The Epiphany

THE OCTAVE OF CHRISTMAS

Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth

On the Epiphany, Fr. T gave a wonderful sermon - the entire thing was wonderful - but one part stuck with me and I still found myself contemplating what he said in the days that followed.


Fr. T said that the Three Kings brought Jesus gifts....well, we all know that.


Then he likened those gifts to the gifts that God gives us.... Yes, we've probably heard that before too.


But then he said, not outer gifts like beauty or wealth or a good job, house, money, etc.


He said he meant the inner gifts, gifts from God that we can either choose to use or ignore.


Our personal talents. Our inner treasure.


Then he said that those gifts were like a stain glass window.






When light shines on a stain glass window from inside, it looks flat. One can't see the colors or even make out the picture sometimes.

The Wedding Church, Cana, Israel

But when a light is shone from inside, though our window, people see it! People see the picture, the meaning, the vitality, the beauty.

Church of All Nations, Jerusalem, Israel

The light from inside shows the vibrant colors, the patterns, the true picture. And in that illumination, we share the gift.

The gift of ourselves.

Basilica of the Annunciation                       The Wedding Church

       Nazareth, Israel                                     Cana, Israel

       

Church of St. John the Baptist                       Church of the Multiplication

       Ein Kerem, Israel                                     Tabgha, Galilee, Israel

We show, and we share, the inner treasure God has given us.

Chapel of the Flagellation - Jerusalem, Israel

God is calling us to shine our internal light, to illuminate our gifts so that others can benefit from the sharing of it.

We must use our blessings to bless others, to allow our light to shine from inside ourselves for people to see the gifts God has given us.

St. Joseph's Catholic Church - Lodi, NJ

Without the using of our gifts by illuminating and sharing them with others, we waste our treasure and are flat and colorless.

Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu - Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Lord, today I want to shine forth the gifts you've given me so that others may see and benefit from them.  Please let me always share the treasure you've given me with anyone I come in contact with to your glory.  Amen.

We must share our gifts so that others can acquire the light and shine themselves.

St. Joseph's Catholic Church - Lodi, NJ

Searching for a Spiritual Connection

I stopped in at St. Paul's Adoration Chapel for a few minutes the other day. The church is downtown and I try to stop in anytime I have business near there.

 

(this is not a great photo, I snapped it with my cell phone which doesn't do well in low light)

St. Paul's Adoration Chapel is in a small room directly off the altar of the 180 year old historic church. It just so happened that as I was in there praying I heard the sounds of the beginning of daily Mass.

(It was kinda weird since I was just on the other side of the wall, not 25 feet from the priest! I felt like I was hiding in a closet or something!)

I don't know what I was praying about at the time, but I had just gotten up to leave when I realized they were beginning the Gospel. I stood still and tried to listen to the Word. It was difficult. The priest had a very deep voice and although it was booming, it was muffled to my ears though the thick sanctuary wall. I couldn't catch many of the words.

I heard Joseph's name, and Mary.

I caught partial snatches of sentences.

I know what time of the year we are in liturgically, so I was able to narrow it down to one of a couple of stories, but couldn't hear. Stain and try as I might, I couldn't catch what was actually being said. It was frustrating.

I found myself feeling upset and sad.

And then I realized I was experiencing the same sort of anxious feelings I had when I was in Israel on my pilgrimage!

The crowds, the rush, the noise, the distractions...all worked to make it next to impossible to have any sort of heavenly experience at the various sites. They hustle visitors through so many of the sites, and although I understand their need to give everyone a chance. The lines are long and I'm sure there are pilgrims who would throw themselves on a site and remain there in prayer for a hour if left to it, heck-fire, I might be one of them! But they had to move us all along so the next person could have a slice of a moment with the spiritual. The longing to connect - to have an epiphany, some sort of divine bonding was very stressful....and the discouragement when it didn't happen made my heart ache.

For me, it made for a frustrating experience several times in the holiest of sites and I came away with a sense of discouragement at my lack of divine encounter... and to be truthful, maybe even a tiny bit of shame and not having been able to center my heart and mind to give the scared spot the honor it was due.

There I said it. I was ashamed that I couldn't connect with My Lord in the sites where He lived and breathed.

I was maybe even hurt. Why didn't I? What was it? Why weren't my prayers for an encounter answered? What was wrong with me that I could connect with the holy place??? Why was God holding himself back from me???

Well, it was an ongoing internal struggle during the entire pilgrimage and after I returned home too.

But back to my experience in the Adoration Chapel.

So I left feeling frustrated and sad and knowing that it was like the feelings I had experienced in Israel. And I thought about it as I drove away. And it occurred to me that if I want to know what the priest is saying, all I have to do is go to any missal or any one of a hundred websites to find out what the Gospel reading was (btw Mt 1:18-25. Thanks www.catholic.org!).

Any person on any day can read, meditate, savor, find meaning in and dwell on the Word of God. I can take my time, put it in my heart, grow a tiny bit more in my quest to be a good daughter of God and sister of Christ.

And then I realized that this is what I'm doing with this blog. I am taking my lack of spiritual encounter to the awesome religious site and am making that link by reading the stories in the bible, meditating on my photos, recalling the moments I was physically there, reminiscing on the sounds, smells, sites, feelings and putting it all together here.

I am turning my frustration (& embarrassment?) to peace.

I am so happy to have this journaling project to help me to take one of the most wonderful events of my life and use it to make many, many connections to God.

Lord, thank you for "holding out" on me during my pilgrimage so that I can link your Word with my experience for an even greater meditative encounter now which I can savor over time and enjoy to it's fullest.  Amen.

How It Began

This is really kinda funny, because I am not a journaler, uh journalist...person who keeps a journal. Ever. Never. And I've tried to begin this project multiple times in multiple ways. I have several little notebooks which I've started over the past 3 months, plus this is my second attempt at a blog.

Backing up, I would have never guessed in a million years that I would go to Israel. Israel. Me.

My Mother is lucky enough to get to travel a lot. In the spring, there was a blurb in our church bulletin about our priest taking a group to The Holy Land. "I've always wanted to go to see Israel" she told me. When she was young, she was a nurse in the Air Force stationed in England. She used to take "hops", flying space available when the pilots were headed to Europe and she has lots of stories, pictures and souveniers of her weekends in France, Portugual, Spain, etc. Once she met my Dad, that sorta put a slow-down to her adventures in travel as she began adventures of another nature. It seems that she had planned a trip to Bethlehem over Christmas though, and Dad talked her into staying in England with him, which she was happy to do at the time. Now, 55 years later, she was thinking about finally taking that trip with the members of our church.

But she was worried. Probably for multiple reasons, but the question she kept asking me over the months is "Do you think it would be safe to travel there?" ("How dangerous do you think it really is in the Middle East?" "I wonder if that trip to Israel would be safe?" "Do you think it would be crazy for me to go on that trip?")

Finally I gave her my honest answer "If I had a chance to go to Israel, I wouldn't worry about anything, I would go in a New York Minute!"

That must have started her thinking because by the fall, about a week before my birthday, she asked me if I would go with her.

I could not believe it, couldn't wrap my brain around it! I was too afraid that if I got excited it wouldn't happen! Like if I made too much noise I would wake myself up and find out it was all a dream.

But it wasn't a dream. It was real. I really, really did go to Israel. To places I had heard about on the tv and in the news; in songs and in psalms; testament places both old and new; places where our Lord Jesus Christ lived.

And it was wonderful and unusual and mysterious and exotic. It was surprising and unexpected and heartbreaking and joyful. It was awesome and stressful and inspiring and scary.

And it's over. Oh it's over. : (

And I don't want it to be. It was too fast. I want to remember. I want to understand what happened. I want to dissect it, to explore my feelings, to search my heart and mind for meaning from it. I want to glean all the significance, I want to grasp all the importance, I want to hold on to the essence and savor it all until I've captured all the spirituality I can from the experience.

I knew that's what I wanted. I prayed about it before the trip, during the trip, after I got home. But how? How could I capture the experience?

Everyone said that I must do a journal. So, like I said in the first paragraph, I started writing. I think I started three different journals before I left. I even read articles on how to do a journal. I started a fourth one on the trip.

We returned from our pilgrimage only 12 days before the First Sunday of Advent. And I was still floundering with my attempts to write down my thoughts from the trip when I went to church that first Sunday and heard the Gospel that day. I remembered that place. I knew where they stood when they spoke those words. All the memories of the place I had been which related to those couple of verses from the Bible came flooding in. It was beautiful. It was amazing. I was overwhelmed with the wonder of it.

And realized that this would probably happen all year as I attended Mass! So why not write down those thoughts as they came to me? In the order that they came? Here was the answer to my prayer!! And this blog was born.

So here it is, my journey to Israel. My journal of Israel. Not day by day following our itinerary, but liturgically.

My prayers have been answered. I am happy and satisfied with the path I've been inspired (thank you Holy Spirit!!) to use to "journal" my trip and am finding great peace.

Dear God: You are Good, All the Time!  Please use my story for your glory! Amen.

My beautiful Mother Rosemary and I in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

2012 Pilgrimage to Israel