Join us today for a live broadcast of In Good Faith, a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie.

On Air: Today from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central Time (your time zone)

Where: www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE

Guest: Coach Cathy Rush

Cathy Rush was the head women’s basketball coach at Immaculata College (now University) from 1970-1977. She led Immaculata to three consecutive AIAW national titles from 1972-1974. Coach Rush also led the 1975 U.S. Women’s basketball team at the Pan American games to a gold medal finish. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on April 7, 2008. She was inducted into the women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. She is the founder and president of Future Stars Camps.

Be sure to check out The Mighty Macs movie featuring Cathy and the Immaculata IHM Sisters!

Details: The broadcast is free and open to the public. You can tune in from any place you have internet access. We also have a chat room for you to use during the broadcast in order to connect with one another and with us. You can also submit your questions ahead of time by using the comment box below.

If new to A Nun’s Life podcasts, the podcasts are basically like tuning into a radio program, but instead of broadcasting it on the airwaves, we broadcast it on our website. All you have to do is visit our website and make sure the volume on your computer is up.

More information including upcoming shows and recordings of past episodes can be found at the In Good Faith program web page.

What questions or topics would you like Coach Rush and the nuns to discuss?

My spiritual exercise for this morning was to imagine a perfect me in a perfect world.

It was great! No more struggles or stress or frustration. No more weighing decisions and wondering if I should do one thing instead of another. No more need to consider if I should cultivate more virtues in my life. I would already know the answers! I would already know what to do! I would already be perfectly virtuous! I was giddy at the prospect of perfection.

Then doubts began to creep in. If everything was perfect, including me, what kind of life would that be? I’d never experience the joy and challenge of learning. I might never be surprised again. What would happen to the thrill of adventure?

When it comes right down to it, if I had a choice, I would choose an imperfect me in an imperfect world. Ok, granted I don’t have that choice. I suppose I could be bummed out that no matter how hard I try in this life, I’m not going to be perfect. The world isn’t going to be perfect. Yet scripture tells me that I’m a part of God’s good creation. That even in the midst of imperfection, humanity and the rest of creation is pleasing to God.

So my prayer today is to embrace my God-given imperfection – to bring creativity to situations where frustration might otherwise set in, to cherish eccentricities in myself and others, and to be okay with striving but not yet arriving.

What are your thoughts about imperfection? Feel free to type them in the comment box below (and no need to worry if your spelling isn’t perfect

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Join A Nun’s Life Community for a live podcast and chat every weekday at 6 p.m. CT
(find your time zone) at aNunsLife.org/live

Join us today for a live broadcast of In Good Faith, a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie.

On Air: Today from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central Time (your time zone)

Where: www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE

Guest: Sister Pat Daly, OP

Sister Patricia Daly, O.P. is a Dominican Sister of Caldwell , NJ and has worked in Corporate Responsibility and Socially Responsible Investing for over 25 years. She serves as the Executive Director of the Tri-State Coaltion for Responsible Investment, an organization of 40 Roman Catholic Dioceses and Congregations of Women and Men in the NY metropolitan area. Pat represents these institutional investors to the national Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility: 275 Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish organizations holding more than $110 billion in investments. Pat is also the Corporate Responsibility Representative for the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell , NJ and consults for the American Baptist Churches in their Socially Responsible Investment Program. See Sister Patricia onCBS News!

Show Notes:

• Sister Pat’s community, the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, New Jersey, and her attraction to their commitment to social justice
• what it means to do socially responsible investing
• personal investors and institutional investors (including dioceses and other Catholic organizations)
• asking the question about where people who are poor, hungry, homeless, etc. fit in with our choice of investments
• “the power of one is not to be underestimated”
• helping companies do good in the community and also have just practices within their corporate structure and policies and how they are impacting society as a whole
• sometimes (especially in the early days) it’s a struggle for companies to engage with their shareholders about social responsibility
• how Jesus informs Sister Pat’s ministry — Jesus as a change agent who understood the abuses in the economic governance and faith systems and challenged them
• a critical vocation to speak up for people who have no role or power in society
• successes that Sister Pat has seen through the years, e.g., working with General Electric (responsible for much of the contamination), other companies, religious orders, and the community to clean up PCB contamination along the Hudson River
• the effects of global warming being addressed more and more compared to 20 years ago when they filed the first shareholder resolution on climate change
• criteria to evaluate companies in which one wishes to invest can be found at iccr.org, tricri.org, greenamerica.org
• disappointments that Sister Pat has encountered, e.g., addressed the irradiation of food but didn’t at the time have the resources to address concerns around genetically-modified foods
• is better to only invest in companies that have their social-responibility acts together or to stick it out in less socially responsible companies and demand change?
• it’s all about dialogue — understanding a companies culture and bringing in one’s concerns so that both can walk away and say “I did a good thing”
• the Catholic Church’s role in promoting socially responsible investing
• a quandary when a company that has questionable practices invests generously in church and community work
• the Occupy Wall Street movement
• abuses around compensation for senior executives
• what it’s like to be a Catholic sister in the board room and in the media spotlight
• Ford on the “best of” list of the really good guys in terms of social responsibility — also Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster) with food sustainability, Walt Disney Company with concerns in supply chain — not only make changes with their companies but instigate change within their industry
• a company that could do better is Exxon Mobil, especially around greenhouse gas emissions
• the so-called “sin stocks” — gambling, liquor, and tobacco stocks
• myth busted — the truth is that you can do well investing in socially responsible investing

Details: The broadcast is free and open to the public. You can tune in from any place you have internet access. We also have a chat room for you to use during the broadcast in order to connect with one another and with us. You can also submit your questions ahead of time by using the comment box below.

If new to A Nun’s Life podcasts, the podcasts are basically like tuning into a radio program, but instead of broadcasting it on the airwaves, we broadcast it on our website. All you have to do is visit our website and make sure the volume on your computer is up.

More information including upcoming shows and recordings of past episodes can be found at the In Good Faith program web page.

During Advent, members of the A Nun’s Life community will be posting reflections on the Jesse Tree and the O Antiphons.

Day 22 :: O Rex Gentium written by Meredith Gould. Meredith is the author of eight books, including The Catholic Home: Celebrations and Traditions (Doubleday) and Why Is There a Menorah on the Altar? (Morehouse). She’s founding moderator of the weekly Twitter-based chat about church social media (#chsocm) and blogs about culture and faith at More Meredith Gould.

O King of nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.

While most people usually focus on the “O King of nations” part of this O Antiphon, I remain fixated on the last two lines. More precisely, I keep zooming in on the word “clay.” Being fashioned from clay by the Creator is a metaphor that has always worked for me.

Add water to clay and it becomes mud. Add even more water and mud turns into a slurry. Slurry can be washed away, but not without leaving a messy trail. Let mud dry out and it can be crumbled into dust. Dust is always at risk for blowing away before being reconstituted as clay.

On a brighter note, clay is very pliable. How well I know this.

During my years as a visual artist, I’d switch to pottery whenever I needed a break from drawing. I loved the tactile messiness of working with clay as it swirled into form on the pottery wheel. When the form wobbled off-kilter, I happily pounded it back down into a lump and started over. Happy about the pounding. Happy about the starting over.

We humans seem quite adept at pounding ourselves and one another into lumps, let’s not blame God for this. Instead, let’s give thanks for every opportunity to be formed, yet again, by our loving Savior of clay. God knows, I do.

* * Want to revisit the other symbols of Advent? Click here on Jesse Tree. * *

Join the nuns and community for prayer tonight at 6 p.m. CT at aNunsLife.org/live.

IGF011 In Good Faith with Father Anthony Gittins, recorded live on December 1, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org Ministry. Topics include mission, evangelization, discipleship, and liberation; magisterium and ministerium of the Church; discernment and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

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Guest: Father Anthony Gittins, CSSp

Father Anthony Gittins is a member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans) and a professor of mission and culture at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois. For the past twenty-five years he has with and among homeless women on the streets of Chicago and in a shelter. For seven of those years he was part of Genesis House – a community where women struggle to escape from prostitution (from CTU website).

Show Notes:

• How Fr. Tony’s faith journey informs his sense of mission
• Edwina Gately and working at Genesis House

“Just love them, she said. And I thought how simple it sounds, and how complicated it is to love people.”

“Our job is to love them, not to judge them. And once they begin to love themselves then they have the responsibility to love their neighbor as themselves. But meanwhile it is their neighbor’s job to love them.”

• Ministering  as a pastor in Sierra Leone to learn the “grammar of the language and the grammar of the culture”
• Teaching theology at Catholic Theological Union through the lens of culture, e.g. the cultural implications of reading Scripture
• The relationship between mission, evangelization, discipleship, and liberation
• Mission is about God is intrinsically a God of movement, of engagement, of relationship — reaching out into the world … it is like God’s dynamic breathing out God’s spirit (God’s cosmic, creative breath that is sending forth) — and God’s breathing in (God calling people, reconciling people, embracing people, forgiving people)
• Evangelization is the way we talk about Jesus, the incarnation of God’s mission … Jesus’ mission brought down to earth … describes everything that Jesus does because Jesus is utterly and totally committed to God’s mission
• Discipleship is a one-word job description for us, a faithful living out of what Jesus was doing — not doing our own t hing but learning how to do Jesus’ thing by watching and learning from Jesus
• Liberation – Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and has SENT ME to liberate people, to set people free from anything that binds them in any way.”
• God’s mission has a church! The church’s job is to do God’s mission
• Discernment is required to know where we fit in God’s mission
• Discerning and making decisions “in good faith”
• The difference between feeling comfortable or content and feeling peaceful
• The Church and the relationship of tension between “power” and “piety”
• How to deal with “catechism flame-throwers”
• The relationship between Magisterium and Ministerium

Details: The broadcast is free and open to the public. You can tune in from any place you have internet access. We also have a chat room for you to use during the broadcast in order to connect with one another and with us. You can also submit your questions ahead of time by using the comment box below.

If new to A Nun’s Life podcasts, the podcasts are basically like tuning into a radio program, but instead of broadcasting it on the airwaves, we broadcast it on our website. All you have to do is visit our website and make sure the volume on your computer is up.

More information including upcoming shows and recordings of past episodes can be found at the In Good Faith program web page.

AS093 Ask Sister podcast published on November 24, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. This is a Special Edition on Saints, holiness, and joy. The nuns are joined by Catholic superstars Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, and Father James Martin, SJ.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.
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Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

Sister Sandra Schneiders

• What is the Scriptural basis for the saints?
• In iconography and in various visual renderings, the saints are often pictured with some kind of symbol that speaks to something about their life — Teresa of Avila is pictured with a dove and quill, Saint Joseph with carpentry tools. Centuries from now, what symbol would you hope would be associated with you?
• What does holiness mean in general as well as in the ups and downs of our daily life?
• What was it like first getting to  know the author of the Fourth Gospel?
• Check out Sister Sandra’s new book Prophets in Their Own Country: Women Religious Bearing Witness to the Gospel in a Troubled Church

Father James Martin

• What role do saints play in our prayers?
• Is it considered a miracle that some saints do not decompose after dying?
• Isn’t holiness a pretty serious thing? What role do joy, humor, and laughter play in the spiritual life?
• What’s the deal with relics?
• What advice would you give to people who want to live a saintly life?
• Check out Father Jim’s new book Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life

Do you have a question for us? Contact us http://anunslife.org/contact/and, using your computer, record your question on voice mail. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS092 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on November 17, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: call and dread in discernment, a novelist seeks info on real-life nuns, ministry to and with children, cooking and cleaning nuns, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.
Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• The work of discernment: call and dread. Really?
• Novelist asks about nuns in childcare ministries, and Sister Camille Brouillard responds by describing what it was like to minister to children with AIDS.
• I found a description of sisters and nuns on a diocesan website that describes their lives in terms of cooking and housekeeping and wanting to be loved and, oh yeah, some prayer too. What’s up with that?

Do you have a question for us? Contact us http://anunslife.org/contact/and, using your computer, record your question on voice mail. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS090 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on November 3, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Special Saintly Edition. Topics include: saints in a cave, saintly symbols-coffee and ice cream, decommissioned saints, saintliness in scripture

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.
Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• How St. Syncletica ditched her entourage and headed for a cave
• Coffee, bicycles, trees, open vessels, ice cream and other symbols of sainthood
• When saints go marching off the General Roman Calendar–where do they go?
• Sister Sandra Schneiders on holiness from the perspectives of St. Paul and the Fourth Gospel

Do you have a question for us? Using your computer, record your question on voice mail. It’s easy to do! Just click this Record link to get started! Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

We are grateful for today’s guest blog post by Marg, in honor of World Food Day yesterday!

“You’re so fat!” is a high compliment in cultures where food is scarce. In 21st century America, that same sentence could land you in a pile of trouble. Clearly, food is an elemental, complex, emotionally loaded topic in both its absence and its abundance! In the Old Testament, the Jews, a people living in a desert, envisioned heaven as a place of plenty. Isaiah, describing the time after the end of time, says:

On this mountain [Zion], the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples A feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. — Isaiah, 25:6

I sit here with my far-too-ample gut, smelling the wonderful supper that Karol is making for us, and I think about that quotation. It’s about God satisfying all our wants…not just satisfying them, but providing the finest of the fine for those who are faithful. In making his point, Isaiah focused on real food, beyond the reach of most people of his time, but food that provided a substantial, universally understandable metaphor.

Breaking Bread with Friends

No matter how good the food, however, eating alone is not much fun. My elderly great-aunt essentially lost interest in eating because she was lonely. When she had company, her appetite returned. Sharing food with someone you care for is a strong defense against loneliness. The Last Supper is the quintessential model of Jesus providing the finest of sustenance – his own body and blood – and sharing it with his friends. Sharing food with good friends expresses love and builds community. In a totally different context, consider the following story as another example of how sharing food can build community, even among strangers.

For 16 years, [Joe Cahn], the self-appointed “Commissioner of Tailgating” has traveled to stadium parking lots around the country, sampling food and making friends. “I call it the original Facebook….Here, when you want to friend somebody, you give them food. On the Internet, when you want to friend somebody, you push a button. What’s more fun?”

“The difference between friends and acquaintances is our friends come into our kitchen. Our acquaintances stay in the living room, waiting to get served. Our friends walk in with their spoon and take stuff out of the pot.”

Joe Cahn, Quoted by Glenn Yoder in The Boston Globe, October 12, 2011, p. G-35

Sharing food is not a uniquely human trait. I’ve seen a flock of cedar waxwings perched on a bough passing berries from one to another until each gets something to eat. Interspecies sharing may be an even less common phenomenon, but take a look at this video clip for an interesting example.

So this is my “Irish Stew” of thoughts about food. What thoughts do you have about sharing food…with friends, with strangers, in different contexts? What are your feelings? There are a multitude of possibilities!

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Join A Nun’s Life Community for evening prayer and chat at 6 p.m. CST (your time zone) today at aNunsLife.org/live.

AS087 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on October 6, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: the meaning of the word virgin, the prequel to a nun’s life, what’s up with Martha and Mary (Luke 10), finding God, speed-dialing for the Divine

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.
Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• What does the word “virgin” mean in religious life?
• Are nuns supposed to act like nothing in their “non-nun” life existed? Are you allowed to talk about funny stories from your childhood?
• Scripture Soundings: What’s the scoop on Martha and Mary? Jesus serves up some surprising words. (Luke 10: 38-42)
• Developing a relationship with God
• Speed-dialing for God

Do you have a question for us? Contact us http://anunslife.org/contact/and, using your computer, record your question on voice mail. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

Over breakfast this morning, I thought about today’s reading from the liturgy. It’s Luke 11:1-4, where Jesus teaches the disciples a short, simple prayer:

Abba God, hallowed by your Name!
May your reign come.
Give us today, tomorrow’s bread.
Forgive us our sins, for we too forgive everyone who sins against us;
and don’t let us be subjected to the Test.

I was having toast for breakfast (whole wheat), so the words “Give us today, tomorrow’s bread” seemed especially relevant.

To me, the words aren’t just a request for God to sustain me, but a statement of trust that God will sustain me. Do I believe that I already have today what’s needed for tomorrow? How can I believe this when I don’t know what tomorrow will bring?

This way of thinking can lead me to doubt. Ironically, it can also lead me to freedom! The reality is, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. No one does. But I trust that when tomorrow gets here, I’ll do the best I can with what I have. And I trust that God can provide the rest.

What thoughts does this prayer raise for you?

P.S. On the Ask Sister podcast a couple of weeks ago, the A Nun’s Life community talked about other aspects of Jesus’ prayer, in the “God, a tempter?!” segment. Check out the conversation at Ask Sister episode 83.

Join A Nun’s Life Community for evening prayer and chat at 6 p.m. CST (your time zone) today at aNunsLife.org/live.

AS086 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on September 29, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: Sister and Reverend Lynne Smith talks about her vocation, balancing Facebook and life, battling demons and giants, prayers for discernment

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.
Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• A NUN AND AN ORDAINED MINISTER AT THE SAME TIME: The Sisters chat with Sister Lynne about her vocation.
• SEEKING BALANCE: I often feel like technology takes over my life. I don’t know what a good balance is to use Facebook and stay in touch with old friends and also maybe become a witness to them but at the same time. So if you can help me figure out a balance as to how long to keep facebook – should you keep it up to the point that you’re going to leave for your community? Or should you cut yourself off completely right before? I’m not sure. Your help would be appreciated!
• TANGLE WITH OR RUN FROM DEMONS?: Is it helpful for us to make a “one-time”, “fix-all” decision (e.g., never to open a refrigerator door again because we are afraid we’ll indulge too much) because it then saves us from having to repeatedly battle the same giant? Or do we do ourselves a disservice by not tangling with the giant head-to-head (e.g., like learning to be better disciplined or finding different strategies for coping)?
• PRAYER FOR DISCERNMENT: I am still discerning to become a hermit or sister. Do you know a prayer to enlighten me regarding my vocation?

Do you have a question for us? Visit http://anunslife.org/contact/and leave a message for us. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

"Out of Many, One: A Community Art Project” by Muriel Stockdale; For more information go to: http://tinyurl.com/outofmany1

Loving God, hear our prayer today as we work to move toward wholeness. Help us to repair the ravages of hate. Help us to bring together rather than to tear apart. In the spirit of Jesus help us replace the clenched fist with the open hand of solidarity. Help us to build inclusive community where we understand that we need each other for wholeness. Out of many, we are one. Amen.

~ from the IHM Sisters

Welcome to a special ENCORE PRESENTATION of Ask Sister podcast. The nuns are in nunly meetings all week but wanted to be sure you still had an opportunity to listen to an Ask Sister podcast. This is one of our favorite ones with special guest Sister Kathie Budesky, IHM, the director of Visitation North Spirituality Center.

As you listen to this podcast, jot down your questions and insights and then head on over to the A Nun’s Life Community Forum and start a conversation! Go for it!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

In this podcast episode, we chatted about the “Examen Prayer”, God and free will, the difference between vowed religious vocations and ‘non-vowed religious vocations’, and what to do when you don’t feel connected with God.

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Do you have a question for us? Visit our new portress Sister Mary Evoca http://anunslife.org/contact/and leave a message for us. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS074 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on June 9, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: testing God, praying for safety in risky situations, religious medallions, psalm selections, does prayer really work.

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Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!
Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Does participating in something inherently risky, like bike racing, equate to “testing” God?
• A lot of bike racers have religious medallions. My Mom also puts guardian angel pins in my car. Do medallions actually do anything?
• Does prayer really work? How can you tell?
• How does the church pick which verses of a psalm to use?
• What does it mean to test your “readiness” for a vocation?

Do you have a question for us? Visit our new portress Sister Mary Evoca http://anunslife.org/contact/and leave a message for us. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

IGF010 In Good Faith with Sister Barbara Reid, OP, PhD, recorded live on June 2, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. The nuns talk with Sister Barbara about finding God in everyday life, Sacred Scripture, prayer, biblical spirituality, and more!
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Guest: Sister Barbara Reid, OP

Sister Barbara Reid, OP, is a Dominican Sister of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and is professor of New Testament and vice president and academic dean at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Her most recent books are Taking Up the Cross: New Testament Interpretations Through Latina and Feminist Eyes , The Gospel According to Matthew: New Collegeville Bible Commentary Series , the three-volume work Parables for Preachers, and Choosing the Better Part? Women in the Gospel of Luke.

Topic: The sisters talk with Sister Barbara about her experience of living faith in everyday life, drawing on her work as a scripture scholar and as VP/academic dean of CTU, the first woman to hold that role.

Show Notes:

• The Bible as a way to understand our present experience of God in light of the experience of our ancestors in the faith
• New to the Bible? Suggestions for how to get started
• Conflicting images of God in the scriptures – who is the “real” God?
• Jesus, the incarnation of the loving God
• Biblical spirituality
• Ways to pray with the Bible
• Saint Dominic’s Nine Ways of Prayer
• Women in the scriptures and their messages for us today
• ”Feminism” – a commitment to dignity and equality for all people
• How the feminist perspective challenges interpretations of scripture that justify violence and abuse
• How to keep the scriptures “fresh”

In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

AS073 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on May 26, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: does the bible prohibit women from teaching the faith, God and suffering, romance-mystery novelist returns, lessons from the rapture.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.
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Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!
Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• What is your take on why God allows suffering?
• Our romance-mystery-suspense novelist returns with more questions about her nun character (and assures us that the nun won’t get bumped off … yet)
• Does the bible say that women shouldn’t teach the faith? Which verses do that, and how should we interpret them?
• Rapture update: what have we learned?

Do you have a question for us? Visit our new portress Sister Mary Evoca http://anunslife.org/contact/and leave a message for us. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

Today I graduate from Catholic Theological Union. I’m looking forward to the ceremony, which will be held in a beautiful historical synagogue that’s across the street from President Obama’s house in Hyde Park, close to downtown Chicago.

The students from CTU (ctu.edu) come from all over the world. In the opening procession, each country is represented by a flag. It reminds me of the conversations I had with people from China, Korea, Thailand, South Africa, Ireland, India, and many other places around the globe. The conversations broadened my understanding of God and of the church and deeply enriched my faith.

Blessings and prayers to the graduates of CTU and to all other students who will graduate from high schools and colleges this month!

If there are special graduates in your life, please write their first names in the comment box below. We’ll bring all the names into prayer as a litany on Friday’s “Praying with the Sisters” podcast.

I am on a mission to be more organized! It’s not that I’m particularly disorganized, just not organized in the right ways! For example, my desk drawer is VERY organized when it comes to my markers and pencils. These are highly treasured implements of writing and thinking for me (yes, I think with markers and pencils). But when it comes to my daily plan, ummm, not so organized. Or, to be more diplomatic, not the most effective organization plan for my day.

In such times of need, I turn, as often I do — to God. I figure God is the Creator of the Universe. Surely God should know something about organizing and could perhaps shed light on the subject. If we go Old-School God, then we’re talking creation. Now that was an organizing nightmare. How do you organize that which never existed before? There’s no precedence, there’s no one to ask for help, there’s no logic because even logic wasn’t created before creation!

The whole “order from chaos” thing is definitely impressive yet there is one simple phrase that brings me great comfort and inspiration:

“For God is a God not of disorder but of peace.” (1 Corinthians 14:33)

On days when the organizing feat of creating the universe is beyond my comprehension and sheds little light on my way more minor organizing needs, I turn to this passage because I get it immediately. Though there are a lot of good criteria for organizing my life, my projects, and my sock drawer, one of the most important is to be mindful of peace. Does this schema bring peace? Do I feel peaceful with how I’ve crafted the day’s schedule? Will my approach leave me feeling anxious or scattered? Will how I go about my plan (or non-plan as the case may be) cause anxiety or stress or become a burden to someone else?

What helps you with your organizing? How does peace play its part for you?

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Join the A Nun’s Life community for prayer at 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone). I’ll be there so long as I can find my schedule, organize my day, and avoid the black hole of minutia!

IGF009 In Good Faith with Father James Bacik, PhD, recorded live on May 5, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. The nuns talk with Father Jim about finding God in everyday life, prayer, Christian spirituality, theologian Karl Rahner, and more!
Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

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Guest: Father James Bacik

Father James Bacik, a priest of the Diocese of Toledo, is the pastor of Corpus Christi University Parish in Toledo, Ohio and serves as a campus minister and adjunct professor of humanities at the University of Toledo. His doctorate in theology is from the University of Oxford in England. His many articles, chapters and books include Apologetics and the Eclipse of Mystery; Contemporary Theologians; Catholic Spirituality, Its History and Challenge and most recently A Light Unto My Path, a book on preaching he wrote with psychologist Kevin Anderson. He has lectured throughout the United States as well as in China, Latin America, Japan and Russia. Father Bacik combines the academic study of theology with the pastoral work he has been doing for many years.

Show Notes:

• Father Jim’s intersecting roles — pastor, theologian, academician
• Father Jim’s intersecting roles — pastor, theologian, academician
• Encounters with theologian Karl Rahner
• The Method of Correlation — bringing the scriptures and Christian tradition to bear on people’s everyday concerns
• The human orientation to Holy Mystery, Gracious Mystery
• “Jesus, the ‘P.S.’ at the end of a long letter of service”
• Contemporary Catholic apologists and the long tradition of Christian apologetics
• Mystagogy
• Even sin can be revelatory of God’s mercy and love
• Prayer as “truth-telling”
• The increasing diversity within the Catholic Church
• Father Jim’s current work on the issue of Catholic identity

In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

IGF008 In Good Faith with Bren Ortega Murphy, PhD, recorded live on April 12, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. The nuns talk with Prof. Murphy about nun images in popular culture, such as Nunzilla, Boxing Nuns, movie nuns and more!

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Guest: Bren Ortega Murphy, PhD

Bren Ortega Murphy holds a joint appointment in Communication Studies and Women’s Studies/Gender Studies at Loyola University Chicago. She is the co-author of two books, Cultural Hegemony in the Unites States with Lee Artz and Voices of Strong Democracy with David Droge. Dr. Murphy has also written, directed and produced one radio documentary and two video documentaries, the latest of which is “A Question of Habit: The Image of Women Religious in U.S. Popular Culture.”

Visit the film’s website and check out the trailer below.

Show Notes:

• the fascination with Nunzilla, the Boxing Nuns, Late Night Catechism, and other images of nuns in popular culture
• what’s the big deal about nun images – they’re just funny, right?
• A Question of Habit, The Image of Women Religious in U.S. Popular Culture—Bren Murphy’s latest documentary
• why habits almost always are used in nun images in popular culture
• why so much nun kitsch but not so much priest kitsch in comparison?
• portrayals of sisters and nuns in popular culture “that got it right”
• buying nun image products – does it perpetuate stereotypes?
• the intersection of images of nuns and of women in popular culture
• the glass-ceiling phenomena in business
• what nun images reflect about popular culture

In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live every first Thursday of the month from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

Iam often impressed by how creativity and compassion go hand in hand. The Sisters of St. Joseph in Australia provide a good example of this.

On Friday, the nuns begin a nationwide road trip to raise funds for disaster recovery in Australia. The nation has had severe floods and other natural disasters in recent months, and many people continue to suffer from the effects of these events.

Sister Julianne Murphy is in the driver’s seat for the seven-month project. She’ll lead the effort with stops across the nation for fundraising dinners, visits with young people at schools, and visits to areas affected by natural disasters.

All the funds will go to grants for local projects for disaster recovery, through the Mary MacKillop Foundation. Mary MacKillop founded the Sisters of St. Joseph in 1867 and is the first Australian saint (canonized October 2010) in the Roman Catholic Church. For more information about the Sisters Travelling Roadshow, visit their website ( http://bit.ly/ifC77w).

As the sisters get ready for the road, I pray that they will have a safe trip and that their Travelling Roadshow will raise lots of funds for people in need.

Please join me in prayer by writing a blessing for the sisters in the comment box below.

Join the sisters and A Nun’s Life community at 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE for Praying with the Sisters live podcast and chat.

I don’t even know where to begin to write about the great tragedy in Japan. The loss of life and suffering of those who survived are so devastating that words fail miserably and feelings range from sorrow to numbness to anger to despair.

For many of us, our instinct is to help, to reach out, to do something … anything. Yet helplessly, I sit here, worlds and miles away in a safe place with my basic necessities easily met. My family and friends are safe, and I am safe. How do I face such overwhelming loss and grief yet go about my daily activity?

I pray, I donate to relief efforts, I tune into the news to stay in solidarity with Japan and the world, and I pray some more. It is never enough.

Where are you, God, in this heartbroken world?
Where are you when lives and hope are lost?
A grandmother, a family, a school, a village.
Where are you?
Our hearts are broken.
We stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers,
never really knowing what they are going through,
yet united by the very fabric of our humanity.
We grieve, we try to distract ourselves, we pray.
Where are you?

… a scared yet brave technician engineer works to calm the nuclear plant
… a father buries his family
… a grieving medical doctor pushes on to help those who survived
… a rescue worker takes a leave of absence from her job to go to the front lines of devastation to help

In every act of grief and kindness and compassion and courage, you are there. In the brokenness of our hearts, in the desperate inadequacy of our prayers, in our pain and numbness, you are there.

Continue to be with our sisters and brothers in Japan and open our hearts ever more to hear and respond as each of us is called.

All our trust is in you.

Amen.

And amen.

AS063 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on March 11, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Guest: Sister Kathie Budesky. Topics include: the daily Examen prayer, God and free will, different notions of vocation, feeling unconnected to God, and more!

This episode was broadcast live from the IHM Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan, with an in-house audience! Sister Kathie Budesky, IHM, the director of Visitation North Spirituality Center, joined Sister Maxine and Sister Julie on air.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

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Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Can you talk more about the “Examen Prayer”? What is it? How do you use it/apply it?
• How do we make sense of God and free will?
• What is the difference between vowed religious vocations and ‘non-vowed religious vocations’?
• What do you do when you don’t feel connected with God as usual?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

Today is the first day of Lent, one of the major feast days of the Church. Traditionally it has been a time of “repentance.” It is not a time for guilt-inducement, to think about all the things we’ve done wrong or could have done better and feel bad. It’s an opportunity to look at our life in relationship with God, and make some real and positive change.

One of the practices that I’ve heard people say they’ll be doing this Lent that appeals to me is to greatly reduce multitasking. They’ve talked about it as being being present to one thing at a time. For example, to not read a book while watching TV and checking Facebook messages. For me, the focus will be on reducing “mental multitasking,” so that when I spend extra time talking with someone, I’m not also, in the back of my mind, worrying about phone calls I have to make, the paperwork piling up on my desk, and the meetings I need to prepare for. I will repent of my distractions.

It would be a way to make a fresh start, to begin again. Lent gives us this opportunity to reinvent, to recreate ourselves into the persons that we are called to be by virtue of our baptism. It is an opportunity to tap into that which makes us most uniquely and fully who we are.

And we do not so this alone. With us is our Christian community and the communion of saints and holy people who have gone before us “marked with the sign of faith.”

Let us keep one another in prayer during this sacred season. If you would like the A Nun’s Life community to join in prayer for persons or situations in need of a sacred reinvention, please comment below.

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Join the sisters and A Nun’s Life community at 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE for Praying with the Sisters live podcast and chat.

IGF007 In Good Faith with Mike Hayes, co-founder of BustedHalo.com, recorded live on March 8, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Our hosts talk with Mike about parish ministry with young adults, technology, young adults and the church, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

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Guest: Busted Halo’s Mike Hayes

Mike Hayes, co-founder and senior editor at BustedHalo.com. Mike is also author of Googling God. He is currently in campus ministry at Saint Joseph University Parish in Buffalo, NY. His website is http://GooglingGod.com/.

Show Notes:

• being called to minister with young adults
• some of the spiritual challenges faced by young adults today
• parish ministry on a university campus
• the inspiration for creating BustedHalo.com
• Googling God — the Internet and the search for the Divine
• difference between on-line and face-to-face communication
• “Brief Relief” — a creative social justice approach
• campus ministry at the intersection of pre-professional coursework
• keeping it real — talking with young adults about controversial social issues
• how to make a place in the church for young adults
• advice on starting an online outreach to young adults

In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live every first Thursday of the month from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

AS060 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on February 11, 2011. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: praying to Mary, missing God’s call, nuns in India, Saint Scholastica, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the topics we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Do Catholics pray to Mary? What is the Church’s teaching, especially in
  light of 1 Timothy 2:5?
• Finding Catholic sisters in India — be sure to check out our interview with Sister Sabitha
• Can you become a nun if you have a child? (see also episode AS059 where Sister Hildegard talks about being a contemplative nun with grandchildren!)
• Is it possible to miss God’s call? What do I do if I did?
• Thoughts on Thursday’s feast of Saint Scholastica

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

IGF006 In Good Faith with Sister Laurel O’Neal, a diocesan hermit, recorded live on February 3, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Our hosts talk with Sister Laurel about about the life of a hermit, eremitical solitude, chronic illness, and more!

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Guest: Sister Laurel O’Neal, diocesan hermit.

Sister Laurel O’Neal is a diocesan hermit, theologian, spiritual director and author of the blog notesfromstillsong.blogspot.com.

Show Notes:

• what a hermit is
• historical origins of the eremitical life
• eremitical life in the Camaldolese Benedictine tradition
• discerning a call to eremitical life
• relationship of diocesan hermit to the diocese and bishop
• difference between eremitical life and other forms of consecrated life
• the daily pattern of life for a hermit — the horarium
• lay hermits
• the digital hermitage — a blog as a window to the world
• common misperceptions about the life of a hermit
• chronic illness and vocation
• the unusual vividness of chronic illness
• solitude in the life of a hermit
• deepening the relationship with God through solitude

In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live every first Thursday of the month from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

For more information, including upcoming guests on In Good Faith, please visit the program page of In Good Faith.

IGF005 In Good Faith with the Catholic Foodie, Jeff Young, recorded live on January 6, 2011. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Our hosts talk with Jeff about recipes, essential items in the kitchen, the connection between food and the Sacred, and more.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

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Guest: Jeff Young, the Catholic Foodie

Jeff Young is the creator of Catholic Foodie, a podcast “where food meets faith”. The Catholic Foodie show brings to the table recipes and reviews, and it highlights how food can be a sign to us of God’s love and care for each of us and our families

Show Notes:

• the nature of a “Catholic foodie”
• ministry through food and a podcast
• favorite recipes and foods
• food and equipment necessities in the kitchen (behold, the mortar and pestle)
• meaning and symbols in sharing a meal
• connection between food and the Sacred
• the Eucharist as meal and symbol
• Scripture passages and food
• the Mary and Martha story
• being more mindful/intentional about preparing and eating food
• eating healthy
• eating whole foods and close to the earth
• things to look for when reviewing a restaurant
• a seafood gumbo recipe for listeners
• King Cakes and Epiphany
• the Cheese Nun
• dinner and decor for a visit from none other than Jesus

In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live every first Thursday of the month from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

For more information, including upcoming guests on In Good Faith, please visit the program page of In Good Faith.

The Catholic Foodie’s Seafood Gumbo Recipe (discussed during the episode)

Ingredients

• 2 lbs shrimp (with heads attached), peeled, retain the heads & shells
• 4 yellow onions, 2 chopped, 2 quartered
• 4 ribs celery, 2 chopped, 2 quartered
• 2 green bell pepper, chopped
• 6-9 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 pounds tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped
• 1 pound okra, sliced (1/2-inch slices)
• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• Cayenne pepper, to taste
• 3 bay leaves
• Sea salt, to taste
• black pepper, to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• 1 pound lump crabmeat
• 4-6 gumbo crabs, optional
• 1-2 dozen oysters (with their liquor)
• Filé powder, to taste
• 1 bunch parsley (flat-leaf), chopped
• rice
• Crystal Hot Sauce or Tabasco, to taste

Method

FOR THE STOCK:
Peel and devein the shrimp, removing the heads. Refrigerate shrimp until ready to use. Place heads and shells in a stock pot. Quarter 2 onions lengthwise. Quarter 2 or 3 cloves of garlic. Cut the celery into 3 to 4 inch pieces. Add 8 to 10 cups of water to the stock pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 2 hours. Strain through fine-meshed sieve. Discard shells and veggies. Return stock to pot and set aside.

FOR THE GUMBO:

1. Chop the yellow onions and the celery. Seed, trim, and chop the bell pepper. Set aside. Peel and seed the tomatoes, chop and set aside. (Alternatively, you can use the equivalent in canned tomatoes). Trim and slice the okra into 1/2-inch slices. Set aside.|
2. Make your roux. Roux is made with equal parts flour and oil. In this recipe, we use butter to make the roux. Heat a deep skillet (stainless steel or cast-iron) on medium heat (#6). Cut up the butter and add to the skillet. When the butter melts and begins to bubble, start adding the flour slowly, stirring constantly with a spatula (preferably wooden). Remember to stir constantly to prevent burning or scorching. The roux will quickly change colors. For the gumbo, you want a dark brown roux, the color of chocolate. This should take about 5 to 7 minutes.
3. Once the roux has reached the right color, quickly add the onions, celery, and bell pepper, continuing to stir until all is mixed well. Sauté the veggies until they soften, about 3 or 4 minutes. Add the minced garlic and continue to sauté, stirring another minute or two.
4. Bring reserved stock to a boil. Add the veggie-roux mixture to the stock using a large spoon. Stir in the spoonful of mixture until fully integrated before adding another spoonful. Add the tomatoes, okra, bay leaves and thyme. Add salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste. Add the gumbo crabs. Return to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about an hour. Occasionally skim and discard any excess oil that pools on the surface.
5. Add the reserved shrimp. Allow to simmer for another 2 minutes. Add the crab meat and the oysters. Simmer for another 2 or 3 minutes, until the edges of the oysters start to curl. Taste and adjust seasoning. Add some of the green onions and the parsley (save some so that each guest can add to their bowl according to taste).
6. Remove bay leaves and discard. Serve in bowls over rice. Sprinkle bowls with green onions and parsley. Have Crystal Hot Sauce or Tabasco on hand, and gumbo filé, in case anyone wants to thicken up their bowl with a dash or two.

Bon appetit!
Servings: 10
Source: Jeff Young, the Catholic Foodie

I‘m not big on New Year’s resolutions, but I love the end of the year as a time of reflection. It’s a time for me to take stock of what’s happened over the year and how it has affected me and the people around me. I think about the values that I want to cultivate more deeply in my life and in the world in the coming year—values like compassion, generosity, and hope.

Being fond of rituals, I also like to do stuff that symbolizes renewal. It’s usually something mundane, like cleaning out files on my computer and in the filing cabinet. But I’ve found that my New Year’s reflection time prepares me body and soul to let go of what I need to, so that there’s room for renewal and new life.

If you have a New Year’s prayer practice, we’d love to hear about it! You can share it by writing in the comment box below.

Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

Here at the convent, we love the energy of the holiday season – Christmas lights, gatherings with friends and co-workers, Christmas carols, lending a hand to others, and lots of other things that make the season festive. But even good things can be stressful sometimes. So today, we’re collecting ideas for how to keep stress in check and have a holy, wholesome, wholistic Christmas season.  Here are three ideas that Sister Julie and I have personally nun-tested.

• Stay focused during prayer. Concentrating on one thing, like a scripture passage or an image from nature, is a good start to a day that’s going to be filled with lots of activity.
• Have a sense of humor. There’s a great saying that goes, “Life doesn’t disappoint us; our expectations do.” So when things don’t go as planned, we try to take it in stride and appreciate the adventure.
• Don’t worry about the little stuff. Attend to the big stuff, like relationships, and the rest will be okay too.

How do you keep stress in check over the holidays? We’d love to hear from you!

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Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

Prayer. It’s a basic necessity of life. Whatever form it comes in, whatever words or images we use, we need to not just pray, but make our entire lives a prayer. Continuing the thread from earlier, to pray is part of the 4-step formula (read, pray, reflect, and act) for engaging in Advent and for deepening one’s spiritual life in general.

In the first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul writes,

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. (1 Thes 5:16-19)

What I love about this is Paul’s instance on ALWAYS — always, without ceasing, all circumstances! He leaves no room for mistake. Prayer is to be part of our lives through and through. But how? How can we pray always when we have a hard enough time fitting in a quiet moment or a visit to a sacred space?

Being a visual person, I always imaged that what Paul meant was that we go about our daily routine but off to the side we maintain a constant litany of prayers, prayer requests, and the such, much like a news ticker just keeps on going just at the bottom of our TV screens while the “real” drama unfolds above.

As compelling as this image is to me (admit it, you’ve got a news ticker going through your imagination right now!), I’m not sure that this is what Paul meant when he said to pray without ceasing. There are many ways to interpret what Paul meant … and for each one of us, we must live these words in a way unique to ourselves and God’s calling to us. Here’s a bit of how Saint Augustine of Hippo reads these words:

For not without a meaning did the Apostle say, “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thess. v. 17) Are we to be “without ceasing” bending the knee, prostrating the body, or lifting up our hands, that he says, “Pray without ceasing”? Or if it is in this sense that we say that we “pray,” this, I believe, we cannot do “without ceasing.” There is another inward kind of prayer without ceasing, which is the desire of the heart. Whatever else you are doing, if you do but long for that Sabbath, you do not cease to pray. If you would never cease to pray, never cease to long after it. The continuance of thy longing is the continuance of thy prayer. You will be ceasing to speak, if you cease to long for it. (Commentary on Psalm 37)

Saint Augustine uses the images of desire and of longing to describe what praying without ceasing means. It reminds me of Thomas Merton’s prayer in which he says even the desire to please God is pleasing to God.

What image comes to mind for you when you think about praying without ceasing? Do you have any particular customs for prayer specific to the season of Advent?

* * *

Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

AS051 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on December 3, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: cool stuff v. vow of poverty, understanding changes to Roman Missal, tattoos, converting and becoming a nun, prayer, transfer nuns, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• What makes a particular abode a convent?
• Can you bring your awesome cool stuff to the convent when you enter? What about the vow of poverty?
• Why are there changes to the Roman Missal?
• How long do you have to wait after you’ve converted to Catholicism to enter a religious community?
• How do each of you pray?
• Can nuns have tattoos?
• Can sisters transfer from one order to another?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

IGF004 In Good Faith with Father James Martin, SJ, recorded live on December 2, 2010. Produced by aNunsLife.org ministry. Our hosts talk with Father Jim about his vocation and life of prayer, faith in real life, Ignatian spirituality, the Examen and more.

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Guest: Father James Martin, SJ

Father James Martin, SJ, is author and culture editor of America magazine and author of the new book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything. He writes for a number of publications and is a regular commentator on religion and spirituality for major media networks.

Topic: The sisters talk with Father Jim about faith in real life, Ignatian Spirituality, what it means to be a contemplative in action, incorporating prayer into the hecticness of daily life, and more!

Show Notes:

• Father Jim’s calling to become a Jesuit priest
• a vocation to be a writer
• signs we know we are where God wants us to be
• what is spirituality?
• Ignatian spirituality as distinct from other spiritualities
• finding God in all things
• being a contemplative in action
• freedom and detachment
• using the imagination to pray
• Saint Ignatius of Loyola
• The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything
• Father Jim’s “spiritual tool chest”
• the saints and their role in our lives
• living simply
• incorporating prayer and faith in a life already packed with activity and commitments

In Good Faith is a conversation exploring God’s call in everyday life hosted by A Nun’s Life Sisters Maxine and Julie. Our monthly program features guests who are nationally known for their ministry in spirituality, religious life, and discernment. We’ll look at how our guests understand their own life as a calling and discuss a variety of perspectives on living faith and call in everyday life. The program is broadcast live every first Thursday of the month from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Central Time. Tune in at www.aNunsLife.org/LIVE.

For more information, including upcoming guests on In Good Faith, please visit the program page of In Good Faith.

Today is World AIDS Day, a time to re-dedicate ourselves to prayer and action to alleviate the great suffering caused by AIDS. In the spirit of hope for a more just and compassionate world, I invite you to join in prayer today for the men, women and children who have AIDS.

I also invite you to remember by name the people in your own life who have died of AIDS and now rest with the communion of saints. For me, I fondly remember Tim, a childhood friend who died of AIDS two years ago. During his life, he was dedicated to helping workers receive just wages and have decent working conditions.

Please share the names of  loved ones you would like us to remember in prayer today.

Prayer for World AIDS Day
Excerpt from Catholic Relief Services, Candlelight Vigil of Hope

We indeed find hope in the light of Christ. Yet, we cannot remain complacent in this hope. We must not forget that 33 million people in the world are living with HIV and AIDS and 5,700 are dying from AIDS each day. Many of those infected are ostracized by the stigma. They live in silence and suffer alone, afraid to seek the help they need, afraid to go against their culture’s norms. HIV and AIDS affect men, women, and children of every race and economic level.

As one human family, we are all touched by HIV. And as one family, together, we can touch the lives of others, raising awareness of the pandemic and reducing the crippling stigma often associated with HIV. As Christians, we are compelled to act. Through our prayers, learning, advocacy, and giving, we can make a difference in another person’s life.

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Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

We give thanks for each and everyone of you, and for the gifts and goodness of our God. Today on this U.S. national holiday of Thanksgiving, we offer this prayer written by an Omaha Native American.

Llanos de Cortes waterfall, just outside of Bagaces, Costa Rico; photo by Francisco at http://blog.blackant.net/

O Divine Gift-giver,
I stand beneath the endless waterfall of your abundant gifts to me.

I thank you especially for the blessing of life, the most precious of all your gifts to me.

I thank you, Ever-generous One,
for clothing to wear,
for food and drink to nourish my body,
for all the talents and skills
that you have bestowed upon me.

I thank you for the many joys of my life,
for family and friends,
for work that gives to me a sense of purpose
and invests my life with meaning.

I thank you as well
for the sufferings and trials of my life
which are also gifts
and which together with my mistakes
are among my most important teachers.

Grant that I may never greet a new day
without the awareness of some gift
for which to give you thanks.

And may constant thanksgiving
be my song of perpetual praise to you.

from the book Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim (on Amazon)

The Rocky Mountains -- photo from a trip I took with my siblings

During our IHM conference (prayer, socializing, planning, contemplative dialogue, decision-making) this past weekend, there was an awesome feeling of being “in sync” with one another and with the Spirit of God. Now it wasn’t always easy or pretty, but we were all committed to being present to one another and the common good of our IHM community and IHM mission, so we hung in there within one another. At the end of the conference, one of my IHM Sisters mentioned how good the meeting was and how challenging it would be to walk back into everyday life with the phone ringing off the hook, ministerial responsibilities, paying the electrical bill, wrangling email, etc.

As I sit here surrounded by piles of “stuff to do” and an email inbox threatening to hijack my computer, I too wonder how to go from spiritual highs “back” to everyday life. And even as I’m writing this, I had to edit and put the word “back” into quotation marks because I realized as I wrote it that that’s actually one of the keys to sifting through this. That key is that we don’t really go “back” nor is everyday life somehow separate from or lower than the so-called spiritual “highs”.

Once we’ve had that insight, that moment of clarity, that feeling of “in sync”, we are forever transformed, even if it doesn’t feel that way, even if the very next moment we have to clean the cat’s litter box. We are transformed. And in the stuff of everyday life, in the seemingly unspiritual moments, that experience of “spiritual high” becomes incarnate once again … and gives rise to other moments.

Still, it’s never easy to re-embrace ordinary life. But that’s where life truly is, that’s the stuff that makes spiritual highs possible.

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Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

AS047 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on November 5, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: Trent and Second Vatican Council, growing in understanding God, a devil for loving, joining a religious community in another country and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• I’m a guy in love and want to go out with girl who wants to be a nun, does that mean like I’m the devil or something?
• Is it possible for someone discerning to be a nun to join a religious community in another country? How would this work?
• Could you describe the Council of Trent in a nutshell and how it affected the church?
• What do you think was the greatest positive impact that the Second Vatican Council had on the church?
• What do you know now about God that you wish you’d known in the beginning?
• What are somethings to consider before making a big life decision?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

Today we celebrate Saint Teresa of Avila, a saint that is near and dear to my heart. Here’s a short piece I wrote in honor of the feast for Take Five For Faith, a publication by our friends over at TrueQuest Communications.

With God you’re never alone

Prayer can be lonely at times as we struggle to feel the nearness of God’s presence. It’s a comfort to know that even the great saint and doctor of the church Teresa of Avila also struggled with loneliness. No matter how much or how intensely she prayed, she’d sometimes feel a distance between herself and God. Using the words of the psalms, Teresa wrote, “I have watched and become as a sparrow alone on the housetop” (Psalm 102). Though suffering the pain of loneliness, Teresa assures us that God is right there with us and can use even our emptiness as a vehicle of grace. When you are like a sparrow alone on the heights, crying out into the vastness of the sky, what calls you away from the edge?

TODAY’S READINGS: Ephesians 1:11-14; Luke 12:1-7
“Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

This morning I watched live video coverage of the rescue of the tenth Chilean miner, Alex Vega. He emerged from the rescue capsule and made the sign of the cross. Seconds later, he and his wife embraced. The two gestures were powerful and deeply symbolic. To me, they reflected the intimate connection between love and the cross.

A police officer tries to reach a child’s balloon in “Camp Hope,” where miners’ families have slept in tents and campers during the rescue operation. Associated Press photo.

The gestures remind me that Jesus took up the cross not just at the end of his life. He took it up every day because he loved people. Out of this love, he chose to help others—people who were poor and sick; people who were social outcasts; people of wealth and power who were in need of transformation. His choice to act out of love often brought suffering into his own life. To me, it wasn’t the suffering that made his cross meaningful. It was the love.

When I watch the miners and their families being reunited, I think about how love places a claim on us. Love can compel people to choose dangerous jobs in order to provide for loved ones. Love means living with the possibility that those who are most dear to us may not return at the end of the day. I think that love brings risk, but even more than that, it brings meaning and hope to life. So today, as the rescue continues, the word that will be my constant prayer for the miners, their families, and the rescue teams is “love.”

Please join me by offering your word of prayer for the miners, their families, and the rescue teams.

* * *

Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

AS043 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on October 1, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: inclusive language and using male pronouns exclusively for God, Catholic stance on gambling and bingo, nun titles, a right to life, and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• Where does the Church stand with gambling such as betting on matches, playing poker, etc.? What about bingo?
• What is “inclusive language” all about? What’s wrong with using all-male language in prayer?
• What are the different titles that Catholic sisters and nuns use to refer to themselves and to their sisters in leadership positions?
• The nuns talk about what it means to have a right to life. Backdrop: young people, bullying, outing of others, controlling others, taking care of ourselves–and others–in the midst of our relationships in school, family, online communities, etc.

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’ And Mary said,

My soul magnifies my God!
My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior
whose glance has rested on me,
a poor and humble servant.

From this day forth
all shall speak of me as blessed.

The Almighty has done wondrous deeds for me.
May the name of the Most High be praised.

God’s mercy reaches out from age to age,
touching all the faithful.

The proud have lost their thrones
while God’s hand has raised up the lowly.

The hungry are filled with all god
while the rich go away empty-handed.

Ever present to our God
are the promises made to our ancestors:
To Abraham, Sarah, and their descendants, mercy forever! (Luke 1:39-55)

* * *

Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

Every evening Monday through Thursday, Sister Maxine and Sister Julie have evening prayer here at aNunsLife.org. We pray the scriptures of the day and also pray for the needs of the world and this community. You are invited to join us for prayer by simply visiting aNunsLife.org/live at 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone). We have a chat room on that page so that we can connect with you personally and so that you can share your prayer requests.

More information can be found at Praying with the Sisters. Not too sure about how this works or what a podcast or chat room is? That’s okay! We’ve got instructions and many folks who will help you once you get to aNunsLife.org/live.

If you’ve got questions about prayer or would like more input on prayer (e.g., ways to pray, what meditation is, how to pray the liturgy of the hours in daily life, etc.), let us know below. Use the comment box below. We’re always open to new ideas and ways to help one another in our spiritual journeys.

See you later today!

In the course of my research the other day, I came upon some material from the IHM’s 1902 Novitiate Directory. Sisters who were novices, as well as those who were finally professed, arose each day at 5:00 a.m. to the sound of a bell.

“Rise in the morning at the first sound of the bell, without in the least giving way to sloth, thinking that it is God who calls them.”

"Gabriel I" -- the bell in use from 1868 to 1939 at the IHM Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan. The ringing of the bell called sisters to begin their day.

The bell is an interesting way to image the voice of God. The bell imagery makes me think about the sounds that I hear in everyday life, and whether I associate any of them with the voice of God, calling me forth in service to Creation. One sound I hear a lot of is car traffic, because we live near a busy street. I don’t think of that as the voice of God, although I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. A sound I do associate with God’s voice is the quiet of the early morning, around 5:30 a.m. It’s not total silence – birds are singing, a breeze stirs the leaves of the nearby maples, a few tree frogs are murmuring. And when I hear God’s voice in these sounds, I arise and welcome the day.

How do you hear God’s call in the sounds of your everyday life?

* * *

Join A Nun’s Life Community for prayer today via our live podcast “Praying with the Sisters” and chat room. Just before 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) join us at http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE … more info on that page.

AS027 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on May 28, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: fasting, the First Official nun meeting, virgin-ness, vocational calling, bride of Christ and other ways to image oneself as a Catholic sister.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• What other ways can one image oneself as a Catholic nun other than “bride of Christ”? How is this connected to one’s image of God?
• Does a person have to be a virgin in order to become a Catholic sister or nun?
• What was your first official meeting like with a nun?
• What is fasting and what place might it have for us today?
• What do I do if I’m married but feel called to religious life?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

Our friend Yvette from the A Nun’s Life Community found this gem. The song is called “I Only Ask of God” by the multinational, hip hop trio Outlandish.

Outlandish is made up of friends Isam Bachiri Azouaoui (Danish born, Moroccan decent), Waqas Ali Qadri Danish born, Pakistani decent), and Lenny Martinez (Honduran born, Cuban decent). They seek to give voice to “the world we live in”. They represent religious diversity (Muslim and Catholic) and proficiency in multiple languages with lyrics in English, Urdu/Punjabi, Danish, Spanish, and Arabic.

The message of this particular song “I Only Ask of God” is powerful. Here’s the first verse:

I only ask of God
He won’t let me be indifferent to the suffering
That the very dried up death doesn’t find me
Empty and without having given my everything

What happens if we truly made this our prayer?

* * *

Join Sister Maxine and Sister Julie for prayer. You can listen to our live podcast and offer your prayer requests at http://anunslife.org/live today at 6 p.m. Central Time (check your time zone).

* * *

You can download music from Outlandish at Amazon.com or at iTunes.

Happy Earth Day! First is a beatiful photo Sister Maxine took of her nephew with a calf. Also we have some link joy for you! Let us know of other cool links to share.

 
A Catholic Earth Day:

• If You Want Peace, Protect Creation by Pope Benedict XVI (January 1, 2010)
• Going Green: For the Sake of God’s Creation by Mary Jo Dangel in Saint Anthony Messenger Magazine (October, 2007)
• Why Catholics Care for Creation by Sister Joan Brown, OSF, in Catholic Update (October 2008)
• Earth Day 2010 Prayer by Sister Jean Coughlin, IHM

Cool Earth Day Stuff:

• Earth Day E-Cards by CatholicGreetings.org
• Ecokids Canada’s environmental destination for kids
• Earth Day 2010 Song created and performed by 13-year-old Leia Schwartz of Florida
• 3 Cool Ways to Celebrate Earth Day with your Family
• Earth Day Recipes
• Green Your Gardening

The Origin of Earth Day:

• History of Earth Day by Earth Day Network
• Earth Day at 40: How it began, where it is going by John Roach for National Geographic News (April 22, 2010)

The Core Issues of Earth Day:

• Advocacy
• Climate Change
• Conservation and Biodiversity
• Education
• Energy
• Food and Agriculture
• Green EconomyGreen SchoolsRecycling and Waste Reduction
• Sustainable Development
• Water

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day?

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Join Sister Maxine and Sister Julie for LIVE prayer podcast today at 6 p.m. Central Time (check your time zone). You can share your prayer requests with us and the A Nun’s Life community. http://aNunsLife.org/LIVE

AS021 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on April 16, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: telling family and friends, age limit, traveling nuns, yoga for Catholics, the Beatitudes, hunger for community, praying for strangers and more!

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• When is the right time to let family and friends know I truly feel called to become a Catholic sister?
• Are you ever too old to become a nun or sister?
• How old do you have to be to become a nun? Do you have to finish college first before becoming a nun?
• Can sisters and nuns travel?
• Why are the beatitudes important?
• Can a divorced woman become a nun?
• What do you pray when you are asked to pray for someone you don’t know and don’t know why they need prayer?
• What is the Catholic Church’s stance on yoga? Are practicing Catholics, including religious sisters, allowed to practice yoga?
• I’m a people person and really want a strong spiritual community. Any practical hints on how to deal with this hunger?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below. In whatever way you contact us, please know that your last name, email address, and any other private information will be kept confidential.

AS018 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on March 19, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include: a discerner’s IHM experience, why Catholic sisters support health care reform, Bible translations, common misperceptions about nuns, and more.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to A Nun’s Life Podcasts:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• What was Sue’s experience visiting the IHM Motherhouse? What was it like to pray and working with the sisters?
• What Bible version do you use for your prayer podcasts?
• What are some common misconceptions that you encounter about nuns and sisters?
• Why are U.S. Catholic sisters supporting the Senate bill on health care?

Do you have a question for us? Call our toll-free Voicemail Hotline at 888-703-4732 and leave a voicemail for us with your question. Be sure to give us your first name and city from where you are calling. We’ll play your message and respond on the Ask Sister podcast. You can also send us an email or comment below.

AS014 Ask Sister podcast recorded live on February 12, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include finding one’s calling, the liturgy of the hours, jury duty, age limits for becoming a Catholic Sister, immigration, and more.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to the A Nun’s Life Podcast:

Ask Sister podcast is a live podcast where you have the opportunity to engage with us and ask questions about nuns, prayer, religious life, or pretty much anything in between!

Here are some of the questions we addressed in this Ask Sister podcast:

• how do I know what my real calling in life is?
• do congregations have problems taking young people because of fear of an age gap?
• what do Catholics think about the issue of illegal immigration?
• can you explain more about the Divine Office — The Liturgy of the Hours?
• do nuns have to go to jury duty?
• what’s going on with the Roman Missal?

If you have a question, please email us at or leave a message at our voicemail feedback line: 1-888-703-4732. Messages may be played on the air!

FP004 Feature Podcast on Consecrated Life with IHM Sisters recorded live on February 7, 2010. Sponsored by aNunsLife.org ministry. Topics include World Day for Consecrated Life, vocations, discernment, Catholic sisters and nuns, prayer, and more.

Click PLAY below or right-click here to download the MP3.

Subscribe to the A Nun’s Life Podcast:

Today we celebrated World Day for Consecrated Life by partnering with the IHM Vocations team to offer this hour-long podcast on vocations, discernment, and the lives of Catholic sisters today. We were delighted to be joined by IHM Sisters Carol Quigley, Michele Denton, Joyce Durosko, and Mary Bea Keeley.

We know that prayer is integral to our life and faith. But sometimes we just don’t seem to have the time for it. Take today for example. I woke up thinking about all the things I have to do today including a couple past-due deadlines, an email inbox that is overflowing, a meet to prepare for and participate in, errands, and a podcast. Needless to say, I was stressed before I even got out of bed. To make matters worse, we’re low on coffee!

My instinct is to hop out of bed and turn the computer on and get to work. And that’s exactly what I did this morning. Barely registered the fact that I was jumping over my time for prayer (yes, it happens to us religious folk too). Now having knocked a few things off my list (but with plenty left), I’m feeling less stressed, but also less myself. What’s missing? Prayer.

True, prayer doesn’t get me any closer to finishing these tasks. In fact, it appears to pull be further away because that’s precious time and energy I could place elsewhere. Yet prayer can’t be reduced to an item on an agenda, a “to-do” that can be checked off. It’s the very soul of life, the rhythm of one’s day, the disposition that one brings to everyone and everything else.

I know God understands and is not mad or planning to smote me. At the same time, I know and feel it’s importance in my relationship with God, with myself, and with others. Even though I’m in work mode now, and in the middle of a timely project, I’m going to set the timer — finish the most crucial thing for today which will set my mind at ease — and then recover my time for prayer and my prayerful openness to the rest of the day.

Ever had one of these days? What helps you return to prayer and a “prayerful openness”?

* * *

We’d be honored if you would join us for prayer this evening. Sister Maxine and I pray at 6:00 p.m. CST (your time zone).

The season of Advent is here. Advent is about letting God come to us. It’s about actively anticipating God in our lives. We celebrate not only the historical birth of Jesus but the new life the God continually gives to each of us.

How have you entered into this season of Advent? For me, Advent kind of snuck up on me. It is my favorite season and so I’m usually anticipating it, but this year, there is was. I’m not sure how I will more fully enter into the season. I feel like I have a bit of catch-up to do. I think the first thing I will do is go back to the Scripture readings from the First Sunday of Advent and immerse myself in them. I also just came across a Christmas box in storage so I’ll dig around in there for the Advent candles and my mini nativity scene.

Another thing I’m going to do is to sit with the question, “What am I experiencing?” The question was posed on awebsite about Advent from Creighton University’s Online Ministries. The page Beginning Advent suggests that this question is one of the first places to start with Advent.

So, what are we experiencing? That is the first Advent question. If we chew that question, then the Isaiah reading will sound so good to our ears. Are we the people “who walk in darkness” or have “thick clouds” over us? Is the way before us full of valleys and hills? Does it seem like we are in a desert? Are there wild beasts out there who are ready to devour us? Have we been guilty of some things we aren’t proud of? Have we lost touch with who we really want to be? Has our fidelity become a bit shabby? Then, Isaiah proclaims that our God is ready to come and save us. And, none of the things that I see as barriers even matter to God. (Creighton University’s Online Ministries Website)

I encourage you to check out the rest of the website for some very good resources on Advent such as the following:

• Preparing for Advent
• Prayers for each week of Advent
• General Advent Prayers
• Oraciones de adviento en español
• Various Advent Prayers and Retreats in Audio format

So how are you entering into Advent? What are you experiencing?

* * *

Join the A Nun’s Life community for prayer at 6 p.m. Central Time
(your time zone).

Welcome to our first ever Community Podcast, a podcast that features you! your favorite food, meal prayers, recipes, music, and food stories.

On this our inaugural podcast we celebrate Thanksgiving food and everything related to it. Our podcast format is a bit different from our other podcast because the idea as well as much of the content comes from you, our listeners and members of our community here at A Nun’s Life Ministry.

And you’ll be hearing voices other than Sister Maxine and myself. We’ve got a few folks scheduled and we’d be delight to hear from anyone who’d like to comment or ask a question about whatever we are discussing or who would like to offer their Thanksgiving-related story or recipe.

After the show, we’ll post recipes in the comment box below. If you’d like to share your favorite Thanksgiving recipe, please share it below.

First we’ll have our normal prayer at 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) followed by the Thanksgiving Food Podcast starts at 6:30 p.m.

The fun starts at http://anunslife.org/live

See you soon!

Much can be said (and written) about seeking God’s blessings and seeking God’s ways. Countless questions about God and directed to God have been uttered — what is the meaning in life, my life? how can I give my life to God? what is God like? where is God? does God hear me, notice me?

Sometimes, when pursuing one of these Big Questions, we stumble upon blessings that we did not intentionally seek. For example, way back when, I spent time discerning how God was calling me to use my gifts in the world as a Catholic sister. I was happily committed in my life as a sister but was still trying to find my place in the world in regards to form or context of ministry. Through prayer, conversations with my sisters, retreat, and simply trying new things, I began moving toward a kind of “answer” to what I was seeking. In the midst of all that discernment, that “figuring out” where God was leading me, there were some unexpected blessings.

Like blogging.

I started a simple little blog more as a hobby and to learn more about Internet technologies. I had no expectations for the blog other than it would help me learn a few tricks. I certainly did not expect that I would be working full-time with the A Nun’s Life website and community some 3+ years later! The blog was one of those blessings I stumbled upon while I was trying to pursue this other question of what work I wanted to commit myself to as an IHM Sister. It seemed irrelevant at the time, a mere distraction, yet it was and continues to be a great blessing that has taken me, and my original question, to a new place.

What “blessing stumbled upon” have you had in life? In what ways is God calling you to not necessarily answer your original question but simply to live out of the new place in which you find yourself?

Footnote: Thoughts today inspired by Teresa of Avila (p. 62) and my nun Sister Maryfran Barber, IHM.

* * *

Join Sister Maxine, the A Nun’s Life community, and me for Praying with the Sisters podcast at 6 p.m. Central Time tonight (your time zone).

Picture this: you’re going through a difficult time, you’ve got a lot on your mind, you just can’t seem to make sense of stuff. Then someone says it, that dreadful line: “Offer it up.”

If you are like me (admittedly, not my most admirable quality) you have to suppress an overwhelming desire to take a swing at the person.

To me, “offer it up” is not exactly the most compassionate thing a person can say when another is in a tough space. In fact, sometimes it rings of a kind of dismissal, an unwillingness to be with a person in their struggle, even if only in silent vigil.

Though not fond of this line, I found it was exactly the one that came to mind this morning as I read Saint Teresa of Avila. As mentioned before, I’m re-reading The Life as translated by Mirabai Starr in Teresa of Avila: The Book of My Life and am at a significant moment in Teresa’s life where she has a conversion. Teresa writes about how difficult prayer has been for her. “By now, my poor soul had grown weary. But no matter how much she wished she could rest, the bad habits I had developed would not let her” (p. 58). Teresa speaks of losing trust in herself, of being unable to imagine Christ in prayer, of having distracting thoughts that would torment her, of being plagued with doubts. “I slid back so many times that I was exhausted” (p. 59).

Teresa was indeed in a tough space. So what did she do?

She offered it up.

In this tough space Teresa gave to God all that she had — not successes or insights or any kind of “worthiness” — but the only things she felt she had left: her fears, her doubts, her temptations, her “deep soul-weariness”.

To God she offered them.

There is real wisdom in Teresa’s experience. Sometimes we feel like we don’t have a whole heck of a lot going for ourselves. We struggle, we deal with pain, we despair, we worry, we just don’t feel like engaging anymore. God does not ask us to give that which we don’t have. In these times, God doesn’t expect us to offer perfectly manicured prayers, devout thoughts, or deeds of righteousness. What God asks us for is who we are and what we do have. We can offer to God as a gift our pain, despair, worry, and struggle. Doing so is not abnegating responsibility or expecting that it will all magically go away. Rather, offering these our gifts is an opportunity to open the door to God, to God’s love and deep compassion. It is a chance to move beyond the impasse we experience in our life and become ourselves more fully.

“O God, help me! How a soul suffers when she loses the freedom to be who she truly is. What torment she endures. I am amazed to see that I survived such pain. Praise be to God, who gave me life when I was on the brink of such a deadly death.”

What comes to mind as you hear the words “offer it up” and as you hear Teresa’s experience? What’s the hardest part of “offering it up”? What’s happened for you when you’ve tried to offer up your own tough situations?

* * *

Join us this evening for Praying with the Sisters podcast — 6 p.m. Central Time (your time zone) at http://anunslife.org/live. We’ll have a special reading in celebration of our IHM Founders Day.

Blogging from my cell phone is a new experience for me! I’m hanging out in Wilmington with one of my nuns and dear friend Ginny and can only access the Internet by my phone. Fortunately there’s a handy WordPress app for my phone.

So I’m in transit via car, feet, train, shuttle bus, and airplane today back to Chicago. I’m looking forward to the adventure and ever so glad I packed lightly!

I’ve had prayer and contemplative life on my mind and heart … Intensely since the Feast of Teresa of Avila. I’ll share more soon. Prayer (like myself today!) is often in transit, moving and changing, pausing, and sometimes even getting lost or stopped along the way. I have found it so helpful to be able to share with my nuns the journey of prayer. And so I’d like to open the door to you too. What way(s) of praying do you find yourself drawn to? Any “techniques” that you find helpful too (e.g., praying at same time; going for a run first)?

* * *
P.S. Sister Maxine is also in transit so we will not have a midday prayer podcast today. Back tomorrow at noon Central Time.

The other day I was at dinner with my nuns and I prayed the short grace “Blessed be God forever”. But it came out “Plush be God forever”. Not sure where that came from — probably had my mind on something else and wasn’t present to the prayer. My little lapse has stayed with me — this idea of a Plush God is so odd yet so compelling to me.

The image that comes to mind is big giant teddy bear, plush and furry and comforting. It gives me a sense of the over-abundance of God, the uber-generosity and loving care.

And that song “Our God is an Awesome God” is playing in the back of my mind but with “Our God is a Plush God”. Oddly enough as I was writing this post, my little brother has been sitting next to me (I’m vising him and my sis-in-law and my new nephew) and he saw the title of this post and started singing the exact song! Weird, eh??

Have you ever encountered God as “plush”?

Question from Nathalie that raises an interesting topic …

… is it okay to pray for Jesus? I mean, I know we pray TO Jesus, but… I really would like to pray for him… because he and his message are often misunderstood, misused and abused – to serve self-centered ends. I guess he probably doesn’t NEED us to pray for him, but… I don’t know. I just want to pray for him.

Hi Nathalie, Good question! My first response is that yes, it’s okay to pray for Jesus. Prayer, after all, is talking and listening to God. When we pray for someone, we are in relationship with God and bringing the person and her/his needs before God. At their heart, “praying for” and “praying to” are actually more like “praying with” than anything. So with Jesus, we are deepening our relationship with him, consciously bringing the cares and concerns of Jesus to the forefront while we are with him. While Jesus is God and so does not “need” anything per se, prayers for Jesus are like what you wrote — that he and his message be understood and lived from the heart.

Another way to understand “praying for Jesus”, is more along the lines of how the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures spoke of “blessing God”. You’ll find this kind of language in many places, especially in psalms and canticles. One of my most favorite ones is the canticle of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the book of Daniel 3 (in a Catholic Bible). The three were tossed into a white-hot furnace as punishment for going against King Nebuchadnezzar’s decree to worship his gods, not the God of Israel. Instead of certain death, the three walked around singing and blessing God. Here’s part of their canticle:

Bless the Lord, all people on earth; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, O Israel; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you priests of the Lord; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you servants of the Lord; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, spirits and souls of the righteous; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.
Bless the Lord, you who are holy and humble in heart; sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever. (NRSV translation)

How else might we understand “praying for Jesus”? What is your own experience of this?

A prayer for peace in honor of Memorial Day by Pope John Paul II …

Mary, Queen of Peace, we entrust our lives to you.

Shelter us from war, hatred and oppression.

Teach us to live in peace, to educate ourselves for peace.

Inspire us to act justly, to revere all God has made.

Root peace firmly in our hearts and in our world.

Amen.

For whom would you like to pray this day?

From the Canticle of Zechariah prayed during Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours …

“In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79)

Every morning I pray the Canticle of Zechariah which is the song sung by Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth, praising God for God’s work throughout history and through their newborn son John who would become the Baptist. These verses always fill me with hope and a lightness as I begin the day and can see dawn literally breaking in through the tree branches beyond my window.

What do you hear in these verses and how can this “word” of God carry you through today?

Yesterday I had a bunch of errands to run, one of which included a trip to Evanston to the bank to get some Canadian currency. I’ve only been to Evanston a handful of times but managed to find my way. While in Evanston, I stopped by the post office to mail some stuff. Ordinary stuff, but this particular trip was a comedy of errors. From going the wrong way on a one-way street, to parking my own car in a valet parking lot, to standing in line at the wrong end, it was just a joke — but I wasn’t laughing.

But everything changed when I ran into (not literally) the valet parking man. He had chased me through the parking structure to see where I ended up and to inform me that this was valet parking (free for bank customers)! Initially I was a bit unnerved to find a man standing outside my car window in the belly of the parking structure, but his whole presence was disarming and gentle. He wore what looked like a mechanic’s outfit, with a little grease around the edges, and he had an accent of sorts that made his sketchy English sound poetic. With great kindness he told me the proper parking procedure and when he heard I was there just for a simple banking transaction he shooshed me toward the stairway and said he would take care of my car and have it on the main parking floor (which was full) for me. He could tell I had been flustered from my morning already, and it was as if this was his way of saying “It’s going to be okay.” I felt it in his voice and in his eyes … not something I normally am open to finding in a parking garage with a strange man outside my window!

So after the “simple” banking transaction that ended up taking 45+ minutes because they couldn’t figure out my nun bank account, I headed back to the parking garage and sure enough, there was my chariot right in front. I went to the payment station, something I normally do with ease, but for some reason I couldn’t get to work. A woman at the garage office, came right over and not only explained what to do but showered me with “Baby girl” and “Sweet child” and “Love” as she led me through the steps. It was like balm on a weary soul!

I emerged from that underground parking garage cleansed and refreshed, from the dark and greasy depths to the fresh light of day. But it was in the darkness — with these two unassuming, parking garage attendees — that I experienced such kindness and a bit of healing for my soul.

Sisterhood among Catholic sisters and nuns is a powerful, Spirit-filled experience. I’ve been thinking a lot about sisterhood after having been home at the IHM Motherhouse for a couple of days. I was with a group of sisters doing some planning for our community’s retreat/celebration days this summer. Throughout the meeting and at supper following our meeting I was overwhelmed with the bond of sisterhood. It’s something that I never even imagined prior to being an IHM Sister. It’s not easy to define or explain, but let me try to put words around what it feels like.

Sisterhood is …

• always having a home, a real home
• knowing that your nun has your back
• being part of something bigger than yourself, bigger than the sum total of individuals
• falling in love with God and mission, and falling in love with how God and mission are expressed in your sisters
• sharing the deepest things of the Spirit with another sister or group of sisters
• praying together, laughing together, grieving together, working together
• the sparkle in the eye of a sister that lets you know that all will be well
• mentoring one another in religious life, ministry, and prayer
• having a common history and shared core values
• daring and risking together for the sake of the Gospel
• becoming more yourself than ever
• relating to one another with great tenderness
• being in real, tangible community even when ministry takes you to away from your sisters
• holding all things in common with your sisters
• being held up by your sisters’ prayer when you can’t find the strength to pray
• having sisters in heaven who keep watch over us
• working through disagreements, misunderstandings, failings without forgetting that we belong to one another and to Christ
• being willing to lay down your life for your sister

When people ask me what it’s like to be a sister, how we are different from other people committed to God who pray and do good works, this is what I want them to experience, this sisterhood, this dynamic of how we are with one another which is incarnate in how we are with the world.

What else might you add? Sisterhood is …

O Lord, teach me your paths,
and I will come to your truth.
Make my heart simple and guileless,
so that it honours your name.
I will proclaim you, Lord my God,
and give you praise with all my heart.
I will give glory to your name for ever,
for your great kindness is upon me:
you have rescued me from the deepest depths.
~ from Psalm 86 (85)

This morning’s prayer (from the Liturgy of the Hours) gave me pause today because it kind of summed up how I feel this Lenten season.

For me, this Lent is a time to pull up a stool and sit at the feet of the Lord, to be mentored in God’s ways. This is something we must do regularly throughout life. It’s like going back to the basics, but learning and re-learning them at deeper and deeper levels.

Simplicity is also something I strive for, especially at this point in my life. There’s a couple levels to this. First is an “outward” simplicity. I am trying to get rid of the clutter that surrounds me. Oh, it’s not like there’s a ton of stuff, but there is more than what I need to live on. I was cleaning my porch last night and found 6 bike pumps. Seriously more than I need or can even use at one time! “But what if … ” is the phrase that runs through my head. “But what if one breaks, or someone needs to borrow one, or you lose one …” I am commiting myself to stopping the “But what if’s” and passing along this stuff to others who actually need a bike pump or whatever.

There’s also the “inward” simplicity. “Make my heart simple.” For me this speaks to living out of my heart’s desire — not getting distracted by “lesser” desires or attractions. I have to think more on what this means. I know there is a message in there for me, but not sure what yet.

How does this psalm speak to you?

Last night I talked with a group of young adult Catholics about prayer — ways to pray in the midst of daily life with all of the activities, pressures, and responsibilities that any given day might hold. We talked about how prayer is not about those moments that we set aside to be with God, but it is a habit of being with God, that is, making one’s whole life a prayer. How do we do this, especially when life can get kind of hectic?

What are some practical ways that you try to cultivate this sense of making your life a prayer? How do you practice Saint Paul’s invitation to “pray without ceasing”?

At long last I am returning to a book about Saint Teresa of Avila that I picked up last year. It’s called Interior Castle Explored: St. Teresa’s Teaching on the Life of Deep Union With God by Sister Ruth Burrows, OCD, a Carmelite nun in Norfolk. I am a big fan of both Teresa’s and Sister Ruth’s writings. But I don’t always take the time that I need to do some spiritual reading. So I took out the book again and started reading it again from the beginning.

In Chapter One, Sister Ruth quotes a poem by Nikos Kazantzakis, a Cretan poet whose birthday, coincidentally, is today. Sister Ruth writes, “I do not know his beliefs but, as it stands, the poem wonderfully expresses what I believe.”

Blowing through the heaven and earth, and in our hearts and in the heart of every living thing, is a gigantic breath — a great Cry — which we call God. Plant life wished to continue its motionless sleep next to stagnant waters, but the Cry leaped up within it and violently shook its roots: ‘Away, let go of the earth, walk!’ Had the tree been able to think and judge, it would have cried, ‘I don’t want to. What are you urging me to do? You are demanding the impossible!’

But the Cry, without pity, kept shaking its roots and shouting, ‘Away! Let go of the earth, walk!’

It shouted in this way for thousands of eons; and lo, as a result of desire and struggle, life escaped the motionless tree and was liberated….

The poem continues, but my reflections remained with this first part. How timely it is in my own life as well as in the life of the Church as we approach the wonderful season of Lent!

Some thoughts …

• What is the great Cry that I hear in my own life?
• What might God be asking me to let go of?
• In what ways am I tethered by roots that keep me from letting go and walking free?
• Is there something that I’ve been putting off for “thousands of eons”, thinking it impossible, that actually is possible?

In Decision-Making Using a Process of Discernment of Spirits, Sister Mary McDevitt, IHM, led us through understanding discernment, consolations, and desolations. When discerning and having to make a significant decision, it’s important to be aware your own inner spirit which is where God dwells within you. Today, Sister Mary takes us through concrete steps to help us figure out how God is calling us. She uses the discernment question example from the previous post, “Should I go to graduate school or not?”

Now, let’s get practical.

Are there steps I can take once I am more aware of my inner spirit?

1. Pray

• I pray and stay in the presence of God often.
• I ask God to give me freedom of spirit.
• I try to say to God, “Whatever choice is your will, it’s ok with me.”
• When I lift up each choice to God — e.g., about going to graduate school — I notice what my heart says. I check out my thoughts, too, and the long-range consequences of this action.

2. Write down two columns for each choice

• I line up the pros and cons of the situations. Two columns on why I would not go to graduate school — the good side (pro), and the not-so-good side (con).
• Then I do the same with the reverse: the pros and cons of going to grad school.
• I pray over the list and see which reasons are most moving, most serious and which affect my relationships with other people.
• One expert suggests: Be on your death-bed and ask which choice you would be glad you made.
• For Christians: Bring the decision and kneel under the Cross of Christ. How does it make sense there? Will this decision bring me closer to Jesus Christ in my living the Gospel?

3. Time for confirmation

• Once I have made a tentative decision, I talk it over with those who know me.
• I wait awhile and see if I feel peaceful in this decision as it becomes clearer.

4. Choose, act and be grateful

• One or many of these steps may guide me. I may wish to do these steps with a spiritual companion.

Sister Mary has given us a lot to think and pray on. In preparation for our live discussion with Sister Mary this Sunday, February 15, from 7-9 p.m. EST, please offer your comments and questions below.

One of my favorite quotes that keeps me on track and stills my heart …

Prayer is the quiet readiness to be addressed.

- Gregory Baum, Canadian Roman Catholic theologian

Give me, if you will, prayer;
Or let me know dryness,
An abundance of devotion,
Or if not, then barrenness.
In you alone, Sovereign Majesty,
I find my peace,
What do you want of me?

Yours I am, for You I was born:
What do you want of me?

- Saint Teresa of Avila

Today we are blessed to have Sister Theresa Milne, IHM, with us. This is one of the videos that I took when I was home in Monroe. Sister Terry responds to one of your Nun Questions.

What particular spiritual practice is most important to you in your walk with the Lord and why?” (from deerose)

In this video Sister Terry talks about the simple prayer of saying “yes” and “thank you” to God.

The two books that Sister Terry mentions are as follows:

• Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
• Thank God Ahead of Time: The Life and Spirituality of Solanus Casey by Michael Crosby

Sister Theresa Milne, IHM, is a Catholic nun belonging to the Immaculate Heart of Mary congregation. Sister Theresa lives at our IHM Motherhouse in Monroe, Michigan.

Question from Hayden …

Hi Sister Julie! First of all, I admire you so much! Nuns fascinate me so much. What an amazing spirit you have to lead a life totally for Christ. I am a Christian (Episcopal; raised Episcopal, Methodist, and went to a Church of Christ College), and desire to be closer to God every day! I do have a great relationship with Him, but sometimes think I have trouble hearing what He is telling me. Any advice? I want to learn how to really listen with an open heart and mind. I think it was fate that I even stumbled upon your blog! You are amazing!

Hayden, I’m so glad you came by for visit. Your question is an important one, one that many people including myself have wrestled with. Even Saint Teresa of Avila — a Doctor of the Church in the Roman Catholic tradition because of her teachings on prayer — struggled with prayer and listening to God.

The first thing I want to say is that your very desire to be closer to God is itself a clear indication that God is working within you, drawing you close. As Thomas Merton, the great spiritual writer and Cistercian monk, wrote in a prayer, “I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you and I hope that I have this desire in all that I am doing.” He continued, saying, “And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it.” For me, that is one of the key things to listening to God and responding to God’s call — tapping into that God-inspired desire within yourself to please God, to respond to God in love, to reverence and stand in awe of God.

One of the best ways to do this is to spend time with God as much as you can. Practice Saint Paul’s injunction that we “pray without ceasing“. That means to have a spirit of prayer in all that you do, as you go about your daily life. It also means taking time just to be with God, alone and without distraction. This can be tough to do, and it is also a very intimate and vulnerable thing to do. But just as we would in a relationship with a loved one, we grow into these moments, we’re able to behold a sunset together without words or to gaze into one another’s eyes with great love. These experiences with God nurture us and help us be more in tuned with what God’s desire is for us, what God’s voice “sounds” or “feels” like.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola teaches that there are some other specific ways to get in tune with God’s call to you and to help you better listen to and respond to God. The overall term for this is “discernment”. Ignatius developed a simple method by which you can review each day in a way that will help you grow in self-understanding and free you to follow God’s will. This practice is called the Daily Examen.

Those are just a few of my thoughts as I pray with you, Hayden, and all of us who long to draw close to God.

What ideas or thoughts does this inspire in you? What helps you to listen to God’s call to you?

Today is Day 1 of the novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. A novena is a prayer that is prayed for nine days. “The origin of the idea of praying for a special intention for nine days is very attractive and worth thinking about – it comes from the alleged length of time that Mary and the eleven remaining disciples spent praying together in the upper room, waiting for the Spirit to come upon them at Pentecost.” (source: Sacred Space)

Please pray with me this Novena in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila. The novena is in her honor because it ends on October 15, her feast day. Please keep these two intentions in your mind and heart as you pray this novena:

For all those who long to draw closer to God … we pray to God with Saint Teresa of Avila because of her own experience in prayer and her desire to help others grow in prayer.

For all those who are poor and vulnerable … October 15, Saint Teresa’s feast day, also marks Blog Action Day which focuses on poverty.

The novena that we will be praying was written by Saint Alphonsus of Liguori. Both saints are dear to me and are the patrons of my IHM Congregation. You can pray via the audio (MP3) or the text or both.

Let us pray …

Audio - Novena in Honor of Saint Teresa of Avila – Day 1
(from Meditations from Carmel)

Opening Prayer
O most amiable Lord Jesus Christ! We thank Thee for the great gift of faith and of devotion to the Holy Sacrament, which Thou didst grant to Thy beloved Teresa; we pray Thee, by Thy merits and by those of Thy faithful spouse, to grant us the gift of a lively faith, and of a fervent devotion toward the most Holy Sacrament of the altar; where Thou, O infinite Majesty! hast obliged Thyself to abide with us even to the end of the world, and wherein Thou didst so lovingly give Thy whole Self to us.

Our Father
Our Father, Who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary
Hail Mary, full of grace.
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Glory Be
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Closing Prayer
Saint Teresa, pray for us: That we may become worthy of the promises of Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: Graciously hear us, O God of our salvation! that as we rejoice in the commemoration of the blessed virgin Teresa, so we may be nourished by her heavenly doctrine, and draw from thence the fervour of a tender devotion; through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

Lionel, a fellow Plurker, wrote this post on his blog Acid42 about the interplay of Noise and Silence … These Last Few Days… Leave Me Alone. It’s a thoughtful piece, and I encourage you to read it and offer your reflections on it.

No matter who we are or how we live, we have this dynamic of Noise and Silence in our lives. Some of us swing more to one end than to the other.

The Gospels are a great place to look to see how this dynamic plays out in the life of Jesus. Sometimes Jesus is in the midst of the crowds, other times alone in the wilderness. In both places — the Noise and the Silence — Jesus encounters God.

In the Noise … When Jesus goes to the Jordan River with John the Baptist and a crowd of people, John baptizes Jesus. The heavens open up and the voice of God resounds, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

In the Silence … Right after his baptism, Jesus is led by God into the wilderness where he fasted and prayed for 40 days. (Matthew 4:1-2)

Meditation can mean many things and is variously defined. But basically it is any way that helps a person to center herself, become quiet and still within so as to be open. Meditation is creating a listening heart.

Within the Catholic tradition, meditation has it’s goal being open to God. We become quiet and still in order to be more aware of God who is always with us. We are always in God’s presence, we are not always present to God.

Meditation helps us to bring ourselves consciously into God’s presence. We don’t just think about God, we open ourselves to the experience of God who is right now relating personally with us. We ask God to help us as we draw closer to God, realizing that we do so only because God first called us and loves us dearly.

We use Scripture, our imagination, a mantra, an icon, a quiet space in the woods — whatever it may be — to draw us more closely to God and to be more open to hearing God. God becomes the focal point for whatever spiritual “tool” (for lack of a better word) we use. Sometimes God draws us away from these “tools” and pulls us into a space of just being. Being with God alone. No words, no images, just God. This space of just being alone with God is referred to as contemplation. It is sheer gift of God. Whereas with meditation, we are actively disposing ourselves to listening to God, to being in God’s presence; with contemplation, we are no longer doing anything because God has swept us up into Godself. Teresa of Avila writes at length about these different ways of experiencing God and is a good source if you want to spend more time learning about prayer — Interior Castle is a great place to start.

When you meditate on Scripture, you are allowing the Word of God to wash over you, to draw you into a place of quiet and stillness. It’s different from “reading” Scripture because when meditating, you might only read a few verses, maybe even a single phrase or word. You savor that word … the Word … like you might with repeating a mantra. When I meditate with Scripture I start with either a favorite passage or maybe something has struck me from the daily readings or from Mass. I take that Scripture to prayer with me almost like a doorway to the soul, knowing that God is attracting me, pulling me near through that particular passage. I meditate on it as a way to focus myself on God and God’s particular Word for me at that time.

In the Christian tradition we call this way of meditating/praying “Lectio Divina” or simply “Lectio”. It means “Divine Reading”, a way of drawing closer to God. Here are some more resources on Lectio.

• Spiritual GPS a post I wrote about Lectio Divina
• Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina a great book with explanation of Lectio, lots of resources, and 500 scripture texts for prayer
• Lectio Divina from the Benedictines wonderful resources and links on Lectio
  

Yesterday I wrote about Cycling and Meditation (BTW, I had a wonderful ride — felt great to be out, got a bruise, briefly lost my riding partner at Cicero and Devon, inhaled a bug, dodged a car driven by someone on her cell phone, saw a young deer with furry little antlers, beheld the beauty of the forest preserves, waved to a little girl on a bike, drank a ton of water, and got home safely and full of joy!)

David commented on my post and shared some of his own experience of prayer.

When “in the groove” with prayer- whether on a bike or not- it is great feeling. The words seem to take on deeper meaning than other words, and are virtually tangible. You don’t dwell on them- everything flows smoothly- but they are particularly meaningful and they seem to permeate your entire body- not just your brain.

I wish this were my daily experience with prayer, but it has not been for me. It is very weird how easy prayer and meditation sometime come, and how forced they are at other times. I have reflected upon it often and can’t find a cause and effect. Sometimes prayer is “easy” when life is going well, I am rested, not anxious, etc. Sometimes it is the opposite.

David well described the feeling of prayer when it is effortless — that is truly a gift of the Spirit. It is something we can’t conjure up ourselves. We can certainly prepare ourselves to be open to it, but it is a totally free gift of God.

I too wish that this was always my experience of prayer, and the temptation is to think “I must not be doing it right” when prayer doesn’t have that effortlessness. But prayer can take so many forms, so many feelings. “Effortlessness” — which I love — is not the only indicator of prayer. Sometimes we struggle, we get distracted, we feel out of sorts. These feelings are okay too and can be part of prayer.

Like David, I don’t like that feeling of prayer being forced … still we have to be faithful to prayer even in these times. Feeling like it is forced might mean we have to try something different — like pray the Rosary instead of centering prayer or vice versa. Or try a different time of day. Maybe it means continuing with the same prayer and just saying to God, “I’m feeling like this is really forced right now, God. I know you are with me in this.”

And remember, prayer is nothing more or less than being with God, talking and listening with Someone who loves us very much. As with other relationships, it takes time to grow with one another, learn our own quirks about how we are with the other. We can develop a “habit of prayer” by regularly taking time to pray and to develop an attitude — a life, really — of prayer such that we are always disposed to being open to God — in prayer, at work, on a bike ride, in an argument, shopping, etc. It takes practice and desire and openness on our part.

And be assured that this is God’s desire for us — to draw close with us, to be with us even if it feels forced or effortless. It is still being with God.

Crystal: This question is sort of off-topic, but I was wondering if you could say a bit about the Ignatian style of imaginative prayer that is a conversation with Jesus. Thanks

Father Martin: Actually, there is a long explanation of that in my chapter on St. Ignatius in My Life with the Saints. But briefly put, “Ignatian prayer” or “Ignatian contemplation” uses the imagination as a way to help people enter into a scene from Scripture, or to enter into a “discussion” with Jesus. For example, if you were looking at the story of the Sermon on the Mount, you might imagine yourself listening to Jesus speaking, and would ask the following questions in your prayer to set the scene: What do I see? What do I hear? What do I feel? What do I smell? What do I taste? In this way you “compose the place,” as St. Ignatius said, in your imagination, as a way of entering more deeply into the Scripture passage. And then you see what happens. Sometimes you are rewarded with new insights about that Bible story, and sometimes your emotion about what you are seeing reveals something new about yourself, about Jesus, or about God. In this case, for example, you might find yourself a little surprised that you are frightened about following all of the beatitudes, which might lead you into a good prayer about what is really required to follow Jesus. That’s just one example.

As for talking with Jesus, Ignatius calls these discussion “colloquies” in which you imagine Jesus before you and you speak to him in a “familiar” way as you would a friend. Essentially, Ignatius reminds us that our imagination is simply another way through which God communicates to us.

I’m loving my new blog setup. I’ve added a new widget that allows me to post quotes. Since Saint Teresa of Avila is a spiritual mentor for me, patroness of this blog and my IHM Congregation, and someone whose writings I love to read and reflect on, I’ve started by entering some of her quotes.

As I was typing in this quote, it cut right to my heart ..

Remember:
if you want to make progress
on the path
and ascend to the places
you have longed for,
the important thing
is not to think much
but to love much,
and so to do
whatever
best awakens you to love.

This is my prayer for you, and I ask that you pray it for me and for all those in need.

I’m still meditating on Nancy’s question, how can I dedicate my whole self to God?, and some of the responses I’ve received. A couple moms wrote in and talked about the desire to be more contemplative in the midst of a very active life … and the desire sometimes to want to retreat from it all and head for the woods!

As an active religious sister, I can appreciate how that feels — and I’m wondering if contemplative nuns (the sisters who are monastic and/or cloistered) ever feel this way too. Even though my life is vowed to God and everything I do is through the lens of my love for and relationship with Jesus, and my mission and life as an IHM Sister, there are often times when I just need to step away from everything into solitude, into the wilderness of the woods. For me it’s a desire to tap into my spirit and be with God alone without any words, images, sights or sounds. That space might happen on a street corner in downtown Chicago for a split second (remember Thomas Merton’s experience in Louisville at the corner of 4th and Walnut?) or it might happen while I am alone and still in the darkness of a dense forest.

Such experiences of contemplation are not really things we can “make happen” ourselves but are true gifts from God. The saints (again, my dear friend Saint Teresa of Avila) write that we can dispose ourselves to be more open to receive this gift, but ultimately it comes from God, when and how and where God wills.

What are some ways that you find a contemplative space in your hectic day/week/month?

With all of our important responsibilities — raising children, making a living, ministering to others — how do we respond to that God-given longing for solitude?

Here’s a comment with good questions from my post “What motivates a person to become a nun?” …

I am a 39 year old woman, single mother to 3 beautiful children. I am also in the process of confirming my Catholic faith. I was not raised Catholic, nor have I lived the early part of my adult life in a Christian way. However, God has been drawing me deeper and deeper over the past 3+ years. I know I can’t be a nun, even though I am so very drawn to a religious life. I cannot and would not leave my children, now or when they grow up, but do you think there is a way I can truly dedicate my whole self to God? That is what fascinates me about being a nun. I want to live for Him alone–I do wish I could “marry” Him. Does that sound silly? Anyway-do you have any advice for me for ways to be closer to God? What do nuns study other than the Bible and the Catechism? Thank you.

Dear Nancy, Thank you for writing to me and sharing a bit of your story with me. God bless you and your beautiful children.

All Christians are to live their life for God — married, single, clergy and religious. It’s just that we each do it in a different kind of way. As a mom, you have an important vocation of helping your children to grow into God’s amazing dream for them, to love God, others, and all of God’s creation, and to learn how to reach out to the poorest and most abandoned of society. How you do this and how you make your own way through life is a gift to others as well for they can see another person like themselves who is prayerful, faithful, and compassionate. This is an extraordinary way to live for God.

I also hear in your words a desire to draw close to God personally, in a kind of solitude and intimacy. “Marrying” God doesn’t sound silly — it’s a great metaphor for communicating that deep desire to unite wholly with God. Each of us has to find the way that God is calling us to do that. Having regular times for prayer, celebrating the Eucharist, reaching out in service to others — these are very good ways of living into this union with God. You might also consider getting to know a religious community more deeply. Many communities like mine have associates who share in our prayer, ministry and community.

Nuns read quite a variety of things. I’d first recommend reading about the saints. Their lives are filled with insight into what it means to live wholly for God. Saint Teresa of Avila is one of my favorites. She wrote a lot about contemplative prayer and being united with God. “Interior Castle” and “Way of Perfection” are two good places to start. (I’ve written about Teresa a number of times on this blog — see my Teresa of Avila category.) Find saints that resonate with you. You might, for example, look into the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and other saints like Saint Anne and Saint Monica who were moms.

There’s some good reading out there about living for God in the midst of everyday life. Check out My Monastery Is a Minivan by Denise Roy. There’s also a great book by Sister Melannie Svoboda, SND, coming out soon by Loyola Press — Gracious Goodness: Living Each Day in the Gifts of the Spirit.

I’ve got tons of suggestions as I’m sure others do. Let me know how you are doing. I’ll keep you in my prayers.

And for others reading this, do you have similar questions? What have you found helpful?

Earth Day Reflections by Sister Mary McCann, IHM

Earth Day Prayer Service by the Sisters of the Holy Family

Faithful Stewards of God’s Creation by the US Catholic Bishops

Prayers celebrating God’s Creation by the US Catholic Bishops

Earth Day Catholic e-Greetings Cards

How Earth Day became … so everyday

This one’s for you, Courtney, and all of us who seek to follow God’s path. 

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you and I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing. And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road although I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”  ~ Thomas Merton 

It’s snowing here in Chicago. I woke up this morning at 3:44 a.m. to the sound of a neighbor shoveling the sidewalk right beneath my window. Good morning! So I’ve been up ever since, praying, puttering around the house, doing some editing, and drinking strong coffee.

This is my favorite time of the day, though often I miss it because I am still sleeping. I love the pre-dawn day when the sun has not yet peeked over the horizon and the city feels asleep under the cover of night. My prayer as well as my thinking always seem so much sharper at this time. I feel like God is ever so close to me — I know God is always close to me, but this time of day seems to heighten it for me. How many psychologists and spiritualists talk about the “liminal edges”(liminal meaning being on the threshold)?

Dawn is like a threshold where the night is no longer here and the day not quite yet. They are both present and not present at the same time. Do you remember all those movies and fairy tales where the person (or thing) lives the day in one form (a werewolf, an ogre, a pumpkin or other creature — I watched the film Ladyhawke a million times when I was younger!) and at dusk transforms into another form? Then at dawn, the transformation is reversed? In our collective human psyche I think we know that these are special times of the day. Monks and nuns have honored these hours for hundreds of years by praying the Liturgy of the Hours. I honor this time with prayer and coffee (coffee being a libation of sorts, I suppose ).

Though I was a bit perturbed by waking up to a snow shovel scraping the sidewalk, upon further reflection, I’m glad for it because it reminds me to get up a little earlier next time so I can enjoy this sacred time instead of rushing into my day.

Thanks, Neighbor Guy, for waking me up — in more ways than one!

Here is an essay from Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ. It was aired on the NPR segment, This I Believe, ”a national media project engaging people in writing, sharing, and discussing the core values and beliefs that guide their daily lives.”

To listen to the Sister Helen’s essay, Living My Prayer, click here and then click on “Listen Now”.

Living My Prayer
by Sister Helen Prejean

Sister Helen Prejean’s work as spiritual adviser to death row inmates formed the basis of two books, including Dead Man Walking. A native of Louisiana, Prejean became a nun in 1957. In 1981 she dedicated her life to helping the poor of New Orleans.

Weekend Edition Sunday, January 6, 2008 · I watch what I do to see what I really believe.

Belief and faith are not just words. It’s one thing for me to say I’m a Christian, but I have to embody what it means; I have to live it. So, writing this essay and knowing I’ll share it in a public way becomes an occasion for me to look deeply at what I really believe by how I act.

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus said, and as a beginner nun I tried earnestly to love my neighbor — the children I taught, their parents, my fellow teachers, my fellow nuns. But for a long time, the circle of my loving care was small and, for the most part, included only white, middle-class people like me. But one day I woke up to Jesus’ deeper challenge to love the outcast, the criminal, the underdog. So I packed my stuff and moved into a noisy, violent housing project in an African-American neighborhood in New Orleans.

I saw the suffering and I let myself feel it: the sound of gunshots in the night, mothers calling out for their children. I saw the injustice and was compelled to do something about it. I changed from being a nun who only prayed for the suffering world to a nun with my sleeves rolled up, living my prayer. Working in that community in New Orleans soon led me to Louisiana’s death row.

So, I keep watching what I do to see what I actually believe.

Jesus’ biggest challenge to us is to love our enemies. On death row, I encountered the enemy — those considered so irredeemable by our society that even our Supreme Court has made it legal to kill them. For 20 years now, I’ve been visiting people on death row, and I have accompanied six human beings to their deaths. As each has been killed, I have told them to look at me. I want them to see a loving face when they die. I want my face to carry the love that tells them that they and every one of us are worth more than our most terrible acts.

But I knew being with the perpetrators wasn’t enough. I also had to reach out to victims’ families. I visited the families who wanted to see me, and I founded a victims support group in New Orleans. It was a big stretch for me, loving both perpetrators and victims’ families, and most of the time I fail because so often a victim’s families interpret my care for perpetrators as choosing sides — the wrong side. I understand that, but I don’t stop reaching out.

I’ve learned from victims’ families just how alone many of them feel. The murder of their loved one is so horrible, their pain so great, that most people stay away. But they need people to visit, to listen, to care. It doesn’t take anyone special, just someone who cares.

Writing this essay reminds me, as an ordinary person, that it’s important to take stock, to see where I am. The only way I know what I really believe is by keeping watch over what I do.

Independently produced for Weekend Edition Sunday by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick.

(source)

Great article from Zenit. I love the image of lectio divina as “spiritual GPS” … what has been your experience with reading Scripture? How does Scripture help you pray and navigate life?

“Lectio Divina” Seen as a Compass and Spiritual GPS
Site on Meditation of Scripture Aims to Attract Youth

By Miriam Díez i Bosch

ROME, DEC. 18, 2007 (Zenit.org) – A “spiritual GPS” and a “compass for life” are two images that have been used to illustrate the importance of reading the Bible, says a Catholic consultor for the United Biblical Societies.

Ricardo Grozna said this to ZENIT when commenting on the Web site www.lectionautas.com, which offers guides for “lectio divina,” or the meditative reading of Scripture, and aims especially to attract youth. It already has 50,000 users.

“To define ‘lectio divina’ as a GPS [Global Positioning System] is to see in it a satellite that tells us where we are, like a compass, which indicates to us the path to follow,” Grozna said. He commented that Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, “has referred to ‘lectio divina’ as a GPS, and the Pope has defined the Bible as a ‘compass for life.’”

Sacred Scripture “is a book that interprets my life; the Bible ends up being like a mirror that helps me, and teaches me to seek a path,” Grozna added. “For years, Pope John Paul II and then Benedict XVI insisted a great deal that ‘lectio divina,’ which was a method of monastic prayer of the monks, could reach all Christians.”

Novel evangelization

The program of “lectio divina” on the Internet consists in offering users texts and MP3 files. Users are chiefly youth who download the audio files on their mobile phones. Grozna explained that the aim of the program is to train young people who can lead other youth in reading the Bible.

“The Church is taking all the programs promoting biblical reading as a priority,” explained Grozna, pointing especially to his experience in Latin America. “Catholics have delayed a little in rediscovering the Bible, but the Bible has always been present in the Church. [...] I don’t read the Bible, it is the Bible that reads me.”

Grozna said the site’s success is shown by hundreds of e-mail messages from youth telling “how they are changing their lives by following the prayerful reading.”

The method is also ecumenical, he added: “‘Lectio divina’ has been a point for moving forward in dialogue with other Christian brothers.” And it also serves as a social apostolate, “In some countries, the parish youth are using the method of ‘lectio divina’ to reach ostracized youth; those who are in very poor neighborhoods, those who have been victims of drugs, violence, gangs.”

Hugo Flores, manager of the site, was in Rome to present the program. He told ZENIT the program has been well received by theologians and biblical scholars. “They have taken ‘lectio divina’ as a point to help them evangelize and carry the word of the Lord to more groups. Cardinals, bishops, priests … they are fascinated with this novelty, this new form of evangelizing through the Internet.”

(click for article at Zenit.org)

Blog reader Jenn had a question about prayer, and so I thought tackle it on today’s post.

Prayer is such a wonderfully dynamic thing. There are so many ways to have a conversation with God, to be still in his presence. One of the central ways that we Catholics pray together is through the celebration of the Eucharist. This celebration itself holds within it a great variety of ways to pray which involve spirit, mind, and body. It is at the center of our lives as Catholics.

Praying the Liturgy of the Hours is also something I love because I am in communion not only with God but with my sisters and with all who pray that way. There is a universal, deeply Catholic aspect to it that I love.

I also pray in other ways like the Examen of Consciousness. There are times when I am drawn to contemplative prayer, to being with God without words or images mediating. Those times are pure gift because they are not something I can conjure up. I can dispose myself to them through a regular habit of prayer and opening myself up to God. I also pray through nature. I have always loved the outdoors, animals, the sky, the land — all of it. I find it speaks constantly of the glory of God and the goodness of all of creation. When I’m in wilderness (even the bits of wilderness in a big city), I’m at home with my God and myself.

I pray through the day as well. I’ve got my formal times of prayer, but that doesn’t preclude praying through the day. Praying doesn’t always mean I’m addressing God about something particular, sometimes it’s like just being together as you would with a good friend. You just enjoy each other’s company. By cultivating a general openness to God, one finds that one slips in and out of prayer throughout the day. This reminds me of Saint Paul who wrote “pray without ceasing”.

Yesterday Elizabeth asked the following in her comment on my About Me page:

I was wondering if you would be interested in describing what your day is like. If you consider this an intrusion, please feel free to ignore it.

It’s no intrusion at all, Elizabeth. I’m pleased to respond. I must first preface my response by saying that not all my days are like this nor do all sisters/nuns’ lives necessarily follow this particular pattern.

Most days like today, I wake up to the quiet hum of my clock radio at 5:00 a.m. I head directly to the coffee machine. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Straight to the coffee machine. Once the coffee is ready I visit with the convent cat whose name is Chloe. Chloe is an 8.5 year old girl. She is very sweet and contemplative. I think of her as a live stuffed animal because when I was a kid (okay a few years ago) I always hoped and prayed that my stuffed animals would come alive. Now I have Chloe!

Then I pray Morning Prayer according to the Liturgy of the Hours. This is one of my most favorite prayers. This prayer also unites me with my sisters because though we do not live under the same roof, it’s like we can come together in prayer wherever we are. I pray for all of my IHM sisters, the other 2 communities of IHMs, and the Oblate Sisters of Providence (all of whom were part of our early days as a congregation). I pray for my family especially my parents and siblings and their families. I pray for all those people who have asked me to keep them in my prayers. I conclude by praying for all those who do not have someone to pray for them.

After prayer I head to the computer with my trusty mug of coffee. I check my email, write on my blog, and do other computer tasks. Then I rev up for the day ahead of me. I pack a lunch, get my work bag and clothes together, and leave the house as soon as I can so that I can make it to the gym for a swim before work.

Then it’s off to Loyola Press. I must say that I truly love going to work. I have fabulous colleagues, a great work environment, and a job that is truly prayer and ministry. I work in the catechetical department of Loyola Press. Among other things, we are responsible for the theological content of our religious education program and materials and for ensuring good catechesis. We work closely with editors, designers, production, customer service, marketing, etc. When I first came to the Press, we were working on Finding God — a new religious education program based on Ignatian Spirituality and written by the folks at Loyola Press. It is a beautiful series that begins with prayer and the understanding that children are already in relationship with God. Not only is the writing and artwork stunning, but catechists keep telling us how much it helps them help the children experience God and learn our Catholic faith. I’m proud to be part of this good work.

Here are some of my colleagues: Joe, Tom, and Jean (a nun!). At the beginning of the year Joe started his own blog about being a catechist. It’s very cool. Check it out at Catechist’s Journey and learn not only about catechesis but also about Joe’s favorite sports teams!

After work I head for home. Unpack, get my mail, visit with Chloe, check in on my IHMs, and do ordinary domestic things. In the evening I read — theological texts, spirituality books, novels, whatever peaks my interest at the moment. I occasionally turn on the TV (as I will this evening to watch “Heroes”, one of the best shows I’ve seen in a long time) or listen to National Public Radio (NPR). I conclude my day with the Examen. Click here for more info on the Examen. I learned it from my Jesuit friends when I studied in Toronto. It is a prayerful way to review your day and get a sense of God’s presence in your life. I will occasionally pray Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. Then it’s off to bed!

I have learned from my sisters what it really means to “pray without ceasing” as Saint Paul calls all of us to do in his first letter to the Thessalonians 5:17. We are to make the whole day a prayer — coffee rituals, caring for God’s creatures, working out at the gym, doing our job and chores around the house, sitting around daydreaming — all of these things can be opportunities to open ourselves to God, to experience his love and to radiate this love to others. This is what I strive to do every day of my life.

(a continuation of A Catalogue of My Favorites: Part I)

[M is for Mary, the Mother of God - your favorite term of endearment for her]: Ark of the Covenant

[N is for New Testament - your favorite passage]: “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32

[O is for Old Testament - your favorite book here]: Isaiah and the prophets

[P is for Psalms - your favorite]: Psalm 63.

[Q is for Quote - saint quote]: “It is better to illuminate than merely to shine.” Saint Thomas Aquinas

[R is for Rosary - your favorite mysteries]: The Luminous Mysteries

[S is for Saint - the one you turn to in time of need - not including the Blessed Virgin Mary]: Saint Teresa of Avila, Mother Theresa McGivney, IHM, Saint Ignatius of Loyola

[T is for Tradition - your favorite Catholic tradition]: The Liturgy of the Hours and anything with incense

[U is for University - Which Catholic university have you attended or are currently attending?]: I’ve got my bachelor’s degree from University of Saint Michael’s College (Basilian) at University of Toronto, my masters from Regis College (Jesuit), and some miscellaneous course work at Sacred Heart Major Seminary (diocesan) and Washington Theological Union (mix of religious communities). I also taught a few semesters at the University of Detroit Mercy.

[V is for Virtue - the one you wish you had]: Prudence … as in “Be not conformed to this world, but he reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

[W is for Way of the Cross - Which station can you most relate to?]: The fourth: Jesus Meets His Mother. In the movie The Passion, when Jesus meets his mother on the road to Calgary, he says “Behold I make all things new.” (from Revelations 21:5) I was so struck by that when I saw the movie that the image continues to stay with me.

[X is for Xaverian Brothers - Do you know who they are?]: Their patron is Saint Francis Xavier.

[Y is for your favorite Catholic musician]: Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) — writer, composer, musician

[Z is for Zeal for the faith]: Absolutely!

“Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

attributed to 
Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Carmelite nun, Doctor of the Church, monastic reformer, mystic, writer