Tag: Pentecost 2023

Why we do what we do

On By dpavinatoIn Catholic faith, Doing what we love, Life in the Spirit, Spiritual Journey, UncategorizedLeave a comment

This morning, reading Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, I reflected on the question she and her team were asked by a facilitator brought in to conduct an offsite session to assess where they are and where they want to be, as writers for the Sunday Paper. They were asked “Why do you do this?” “To what end?”. Great questions for all of us. Why do we do what we do?

Many of you have shared in response to my posts from Maria that you started following her after I have shared her articles or that you admire her too. We post sunsets and flowers and graduation pictures. I have friends on “vacations”- one on a long trip to Israel visiting many of the holy sites I long to visit, others now returning from an incentive cruise to Norway as a result of great success with their stamp & paper crafting businesses and recently a group that traveled to Italy with my friend and author, Judith Valente, visiting lesser known Benedictine spiritual sites. I have enjoyed each and every picture they have shared from their journeys. I think we share those moments with each other to make a connection, to have companions for those special moments or to impart some information that we found helpful.

We recommend recipes and great restaurants because we want others to have the wonderful experience we had. We share the ordinary moments that make us smile, like my cats in their new cardboard box, which they won’t let me breakdown yet, or a friend who takes his dogs to establishments in Florida for lunch or refreshment and afternoon music. Are these things going to change the world? No, but they bring moments of happiness as we share them and as our friends participate, albeit virtually, in those moments with us. My morning posts of a coffee cup or an inspirational quote are not going to change your life, that’s for sure, but I hope it gives each of us a minute to pause and think about something pleasant in the world.

I share my love for essential oils, or a new system I have found to reduce pain and promote healing and restoration, because I want others to experience the same benefits I have found. Whether it’s health and well-being, kitchen items or jewelry, I believe that my friends are sharing these items because it brings them some delight or comfort. Maybe that’s what small communities used to be like. People set up their small businesses because they knew it was a trade they were good at and wanted to help others.

I am looking forward to reading a new book I found out about this week from author Kate Bowler, written by her former Yale professor Miroslav Volf, Life Worth Living; A Guide to What Matters Most. To be a complete fan girl of Maria Shriver today, she wrote opening comments to the book regarding her new venture, Open Field, and she said “We are all seeking the same things. We’re all seeking dignity. We’re all seeking joy….seeking to be seen, to be safe….We can all give each other these (spiritual) gifts if we share what we know-what has lifted us up and moved us forward.” Her new venture, Open Field, with Penguin Books is the publisher of this book. My initial sense of the book so far is that it asks all the Questions – questions that challenge us, inspire us to define what’s really important, face the limiting beliefs that prevent us from pursuing it and then start making the changes to get there.

Hopefully we do the work we do, paid or volunteer, because it brings us joy and fulfillment. At some point we must have reflected that it would be work we would enjoy or it is a gift or talent that we have. If it no longer does that, perhaps it’s a good time to ask why not and how we could change that activity to become more meaningful again. Or maybe it’s an opportunity to consider doing something new. It may be a stretch to think about a new venture. My transition from corporate life to ministry work has invited me to use a prayerful, discerning heart and mind over a rational, pragmatic one. It isn’t always easy to change but it may make a difference in each and every day of your life and potentially to the lives of those you impact on a daily basis.

Today is the Solemnity of Pentecost. We celebrate the birth of the Church with Mary and the Apostles but that continues to come alive each day in us. Ronald Rolheiser’s reflection in Give Us This Day for today, May 28, was poignant. He said “We are always dying in some ways, though never dead. We are always alive with new life. But we need to grieve what’s dead, adjust to the new, and let the old ascend. If we do this, Pentecost will happen in our lives. We will receive a new spirit for the life that we are, in fact, living.” Then he made a statement that perhaps is the answer I have been seeking for many years. He said that the Holy Spirit brings about the “dissatisfaction and restlessness” that we feel until our lives, and the spirit by which we are living them, is integrated and aligned. To that I say, Come Holy Spirit! Let us continue to pray for the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear or Respect of the Lord.

Peace be with you, Deena

Image created with PicMonkey

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.