Holy Week – Benedictine Monastery

Mature Love

Well, it has been a long term and now the Easter holidays with the children begins. Given the public holidays, this means, for many, plenty of time together as a family. This can be a time of real joy and contentment. It can also be a time of challenge and difficulty. Our greatest joys are in relationship with people…our greatest challenges are living with other people. And don’t children just know how to push our buttons at times. We can react badly to their behaviour and then feel like we have been children ourselves or we can respond and model to them the way we would like them to grow.

Through the Gospels we see Jesus respond to a number of difficult people. Especially in the story of his Passion and Death, we see him treat people with respect, even when they are plotting to kill him, even when they are attacking him and spreading lies. This doesn’t mean he ‘just takes it’ – he is not a wimp. He never puts himself down and is not afraid of straight-talking. While treating people with respect, he is in control of himself and he serves with love, even when rejected. At heart, he can do this because he knows he is loved by God his Father – that is the ground on which he walks. We, too, can draw our strength from that love. Over these holidays, when things get a little challenging, take a few moments and acknowledge to yourself that God loves you and ask for wisdom and grace in that situation.

Loving Father, as we have time together with our families over these holidays send us you Spirit of love and peace. May we find joy in each other and love as Jesus’ loved us. We ask this in his name confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

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