Sr Kym Harris – Page 16 – Benedictine Monastery

July 16, 2020

When things go wrong

‘When things go wrong…’

Everyone reading this has things ‘going wrong’ in their life at this point in time. Think of them, from the small and silly to the serious and distressing. If there isn’t anything serious in your life at the moment there will be in the life of someone dear to you. We react or respond to these things in a variety of ways. We accept or swear, we fight against or passively accept, we try to learn from the situation or to be resilient, we give up or we ignore our pain. And we can react in a variety of ways in the same situation. But how do we see God in these situations?

In the worst of situations, we ask ourselves, ‘Where is God in this mess?’ and all too often we fail to find an answer. But maybe the question is the wrong one. What we could ask is ‘How do I find God in this?’ This shifts our focus: God is not the outsider manipulating the situation, but immersed with me in it. One of the challenges we have as Christians is that no matter how good we are, God rarely takes tough situations away from us. We have to go through them, often feeling bruised and helpless. But God wants to be with us in our lives, in the mess, muddle and pain. We have to struggle – not only with the situation but also it seems with God. We have to die to so many things for life to emerge.

This Friday, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. While the cross was always central to our faith, the image of Jesus on a crucifix did not emerge for centuries: it was too raw, too humiliating, not at all like the way people wanted God to act. Over this coming week, we could look again at the things ‘going wrong’ in our lives, and try to see just how God is with us in our struggle.

Loving God, help me to realise just how scandalous Jesus’ death was and then let me know how you can be with me in the difficult and times of my life. I ask this in Jesus’ name, confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020

Mary, mother of Jesus and our mother

Mary, mother of Jesus and our mother.

This Wednesday our church celebrates Mary the mother of Jesus in the Feast of the Assumption. Strange name that but it not about making an assumption in a situation we don’t understand. Though it could look like that at first. In Old English ‘assume’ could mean being taken into so on this feast, we celebrate Mary being taken into to be with Jesus. There, with him, she cares for us. She knows how to truly care for us for in so many ways she faced and lived gracefully so many of the challenges of human life.

A quick glance at her life shows us that she gave birth to her son in poverty – many have done that. She fled as a refugee – many have done that. She lived in a village with petty gossip – many have done that. She wondered what her son was doing with his life – many have done that. She watched him die a horrible death – many have done that. Through all the events of her life, both good and bad, she believed that God’s love was at work. She lived by faith, as we are called to do. Whatever challenges and sufferings came her way, even if she didn’t understand, she believed that God’s love could bring goodness and holiness out of the situation.

Because she was faithful to God in all these situations, we feel that she understands the difficulties of our lives and that she cares for us as she cared for her son, Jesus. In her all-embracing motherly love, we can see the love of God for us. Not only is she a model of faith, she comes close to us and shepherds us with the love of God.

Loving God, we praise and thank you for giving us such a model of faith in Mary, the mother of Jesus. As Mary was guided by your Spirit may she in turn give us your wisdom and love, especially in the dark days of suffering and confusion. We ask this in Jesus name, confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020

Father to Jesus

Yesterday I was at the beach with my nieces and nephews who were doing ‘Nippers’. Somehow, the older ones had set up my shade tent just to the side of the littlies group! Not the best place for reading but a good place to spot what the parents, especially the fathers, were up to: they were watching. Three fathers simply standing there, occasionally joining in when needed, quietly watching their kids run, jump and tumble. So simple and yet so important.

This week we celebrate the Feast of St Joseph, foster father of Jesus. I have a great devotion to St Joseph but ask me what he did that was dramatic and special and I’d have to say, not much. Not much that the world would take notice of. But any art works of him show him doing the simple ordinary things that parents do every day: watching over the children while they play, teaching them how to do things around the house, just being there giving a cuddle. Things that you parents do every day, day in a day out.

This feast celebrates not just St Joseph but the sacredness of ordinary parenting, the day to day works that can sometimes seem like drudgery but which the love of a parent makes holy and special. Take time to savour the beauty of your role, to appreciate the joy and responsibility you have in fostering life and love in your children. Yes, the times of challenge will be there and may, at times, feel like swamping you – that is part of the passion of parenting. All the more reason to hold on to and appreciate the simple times of being together.

Loving Father, thank you for my child/ren and the role that I have in their lives. May I give myself joyfully and lovingly to them and may your wise Spirit guide me when I feel overwhelmed by the challenge. I ask this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020

Made for Glory

Flick down a Facebook feed or through a magazine in a waiting room and you will come across at least one or two pieces on ‘self-improvement’: how to lose weight, get great hair or find a better lover. You are also likely to find an article or two on a ‘celebrity’, someone who had achieved fame motor-racing, novel-writing or even just by being outrageous. These writings reveal something very deep about us: we want glory and we want to give glory to others…and that is a good thing.

On Monday of this week, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration. ‘The what?’, I hear some of you saying. This is the event, when for a few moments, Jesus revealed his glory to three of his disciples, Peter, James and John. The glory of heaven radiated out of the body of Jesus and the disciples were gob smacked. Overcome at what they saw, they wanted in. They wanted to stay. Of course, it didn’t happen that way. The glory passed and they went down the mountain to lives as ordinary as before…but they were changed. Writing years later, St Peter described what had happened and showed how it changed him and directed his life.

Our desire for glory can direct our lives as well. Sometimes our passions and desires can seem silly, or dangerous or unimportant but if we sift beneath the surface, they can reveal hidden depths to our hearts. Take the desire to be admired. We are made for this. It is just that it gets side-tracked onto things like ‘great hair’ or ‘summer body’. The God who created us and continues to create us, wants his glory to flow through us. He desires to admire us, just as he did Jesus on the mountain. For this to happen, we have to begin by letting ourselves be in God’s presence and naming ourselves as ‘Beloved of God’. And then allowing that to direct our lives.

Loving Father, you have made me for glory. As I look to the life of Jesus, may the glory that shone in him, radiant in my live in the way I love those around me. I ask this in his name, confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020July 19, 2020

Lent or Owned

Lent or Owned?

Have you noticed how many people don’t take care of other people’s property as well as they do their own? Whether it is public property or that of a friend’s, what is ‘lent’ is often not treated well.

Last week, we began the Church’s season of Lent. Yes, this Lent has a different meaning but ‘lending’ and ‘owning’ can be a way into the challenge of Lent. We often lead our lives as though we don’t really own them, as though they have been lent to us. We allow fashion, the prejudices of others, what everyone else is doing to dictate our lives rather than listen to the deepest needs of our hearts. If we find ourselves indulging in excessive use of food, alcohol or gambling, in abuse of drugs, mindless TV or internet surfing, we need to seriously ask ourselves: what desires, what needs of the heart are we trying to dull? It is as though we are trashing our own lives, rather than living them to the full. This Lent, take time to reflect on who God has made you to be, so that you are no longer lent but rather come to own your own self, precious in the eyes of God.

Loving God, each year you invite us to reflect on the quality of our lives. Give us the wisdom of your Spirit that we may know and follow the way that leads to fullness of life. We ask this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020July 16, 2020

How do you love me

How do you love me? Let me count the ways.

How many of ways in which you love your child/ren would they consider as loving? Buying ice-cream on the way home from school, yes; making them eat their vegetables, no. Taking them to Dreamworld, yes; taking them to the dentist, no. Letting them do something they really want, yes; setting boundaries on their screen time, NO. Yet you as a parent know that many of the things they experience as negative are amongst some of the most loving things you do for them.

This coming week, the Church has the Feast of the Sacred Heart, in which we celebrate the Love of God towards us. If you look at the traditional picture used for this Feast, you see Jesus pointing to his Heart on fire, burning up with love for us. You also see thorns twisted tight around it, symbolising the suffering he went through in his Death and Resurrection. That is, burning, bright, warming love is mixed with harsh pain.

Recognising the many ways in which God loves us can be a challenge: we do not see God and more often than not only discover God’s love in reflection. As God’s relationship with each of us is unique, it will be different for each person. Some of the simplest things can be signs of his love. Silly as it may sound, I find a warm bed on a cold wet morning speaks to me of God’s love, as does sunrise on the Capricorn Coast. In the love of friends, I feel God’s care. But I also know God’s love in tough times when I keep going when I don’t want to and, importantly, when I say or do the right thing when I am confused and challenged beyond myself. On this coming Feast, I will take the time to count the ways in which God loves me. And I expect that once I start, I will discover ways I had not expected.

Loving God, let me count the ways in which you love me. As I discover the simple and the quirky signs of your love, may I be a sign of your love to my family. I ask this in Jesus’ name, confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020July 16, 2020

Abundance

Abundance.

We tend to judge things not as they are but as we are. Our feelings, our prejudices, even our health can be like coloured glasses that distort how we view life. Most people reading this live most of the time in an abundance that most people in our world can only dream of. Yet do we walk around contented, full of joy at our abundant good luck? I’ll leave you to answer that question.

In the Gospel, Jesus always works with abundance. He turns gallons of water into wine at the Wedding Feast and he multiplies a few scraps of bread into enough for five thousand. Even more amazingly, he makes his agonising death into the sign of his overflowing, relentless love.

This coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Our Lord. On this day, we strive to appreciate the abundance that we receive when we come to Communion. Yes, in the form of this little piece of bread, this little sip of wine we believe that Jesus comes to us in all his fullness, with all his love. We may well find Mass boring, because ritual often is – that is until you ‘get it’ and one only gets it by moving out of our comfort zone and trying to appreciate the meaning of the words and actions. They are so rich; we struggle to hold them with our minds and hearts. Too much, even though it feels like too little.

We can live abundant lives – no matter the circumstances. We can begin by recognising just what we are given each and every day: the beauty of our children, the countryside in which we live, the food we have. As we recognise, so we praise and when we praise our minds and hearts widen making them even more capable of living abundant lives.

Loving Jesus, let me appreciate the abundance in which I live. As I appreciate may I give generously in love, as you have given to me. I ask this in your name, confident that God will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020

Passion with the Spirit

What makes us change, change for good, that is? Passion. People change when they love someone or something intensely. Tim Winton, the novelist recounted his transformation from virtual redneck to ardent conservationist. It surprised many, including himself but he simply couldn’t let his beloved coastline of Western Australia be trashed for the sake of one dubious resort. The threatened area is now World Heritage. Winton has made friends and powerful enemies but he is at peace with himself.

This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, remembering the transformation that came over Jesus’ fearful cowering disciples when the Holy Spirit changed them into people ready to proclaim to the world the love of God they had experienced in Jesus. On this feast we also often celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation when we pray that the Holy Spirit might come upon those receiving the Sacrament, filling them with life, love and passion. As parents and caregivers, we have the responsibility not only to pray for these children but to foster in them the passions that will give them rich and meaningful lives. God’s Spirit desires to unite with our spirit giving us the wisdom, energy, patience and fortitude to foster what we most deeply love. Too much of our society advises us to tone down, to conform to some sanitised ideal. On this feast we are encouraged to do the opposite: to claim the passion that is in our hearts and to ask God’s Spirit to fan it into a flame that we may burn brightly with love.

Loving God, send your Spirit into the hearts of our children. May we guide their minds and hearts to discern what they truly love, to work with passion for its fulfilment and to have joy as they grow into your life and love. We ask this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear us.

July 16, 2020July 16, 2020

We Remember

We are coming into the serious end of Lent, when the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection will be retold and even re-enacted in our churches and our schools. This is a good time to pause and wonder why we do this. As one little boy said, when preparation for the school’s ‘Passion Play’ began, “But we did that one last year!”

We remember not because we have forgotten the story, but rather to remind ourselves that this story of salvation is to have an impact on our lives and we are different people to who we were last year. Ask yourself how you have changed. What have you learnt? What do you need to learn? In the Gospel, we hear stories that, if we allow them, will give light to our hearts and show us how to relate to God.

The Passion Story focuses not so much on Jesus’ suffering, as on the reaction of people to Jesus. As we experience the Passion Story in the coming weeks, we should ask ourselves who do we relate to: the faithful women?, the frightened apostles?, cowardly Peter?, the man forced to carry Jesus’ cross? Most likely we relate to different ones in the different aspects of our lives. As you ‘recognise’ yourself in this year’s remembering, ask Jesus for the wisdom to enter more deeply into the mystery of God’s love in your life.

Loving God, change is such a part of our lives and at times we struggle to make sense of ourselves. As we hear of Jesus’ love through suffering and death, may we learn how to make love the cornerstone of our lives. We ask this in his name confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

July 16, 2020July 16, 2020

The Golden Rule

Lent is coming, as you are probably aware from the requests regarding Pancake Tuesday next week. By now, the New Year has well passed, and quite likely so have your New Year’s Resolutions. Lucky for you the Church offers us Lent as a time of renewal. Many of you would remember the ‘older’ practices that we took up, for example giving up something nice. I would like to suggest something a little different.

Recently in the Gospel we heard Jesus recommending to us all the Golden Rule: do to others as you would like them to treat you. What a good practice for Lent…if we get it right. Too often we can interpret this as being nice to people. I think this is a mistake and we make this because we give little thought to how we really want other people to treat us. Oh yes, we would like them to be kind, to be generous, to be easy on us. But is that all we want?

We all labour under certain failings, even sins, that we wish we could face and deal with. Maybe it is not will power that we lack but rather a realistic programme for dealing with them. We could find we watch too much media, eat, drink, smoke too much. We could be getting angry with our children too readily. You know your weaknesses as I know mine. Now sit down, take a little time with yourself and imagine how you would like a loving person to treat you with regards to these failings. What would a truly caring person recommend to you? Be prepared to be surprised. We could well find that the cause of our failings comes from something different, a pain within ourselves that needs to be lovingly dealt with. When we discover how to offer ourselves compassion, we will find we have compassion for others.

Loving Jesus, in this coming time of Lent, let me face the failings that undermine the happiness of my life and make me difficult for other people. Give me your wise Spirit to teach me with a deep and genuine love. I ask this in your name confident that you will hear me.

Sr Kym Harris osb