Category: sacred waiting

Mid-year pause

On By dpavinatoIn Catholic faith, Daily Prayer, sacred listening, sacred waiting, Spiritual Journey3 Comments

My intention this morning was to sit down and let you know I was going to pause on a blog update for today. It’s been a busy, and at times trying, week. So, on this morning of rain and clouds, I reflected on taking the time to rest in the quiet of a Sunday morning. I don’t know about you, but slowing down often brings about a deeper listening to the stirrings within. Maybe all the other noise stops long enough to listen to the yearnings on a soul level.

As we begin a new month, and enter into the second half of this year, maybe it is a good time to pause and reflect on what is to come. For me, it will be the excitement of returning to Italy in October. In addition, my part-time work is at an exciting threshold space. Effective July 1, we boldly stepped into the world of non-profit ministry and are preparing for the official launch of the new website and offerings in August. All of our discernment and planning is about to bear fruit. As a result, I am finally beginning to feel settled into a balance of semi-retirement and doing work that is fulfilling on a vocational level. Yet, there are so many questions I still hold about my personal vocation and living out God’s call in my life.

This weekend Fr. Paul Carlson, our pastor at Holy Family Church, during his homily, asked us to consider the priority we give to God in our life and how that is reflected in our relationships, choices we make regarding how to spend our time and even decisions we make regarding how we spend our money (ugh, did I really need one more “special” cleaning cloth when I have at least 10!). He invited us to use this summer as a time to consider that relationship, to spend time in prayer with the desire to go deeper in our relationship with God.

As I caught up on some emails, I read Saturday’s Pause+Pray by Franciscan Media (you know by now it’s a favorite daily reflection page for me). In A Matter of Trust, some of these very questions to consider were raised regarding our level of trust and faith. “Am I willing to let go of…?” The more I trust and can respond “yes” to each question, the more deeply I enter into a trusting relationship with God. I begin to get a better understanding of the priority God has in each of those various aspects of my life.

I think they are great questions to ponder this month/this summer. I hope you find them helpful too.

Peace, Deena

Photo from my PicMonkey account/Shuttersplash

I am with you always

On By dpavinatoIn Catholic faith, Every day Catholic, sacred waiting, Spiritual Journey3 Comments

Today is Ascension Sunday in most dioceses. I can only imagine the feelings of the apostles as Jesus reminds them He will be with them always, that He will send the Holy Spirit but then leaves them again. They watched Him suffer and die, He appeared to them after rising from the dead. He taught them and then He was gone again.

I read a reflection this morning, from Conception Abbey, for Ascension Sunday, in which Fr. Martinez shares a connection between the Ascension and the anniversary of his mother’s passing. He shares that he and his siblings came to understand that their mother was always with them if they lived as she had raised them. I think we probably have all had that kind of experience after losing someone we loved.

I will always remember the first time I was going to start planting a garden, the Spring after my dad’s passing. I said “Ok Dad, let’s do this”. I got all my holes dug, tomato plants lined up and knelt down to begin the task of putting them in. I heard, as clearly as if he was standing behind me, “You forgot the MiracleGro!”. I laughed out loud, got up and headed to the garage and proceeded to plant them “correctly” as I watched him do for so many years!

Fr. Martinez concludes that the apostles, and us, as children of faith, do the same if we listen to and follow the ways of Jesus. I am sure the apostles heard Jesus’ voice in their hearts and minds at times after the Ascension, just as clearly as I heard my Dad’s voice in the garden. It is the spirit of our loved ones that lives with us and keeps them alive, always with us, in our hearts. It was with the coming of the Holy Spirit that the disciples were able to go on and be witnesses to Him throughout the world, to be the new body of Christ. The same is true for us.

During the Mass of the Ascension of our Lord, the Easter candle is extinguished. Jesus has ascended to the Father and the Easter season has concluded. The sanctuary light, by the tabernacle in every Catholic Church, reminds us that Jesus remains with us, in the Most Blessed Sacrament. I have seen people walk in a church and genuflect toward the windows, the altar, and a variety of other directions. In newer church designs, it may be that they don’t know where the tabernacle is, so they are just kneeling toward the front which has the altar used for Mass. In other cases, it perhaps reflects that they don’t understand that we are kneeling, in reverence, to our Lord, present to us at all times in the Blessed Sacrament.

If you walk in a church and don’t know where the tabernacle, with Jesus is, just look for the red sanctuary candle. It burns at all times, until after The Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday when Jesus is removed during the holy days of Triduum, until Easter Vigil. My aunt, a Franciscan sister, used to make the sign of the cross as my Mom would drive by a church between my house and my other aunts home, during her visits with us. I thought she was doing so because it was a church. It wasn’t until I understood my faith more and learned that she was doing so because Jesus was present in that church, as He is in all Catholic Churches, in the Blessed Sacrament, in the tabernacle.

My essential oil classmate, Pat Brockman Iannone, shared this beautiful photo from her trip to Jerusalem, that I am using today with her permission, from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. She wasn’t sure if there was a tabernacle by the hanging candle, but I did research to learn that there is an Orthodox tabernacle in the Church at the altar of Golgotha. Her photo reminds me of the older beautiful hanging sanctuary lights that were used in churches in Europe or older, more traditional design churches. Regardless of the style, the sanctuary lights remind us that Jesus said “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

I still have a preference for Ascension on Thursday, old-fashioned I guess. It provides an opportunity to savor the 10 days of waiting for Pentecost. My team at work decided to take this time for a “mini-retreat” and pray a novena between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost with prayers to the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts and minds as we continue discernment and work toward the official launch of Ignatian Ministries as a non-profit and our new website. This week, how might you reflect on the ways that Jesus is always with you and prepare for a deeper union with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday.

Peace, Deena

Photo by Patricia Brockman Iannone. Pat is also an essential oil educator and practitioner. Her website is gingkotreehealing.com. GingkoTree Healing is also on Facebook.

Concluding Prayer of the Divine Praises: May the heart of Jesus, in the Most Blessed Sacrament, be praised, adored, and loved with grateful affection, at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time. Amen.