, which had been so carefully guarded in the world, would have been ensnared by human affection in the cloister. Happily, your motherly prudence saved me from such a disaster.

And not only in this matter, but in other and more bitter trials, I can truly say that Suffering opened her arms to me from the first, and I took her to my heart” (Story of a Soul, Chapter VII)

Today I am in my early sixties, and much to my surprise, my heart resonates with the contentment of those words shared with me so many years ago by a woman religious faithful to her vocation: “Every day my life has become more beautiful!” What I couldn’t understand, or hardly believe, forty years ago, I know now, so gratefully, to be true.

I’m no John of the Cross, Marie Anne Blondel, or Saint Thérèse. But my heart has quaked many times as I’ve navigated, while living among my sisters, what it is to entrust myself to them and to God, even in moments of fear, loss, and pain. And I haven’t always done it well. Maybe it is because Saint Paul himself was no stranger to these circumstances—he paints them in broad strokes across his letters in the New Testament—that we his Daughters still seek together to live in reconciliation, even as the earth below us seems sometimes to quake, returning again and again to mercy and to love.

All Sinners Welcome!

It is true that Saint Paul defined charity as patient and kind and not puffed up. It isn’t ambitious and doesn’t seek its own benefit. Perhaps these words brought forward a memory of his own, the days when he violently attacked the followers of the Way—without patience or kindness, in arrogance and ambition and for his own benefit. He continues, then, sharing what deeply had come to fill his life as both giver of charity and recipient of the charity of others: Charity keeps no record of wrongs. Charity bears all things. It believes all things. It hopes all things. It endures all things… (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

I am reminded of the confessional in the old Cistercian monastery founded in Otterburg in the early 1160s which proclaims in a metal sign above the door: “All Sinners Welcome!” That is, if you’re a sinner, “You’re one of us – you belong!”

Sinners: we could define sinners as masterpieces that aren’t yet finished. Saints still in the making. Those who fall and rise and fall and rise. Those still unaware, weak of will, tepid in love. That is, all of us in one way or another. John of the Cross used to say that we act as sandpaper upon each other. We receive a spiritual refinement through what annoys us in others. Or Mother Thecla Merlo, our co-foundress, who reminded us that we are like pots and pans on a wagon. As the cart moves along we bump and bruise, scrape and, every now and then, break one another. I have been bumped and bruised and have bumped and bruised others. And I have forgiven and been forgiven, and tasted the honey of reconciliation (Colossians 3:13).

I didn’t enter religious life expecting a playground, although I was most certainly naïve about what life in a convent would be like. Even those who are engaged, discover after a few years (or months) of married life it isn’t always fair. It isn’t always what you dreamed of. It certainly isn’t easy. That the only way to make it work is for each to give 100%. And those who set out to do something valuable for the world in a chosen field or career path know that perseverance takes blood, sweat, and tears, amid lots of work, setbacks, and occasional breakthroughs.

But, as a person perseveres, they discover it is beautiful.

I promise you, as the years go by and you reap the fruits of the harvest, it will be very beautiful.

This is the first of what will be four articles on the words that are Jesus’ roadmap to contentment.

Prompts to take to prayer and share with others:

• How do you react when you hear the words: “In my experience, life has been more beautiful every day.” When you hold these words, what memories and images and feelings emerge? Can you bring these to Jesus with gentle compassion? What does this part of your life need from you right now?
• Have you ever experienced a time of crisis that ended up being an unexpected gift?
• Are you still suffering the burden of loss and pain in relationships or life circumstances? In what ways can you see yourself in the stories in this article?
• Talk to the Lord about what you most desire.