Category: Podcast

The Bishop of the Abandoned Tabernacle

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSPLeave a comment

In this podcast, Sr Emily Beata, Carlos Briceno, and I talk about the amazing gift of loving the Eucharist that we learned from the life of St. Manuel González García.

https://stmaryoldtown.libsyn.com/episode-5-what-are-the-sisters-reading-for-the-month-of-september-1

St. Manuel felt called to the priesthood at the age of 12. After his ordination in 1901, he was sent to preach at a church which he found to be unclean and abandoned. There, praying before a Tabernacle covered in dust and cobwebs, with torn altar cloths and oil dripping onto the floor from the sanctuary lamp, he decided to dedicate his life to providing for Jesus’ needs in the Tabernacle. This poor, abandoned Tabernacle taught the young priest more about the Love of Jesus than his years of theological study. It marked his entire life from that moment. He dedicated himself until his death to spreading devotion to the Eucharist, proclaiming these words which he would go on to choose for his epitaph: “Jesus is here! He is here! Do not abandon Him!” This saintly bishop will help you to receive Holy Communion more fervently and to love Jesus more deeply in Eucharistic Adoration. This book will awaken you to a new experience of Our Lord — that you may see, hear, love, and console “Love who is not loved.”

Listening to the Word of God: Will we risk being changed forever? (Luke 12:54-59)

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-4skqk-140ee74

Highlights:

It’s not that the people couldn’t figure out that Jesus was the Messiah, that all the prophesies pointed to him, that he spoke with an authority that even the religious leaders didn’t have. Instead, Jesus called them “hypocrites.” We call someone a hypocrite who knows what is right or true but lives in denial of what they know to be right and true. Jesus was saying to them that just as they could interpret the signs of the earth and sky and forecast the weather, they did understand that he had come from God (so much so that the leaders determined very quickly they needed to kill him). They understood, but they were not willing to acknowledge and to accept he had been sent by God. To accept Jesus as the Messiah, to sit at his feet as Mary, to follow him closely as the Twelve, to be personally transformed by his parables and teachings and invitations to conversion like Zacchaeus would change them forever. This they could not accept.

I don’t believe Jesus spoke these words to the crowd with harshness or anger. The heart of the Master was too great, his love for them and for us is a love that led him eventually to the cross for our salvation. I hear in his words a determined effort to make them see what is right before their eyes. How many times Jesus has to shake us up, remind us of what we know, and then prod us  forward to accept what he is revealing to us that we might allow our life to be changed.

I hope you stay in touch. Sign-up for my newsletter: https://touchingthesunrise.com/newsletter/

 

Pin Pricks and Pet Peeves

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-5rfq4-140edcd

We’ll be addressing the million-and-one pin pricks that we receive and give to others every day. Though these aren’t dramatic or traumatic in themselves, when not attended to they can lead to drama and trauma and to the need for forgiveness in order to restore peace in a relationship.

When minor annoyances are not addressed over time, they can have serious effects on a relationship. The way someone who lives or works close to us chews, or piles things on their desk, or hums while they work, or leaves the newspaper on the table, or insists on giving their opinion rather categorically about just about everything, can make us feel misunderstood, not appreciated, unimportant. And we so often do things that make others feel the same way or worse.

Here are some practices you can develop that will keep those pet peeves from ruining your day and your relationships.

I hope you stay in touch. Sign up for my newsletter here: https://touchingthesunrise.com/newsletter/

 

How to Bear the Fruit of Christ in Your Life

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSPLeave a comment

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-2ekuh-12d92b2

I certainly would never compare my life to that of St. Elizabeth of the Trinity. The memories I have of my childhood are of a little girl who always wanted to be a nun and who was—by my own standards at least—well-behaved. St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, however, had a will of steel and a temper that raged into violent outbursts even at the age of four. She was impossible to control. Family and friends recalled how she would lock herself in a room in a rage when she didn’t get what she wanted, kicking the door in her fury. Only when she had spent all her energies and was exhausted could her mother sit down with her and attempt to teach her gentleness and charity.

Though my childhood personality, at least as I remember it, was pretty calm, I have a distinct memory at twenty-one of raging against God. Just a month after suffering a stroke, and a year after my first profession of vows, I was silently before Jesus in the Eucharist one day in the chapel and from somewhere deep inside came words which surprised me, even shocked me. “I hate you,” I said to him. I had lost dreams and ambitions and physical abilities and, what seemed to me as a young adult, my future. And from somewhere within me, this anger and hatred at the one I felt was to blame came raging out. It took me by surprise, for, after all, I had been “well behaved” up to that point. Day after day, in a struggle that stretched to weeks and months and years, I submitted my heart to the transforming action of the Spirit at work in the Eucharist. Each day after receiving Jesus in Communion I prayed, “Help me, for I see now how poor I am, how in need I am of you, Jesus.”

In her diary, Elizabeth herself recorded how her first encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist was a moment of transformation. In fact, she said that it was decisive for the rest of her life. She began to take on from that moment the gentle self-control that would characterize her as an adult.

“In the depths of her soul, she heard his voice…. [The] Master took possession of her heart so completely that thenceforth her one desire was to give her life to Him” (The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth, pg 2)….

How to keep love alive in violent times

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSPLeave a comment

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-nmzzk-12d3dd5

Lord, remember not only men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they inflicted on us. Remember the fruits we have borne thanks to this suffering: our comradeship, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of this; and when they come to judgment let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.”

~ Written on a piece of wrapping paper found near the body of a dead child in Ravensbruck, the second largest concentration camp for women in the German Reich, where 92,000 women and children died in the Holocaust.

How, O my God, could a woman in this death camp write these words?

How did she find the courage to keep her heart open? To care about the eternal salvation of those at whose hands she suffered and very likely died?

Friends, today we also are living through turbulent and violent times. As we watch the social fabric of our nation disintegrate with mass shootings and watch with horrified anger at what Russia is inflicting on the Ukrainian people and the world, we may find our hearts closing. It could be that our hearts are hardening in fear or anger without our even realizing it. Whatever we are feeling, it is okay. We might feel overwhelmed at the prospect of the future for our children and grandchildren. It is okay. We might feel lost in the midst of everything that is going on around us. It is all okay.

How difficult are you finding it to love and believe in the power of love in these days?

The news cycle overwhelms and incites the fires of anger and fear and hatred in our minds and hearts. It all can feel so righteous, so right. After all, there is a clear bad guy in these incidents, and our hearts immediately take the side of the innocent victims. Today only the bravest can keep lit in their hearts the flame of charity.