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Meditation: Already in Christ’s Kingdom

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

Dear Friends,

Today, the Feast of Christ the King of the Universe, my community and I went to the Cathedral of St Thomas More for Mass. Since it was the first time I had been there after a recent renovation I walked around the church, looking at the new statues and stained glass windows…and there were a lot of them!

On the level of soul, of presence, of awareness of what is most real, I had this sense that when we are in a church, when we are immersed in the divine action of the liturgy, we are in a different world, there, surrounded by the saints and angels, offered by Christ to the Father. In the world, yes, this world, but also in the Kingdom of the Father.

So I simply want to share some antiphons from Morning Prayer today in the Liturgy of the Hours, a reflection from various homilies of Pope Benedict, and a few phrases of the hymns we sang. I’m hoping that somehow they will share with you the profound sense of Christ the King by which we can make sense of life and history, a profound sense that we are already in that kingdom won by him that:

he might present to the immensity of [God’s] majesty
an eternal and universal kingdom,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love and peace. (From the Preface)

A man will come whose Name is the Dayspring; from his throne he will rule over all; he will speak of peace to the nations.

From Pope Benedict:

Jesus of Nazareth is so intrinsically king that the title “King” has actually become His name. By calling ourselves Christians, we label ourselves as followers of the King.

The King is Jesus; in Him God entered humanity and espoused it to Himself. This is the usual form of the divine activity in relation to mankind. God does not have a fixed plan that He must carry out; on the contrary, He has many different ways of finding man and even of turning his wrong ways into right ways.

The feast of Christ the King is therefore not a feast of those who are subjugated, but a feast of those who know that they are in the hands of the one who writes straight on crooked lines.

The Lord will give him power and honor and kingship; all peoples, tribes, and nations will serve him.

In this final Sunday of the liturgical year, the Church invites us to celebrate the Lord Jesus as King of the Universe. She calls us to look to the future, or more properly into the depths, to the ultimate goal of history, which will be the definitive and eternal kingdom of Christ. He was with the Father in the beginning, when the world was created, and he will fully manifest his lordship at the end of time, when he will judge all mankind.

From the hymn Crown Him with Many Crowns:
Crown him the Lord of peace,
Whose pow’r a scepter sways
From pole to pole, that wars may cease,
Absorbed by prayer and praise…

The Cross is the “throne” where he manifested his sublime kingship as God Love: by offering himself in expiation for the sin of the world, he defeated the “ruler of this world” (Jn 12: 31) and established the Kingdom of God once and for all. It is a Kingdom that will be fully revealed at the end of time, after the destruction of every enemy and last of all, death (see 1 Cor 15: 25-26). The Son will then deliver the Kingdom to the Father and God will finally be “everything to everyone” (1 Cor 15: 28).

From the hymn: Rejoice the Lord Is King:
His Kingdom cannot fail,
He rules o’er earth and heav’n.
The keys of death and hell
Are to our Jesus giv’n.

The way to reach this goal is long and admits of no short cuts: indeed, every person must freely accept the truth of God’s love. He is Love and Truth, and neither Love nor Truth are ever imposed: they come knocking at the doors of the heart and the mind and where they can enter they bring peace and joy. This is how God reigns; this is his project of salvation, a “mystery” in the biblical sense of the word: a plan that is gradually revealed in history.

From the Preface for the Feast of Christ the King:

For you anointed your Only Begotten Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, with the oil of gladness
as eternal Priest and King of all creation,
so that, by offering himself on the altar of the Cross
as a spotless sacrifice to bring us peace,
he might accomplish the mysteries of human redemption,
and, making all created things subject to his rule,
he might present to the immensity of your majesty
an eternal and universal kingdom,
a kingdom of holiness and grace,
a kingdom of justice, love and peace.

INTERCESSIONS
Let us pray to Christ the King. He is the firstborn of all creation; all things exist in him.
                              May your kingdom come, O Lord

Christ, you are our savior and our God, our shepherd and our king.
 –  lead your people to life-giving pastures.

Good Shepherd, you laid down your life for your sheep.
 – rule over us, and in your care we shall want for nothing.

Christ, our redeemer, you have been made king over all the earth.
 – restore all creation in yourself.

King of all creation, you came into the world to bear witness to the truth.
 – may all men and women come to acknowledge your primacy in all things.

Christ, our model and master, you have brought us into your kingdom.
 – grant that we may be holy and blameless before you this day.

Being the Child God Made You: Receiving God’s Love

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP1 Comment

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-s4y27-1695f95

Welcome to the first in the series: Being the Child God Made You where we’re exploring how to be the child that Jesus asks us to be. Today we’ll be talking about how to accept our own neediness and also how to receive God’s love, especially when we find it difficult.

Excerpts:

I heard these words in my heart: “You are just as helpless, and lovely, and loved as this tiny baby. She isn’t doing a single thing to ingratiate herself to anyone, other than to just be. Yet she is so endearing as she expresses what she needs and her parents jump to be there at her side, providing what she can’t provide for herself.”…

It takes a huge act of courage to tell someone we need something. We might be refused. We might be rejected. We might be ridiculed for what we can’t do ourselves. This dynamic, familiar to us all, looks one way as kids and another way when we are in the height of our adult years, and still another when we are in our senior years. To admit we can’t do something that is essential to a job we hold is risky. To admit we can no longer accomplish what is required for basic daily living may feel humiliating. To surrender what we really want to happen for ourselves or for another could feel like failure. Only the courageous are willing to be as honest as a baby about what they are undergoing, feeling, and needing….

To connect to more resources for spiritual formation: www.touchingthesunrise.com

Gifts from the Eucharistic Congress

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

Friends,

I wanted to share just a bit of my experience of the Eucharistic Congress held in Indianapolis.

It has been two weeks since I have returned with my sisters from the Eucharistic Congress. Since then I have found myself often on my knees before the Tabernacle in our tiny chapel here in Alexandria, VA. I was one of almost 60,000 adorers in the evening Revival Sessions at the Congress. Here I am one of six, as my sisters and I pray before Jesus in the Eucharist,  the Master who teaches us, heals us, and transforms us by his life-giving love. I think I’m still contemplating how all the magnificence of the liturgies at the Congress is no more amazing than the liturgy and prayer in our little chapel or nearby parish.

Fr. Boniface Hicks in the evening for Reconciliation and Healing.

One of the speakers asked us to think of a song that speaks to the deepest moment of our relationship with Jesus. I immediately thought of Twila Paris’ “How Beautiful.”

How beautiful the hands that served
The wine and the bread and the sons of the earth
How beautiful the feet that walked
The long dusty roads and the hill to the cross
How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful
Is the body of Christ…

Looked around Lucas Oil Stadium filled with priests, religious, moms and dads, kids, grandparents, teens…
all truly falling in love with Jesus again…
all worshiping the Lord of Glory and the King of the Universe…

How this revival sessions and liturgies renewed my love for the Bride of Christ. Jesus is beautiful, and his bride the Church is truly beautiful…

The first Revival Evening Session, where all 50,000 of us silently adored Jesus, giving him the first word…

I’m discovering a new appreciation for our Eucharistic spirit. Blessed James Alberione said that our role before the tabernacle is to be:

“living lamps before Jesus in the Eucharist…
handmaids of honor of the tabernacle and of its Divine Dweller;
angels of the Eucharist who receive and who give;
souls who hunger and thirst for the bread of the Eucharist and the water of his grace;
hearts that share with their Spouse in the Eucharist his desires, his goals, his self-sacrifice for all;
the intimate confidants of Jesus in the Host, listening to every word of life and meditating on it in your heart, as did Mary.”

And in another place Alberione helped us grasp the disappointment of Jesus who so often  waits for someone to be with him in empty churches: “If Jesus is continually present in the Holy Tabernacle, it means we have the duty to visit him. He awaits us. But our God has to always wait in vain for people who are busy with a thousand things and forget the One who is the Supreme Good, the One who said: ‘I will be with you.’ Jesus waits for us.”

I left renewed, refreshed, and with something very deep that had shifted in the way I now look at the world. Jesus is the Lord of history and nothing that happens really is outside of his love and his mercy.

This is the entrance procession of the final liturgy. It took 40 minutes for 2000 deacons, priests and bishops to process in. I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the goodness of the Bride of Christ all around me and prayed for each person there.

Some beautiful things:

Our Founder Blessed James Alberione told us that only in heaven would we know the good we had done, since our apostolate mainly is about scattering the seed, broadcasting the Word as far as we can. We really don’t know who is on the other side reading, listening, watching…being touched and transformed by God’s grace.

Our exhibit.

Well, in this one instance he was wrong. People were constantly coming up to our tables in the exhibit hall or approaching us in the hallways to thank us for the way in which their experience of God’s grace through the Pauline mission had made them who they are today. I met a woman who had read My Friend magazine (I had been the managing editor of the magazine for kids many moons ago). Proudly she introduced her kids to us. A sister had known Sr Augustine while she was in Kenya and at that time still an Anglican. She wanted a selfie just to show Sr Augustine where she was now. Another sister had attended our Baby Jesus parties in Culver City, California until she was twelve and now serves the homeless as a religious sister.

Chris Stefanick gave an inspiring presentation on the last day. He reminded us that we pray too small. God created the universe so ask BIG THINGS from the Almighty!

There were epiphanies all throughout the five days of the Encounter, moments when God was opening up something deeper in me. For example, I was struck by Chris Stefanick who said about sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ: “If God opens a door, you open your mouth, that’s it, you’ll figure it out as you start talking.” They were words I needed to hear, and God gave me an opportunity on the plane heading home to practice by sharing Jesus with a seven-year-old girl. (I’m a writer and not comfortable with thinking and speaking on me feet.) But there were other “epiphanies,” as I call them: how God is changing my prayer and my selfishness. By holding on to these experiences in prayer, the graces of the Congress are being planted deeply within.

Sisters made sure that Jesus was accompanied 24/7 during the entire Congress in the Church across the street from the convention center. All day it was filled with people quietly praying before Jesus.

At the Congress we were immersed in what was most real and most true. As I watched the almost 2000 priests, deacons, and bishops process into the Stadium at the opening of the Concluding Mass, a full 40 minutes, I was deeply moved by goodness and hope, and I prayed for each of them and for the whole church in the US. Sometimes I get weighed down by what is broken and difficult and tragic in our church community, so much so that I can forget what is true, and good, and beautiful. We can hold on to what Bishop Cozzens prayed in the first evening’s Revival Session: “We know that we are broken, and our world is broken, but we know that you have conquered sin and death and have given us yourself as a foretaste of heaven. We know, God, that you are able to accomplish far more than we ask or imagine by the power of the Eucharist.” As you reinsert yourself into “real” life, keep the eyes of your heart on Jesus who “sacrificed himself in order to give us life, who loved us to the end.”

The Revival was meant to be a new Pentecost for the Church in the U.S. We certainly felt that in Indy.

As we were sent out from the Congress in the final liturgy, we were told to GO! GO! GO! “Go” is two-thirds of God’s name. We were sent like the first Christians just to tell our story, and to walk with someone back to Jesus.

There is someone in your life right now whom Jesus longs to call to himself. He wants to spark a relationship with them and bless them with his sacraments. In this Year of Mission, Catholics across the U.S. are saying “yes” to a special form of heart-to-heart accompaniment called the Walk With One initiative. You too can share in this by telling your story to someone who still needs to hear Jesus’ love for them. Take some time to download and understand the simple process for Spirit-led accompaniment.

Here I am wearing the hat of Saint Manuel Gonzalez Garcia, the bishop of the abandoned tabernacle. It is a second-class relic. After praying for the grace to love Jesus as Saint Manuel did, someone was kind enough to take my picture.

These first days and weeks after the Congress are the beginning of the rest of my life and yours as a disciple of Jesus Christ. For all of us, something profound has shifted whether we were there or praying from afar, whether we are aware of the transformation that Jesus is bringing about or waiting to see what will emerge in our life. Now is the time to intentionally listen to how God will now be loving you and sending you to others, for the life of the world.

The Heart of Jesus we don’t yet know….

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP5 Comments

“In your life you have also given me birth. I am grateful to you for that.” Words heard in my heart during the Christmas Octave.

Me? Really? I asked. When? How? You? My Infant King?

Jesus’ words, his gaze, it was piercing, sweet, simple.

Is it true?

Imagine the angels bowing to you in gratitude for the way you extend Jesus’ Incarnation even now.

Name 3 moments in your life when you have loved, given, rescued, been a refuge for someone, or brought light that gave another freedom or relief or joy… Moments when you have shed on someone’s path light, hope, peace, delight….

Only Jesus knows what that gift of yours led to… how Jesus was born in someone’s soul because of the perhaps ever-so-small gesture of presence that you once offered another….

A smile through tears, a flash of hope, a first prayer, conversion, return to the practice of the Faith, a whispered prayer moments before meeting their Maker… We never know, but Jesus remembers how you have made him present to someone he was eager to encounter, how you gave him birth in the world today.

Receive now this gratitude of his Heart: “You also have given me birth on earth. I am grateful to you for that…” Taste the thoughts, movements of your heart, memories, desires… Hold them close to your own heart. Remember that in the heart of Jesus, this is how you are seen, this is how you are loved.

Image: rastellimelina from Cathopic.