Download 1 SACRED SPACE Something to think and pray about this week

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SACRED SPACE
Something to think and pray about this week
Sunday 6 January 2013
Author: Brian Grogan SJ
The Year of Faith has already begun. This theme of faith is dear to the heart of Pope
Benedict. For him, the essence of Christianity is a love story between God and
ourselves. The word ‘credo’ (I believe) comes from ‘cor do’ (I give my heart). Faith,
then, is an affair of the heart. It is an intimate meeting between God and each
individual. The encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman (John 4: 1-42) offers a
perfect example. At the well, heart speaks to heart, and both persons reveal
themselves. The woman comes to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ. In her
joy she hurries off to tell her neighbours, and so convincing is her witness that the
whole town comes out to see Jesus. Then they tell her that they have discovered for
themselves the mystery of the person she had spoken about.
It is good for us to have knowledge about God and about Jesus, but this is not enough.
The witness of other believers is also helpful, but that too is not enough. Personal
encounter is needed, and that occurs when we meet God in personal prayer. The
intention of Sacred Space is to facilitate a face to face meeting with the Jesus of the
New Testament. The daily meeting can help me to utter a free Yes to Jesus from my
heart.
Like the Samaritan woman, I come privately to my well with my needs and my
wonderings. Jesus welcomes me as he welcomed her. We chat. He opens his heart to
me as he did to her, and promises me true life, living water. Just as the life of that
anonymous woman was transformed forever by her encounter with Jesus, mine too
can be reconfigured around him. She would have revisited endlessly in imagination
her meeting at the well. If she knew that Jesus would be there every day for her, she
would never have missed the chance to meet him. When two people seek one
another’s company, a love story is under way. Humdrum days take on new colour,
because of the disturbing freshness of Jesus. May it be so for us in this Year of Faith.
Sunday 13 January 2013
Author: Donal Neary SJ
There’s something at this time of the year about endings and beginnings. An old year
ends with its memories and a new year begins with its hope. The endings and the
beginnings – past and future – are always in the present tense of Love. Isn’t that
where prayer comes in? They are moments in the day - or in the night – in which we
immerse ourselves in this mystery of the divine love for us. This love brings healing
of the past and trust for the future. All religion worth its name surrounds the past with
a wide healing and the possibility of forgiveness, and enlightens the future with the
same breadth of hope and trust. No matter what our prayer and its content, its context
is of healing and trust in the space of a love so large that it is the name given to God.
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What I live in the ordinariness of the day forms also a context for prayer, and what I
experience or think of in prayer forms a context for my life. Neither is separate one
from the other. Everything that this annual transition of the years evokes in me, I
bring to the One who is love beyond all telling.
Sunday 20 January 2013
Author: Dermot Mansfield SJ.
At the recent feast of Epiphany (which means ‘manifestation’), the glory of God
shines out for all the nations, in Mary’s little Child. Then, at the feast of the Baptism
of the Lord, that light is manifest once more. Heaven opens and the Spirit comes
down on Jesus. A voice is heard, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved.’ (Luke 3:22). Now
comes the Wedding Feast of Cana: Jesus transforms water into wine. He lets his glory
be seen, and his disciples believe in him (John 2:11). So again we have a
manifestation of the heart of God.
Note the setting, a wedding feast! Why is this setting chosen? Because the prophets
had already portrayed the ultimate transformation of our lives as being like a marriage
union with God: ‘I shall betroth you to myself for ever, betroth you with integrity and
justice, with tenderness and love’ (Hosea 2:21). And at the End, in God’s radiant
love—eternally there for us — we will shine out like the dawn. We shall be called
“God’s Delight” and our land will be called “The Wedded”; for the Lord takes delight
in us (Isaiah 62:1-5). So, as we look to Jesus, and contemplate him at the Wedding
Feast, we can reflect on all these promises which his radiant presence holds out for us.
As his disciples, we can ask for the grace to believe in him, and entrust ourselves
completely to him who is Light.
Sunday 27 January 2013
Author: Dermot Mansfield SJ.
This year, on the Sundays of Ordinary Time, the Gospel of Luke is proclaimed. In it
Jesus is portrayed as displaying the graciousness of God. He is shown as especially
the friend of people on the margins of society; namely those who are poor, who are
considered of little account, and are often termed ‘sinners’ because they don’t keep
the Law. And that graciousness is very noticeable in our Gospel text for this Sunday.
We see Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth, as he unrolls the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah. He reads out from it to the people —and applies to himself—the words about
the humble Servant: ‘The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed
me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, and to heal the brokenhearted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the
oppressed go free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour’ (Luke 4: 18-19).
This is the way Jesus sees himself as he sets out on his public ministry! So we might
simply look at him this week, and hear him, over and over, as he proclaims these
words of gracious care for the oppressed and marginalised. Earlier, Luke had already
set out that programme as: ‘the loving-kindness of the heart of our God, who visits us
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like the dawn from on high. He will give light to those in darkness, those who dwell in
the shadow of death, and guide us into the way of peace’ (Luke 2: 78-79). May the
graciousness and loving-kindness of the heart of God, revealed to us in Jesus, touch
our own hearts. May we become the ‘graciousness’ of God in our place and time.