Introduction

Angela Center has been for many years a haven of quiet and peace, a place of spiritual nourishment and growth, a sacred place for the spiritual journey. This year we are joined by friends, near and far, who share their reflections on the Advent journey. Each reflection is offered as a gift of personal insight or discovery shared from the heart. May these words touch your heart and be a source of nourishment and hope for your spirit.

In the midst of winter darkness, together despite the miles between us, we await, we call out, we cry for the light. We are expectant, we are hopeful. We long for love, we long for birth. Our longing is for ourselves and for our world.

November 30, The First Sunday of Advent

November 30, The First Sunday of Advent

Is 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7/1; Cor 1:3-9;Mk 13:33-37

Keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep. Keep awake! Mk. 35-36

In the first reading, Isaiah shouts at me and I want to shout back, “Tear open the heavens and come down! Come down like the mountains in an earthquake, flaming like fire in brushwood to make your name known! Come, from somewhere powerful in you distant heavens, and cast your fire on those who start these wars and cause all this hunger and sickness.”

But, in the hollow silence that follows my tirade, I know you are not in the heavens but right here. You are here in your Wisdom in me, in this human community, and in our kinship with all creation. “Come” becomes my own call to wake up to what is right here, right now. It’s my call to open my eyes and reach out to the hands and paws and wings of my kin and hold on tight. Choosing justice and choosing peace these days is sure to give a bumpy ride.

Mantra: Wake me up! Open my eyes!

Kay McMullen, SNDdeN

Monday, December 1, 2008

Monday, December 1

Is 2:1-5/Mt 8:5-11

Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain...that he may instruct us in his ways. Is. 2

“All nations shall stream toward this mountain,” Isaiah says. Humanity, each one of us, is on the way, spiraling up “the highest mountain, raised above the hills.” Though history may seem to be heading in the opposite direction, the shadowed valleys of our time could be showing us that we need a balancing view, the aerial outlook.

Imagination can help us realize that the ancient and universal sacred mountain can be as alive within us as the earthen Fuji, Everest, Kilimanjaro or Shasta. Mountain shrouds in cloud, erupts as volcano, gives birth to springs and the beginnings of great rivers.

Let’s stop for a moment. Feel Mountain in the body. Mists, wildflowers, forests, glaciers, rock are there for us to explore. Let’s climb, and watch others climb too. When we meet at the top, each of us will have a unique perspective of what we see in the four directions around us. What swords might we be carrying as a defense against renewed life? If they were melted into a plowshares, they would be instruments for planting, for bringing forth new views and possibilities.

Mantra: Imagine possibilities.

Clare Morris

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Tuesday, December 2

Is 11:1-10/Lk 10:21-24

“Blessed are the eyes …”

“Blessed are the eyes” of the four women martyrs of El Salvador, Maura, Ita, Dorothy, and Jean. “They could see the revelation of the Lord and they could hear His voice.” Although the teaching of justice and compassion had been offered to the wise and the learned in that country, the powerful could not see nor hear what the Lord held out to them. The women had been “childlike” in their trust to whom the Lord had revealed his love and his desire to “rescue the poor when (they) cry out and attend to the afflicted when there was no one to help them.” They longed to bring peace to that troubled land, to serve those in need and lift their spirits in hope, but the ruthless found them too challenging, too much.

What was cut short in the lives of Maura, Ita, Dorothy and Jean, continues in the hearts of those who love them still. The power of Love, and the Spirit of the Lord hovers over all who work until Justice shall flourish...and the fullness of peace… reign forever.” That is our hope; that is our call.

Mantra: Justice shall flourish; peace reign forever.

Roseanne Murphy, SNDdeN

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Wednesday, December 3

Is 25:6-9; Mt 15:29-37

This is our God for whom we have waited. Is. 25

This, here, now, within; the One for whom we wait has already arrived. Stop searching, “flailing like time for the grasp of connection.” Advent is not the season to repeat the longing. Wake up and know that you can see, hear, walk and speak.

Advent

In the way that wait

longs for coming

these empty hours

reach out from darkness

probing like time

not knowing

flailing, for

the grasp of connection

Mantra: Here and now

Patricia Ryan, RSM

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Is. 26:1-6/Mt.7:21; 24-27

Trust in the Lord forever!

For the Lord is an eternal rock. Is 26

Build your house here

now

on bedrock.

Lay down a center stone

before you begin,

the stone of this moment,

the stone burning

with the One who loves you,

the stone indestructible,

eternal, your only hope.

Mantra: That stone burning with one who loves.

Clare Morris

Friday, December 5, 2008

Friday, December 5

Is. 29:17-24 Mt. 9:27-31

Do you believe that I can do this? Mt. 9

Blindness afflicted this community of two and they cried out for the pity of Jesus. Yet, when they approached him, it was relationship to which he was inviting them. Do you believe that I can do this? Jesus touched their eyes but the removal of blindness occurred in the transformation of their inner hearts as well. “Let it be done according to your faith.” “ And their eyes were opened.”

Cultural blindness, economic blindness, religious blindness, political blindness, intellectual blindness plague us as we struggle to show God's goodness, dispelling the gloom and darkness that envelop our societies. Let us deepen our hope in the relationship Jesus offers to us and the transformative joy, justice and peace that he promises to all creation;.

Mantra Do you believe that I can do this?

Phyllis Cook SNDdeN