Tag: Jessye Norman

Praying with Jesus

Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter 

June 6, 2019

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Today, in Mercy, Jesus continues to pray. What a blessing it is to be able to place ourselves next to Jesus and listen to his prayer!

The flow of this prayer shows clearly that it is part of an ongoing and continual conversation. Jesus is always in a relationship of presence with the Father. He just allows us to listen in John 17.

John17_11 One

By our listening, we may grow in the depth of our own prayer. Jesus prays:

  • for God to be glorified
  • for all to be one in God
  • for the wholeness and perfection of all Creation
  • for eternal, Trinitarian life for his followers
  • for God’s love to live in our hearts

These requests are the same things the Father wants. These are the reasons the Father sent Jesus into the world. So, in his prayer, Jesus is praying for God’s Will of love and wholeness in the world. He is praying for oneness with the Father.

We can grow in this kind of prayer by opening our minds and spirits to God’s heartbeat in our lives. St. Teresa of Avila said it like this:

“Through a truth glimpsed fleetingly in a state of prayer he calls to us.
No matter how halfhearted such insights may be, God rejoices
whenever we learn what he is trying to teach us.”
– The Interior Castle

and

“Let the truth be in your hearts, as it will be if you practice meditation,
and you will see clearly what love we are bound to have for our neighbors.”– The Way of Perfection

Through intention and practice, and responsive to grace, there comes a point in our spiritual life when we are never unaware of the Presence of God. The intensity of this awareness will vary, like the volume in a beautiful piece of music, but the Divine music is still always there, even in its necessary rests.

( Rests are intervals of silence in pieces of music, marked by symbols indicating the length of the pause. Each rest symbol and name corresponds with a particular note value, indicating how long the silence should last.)

Whether we are in a “rest” or a full, resounding note, let us become aware of God’s Presence in us and our presence in God.

Music:   My TOP favorite piece of music. ( P.S. Whoever is in charge, please play this at my funeral.)

Messe solennelle en l’honneur de sainte Cécile: Sanctus – Jessye Norman

The New Jerusalem

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 26, 2019

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(I know you’re having a holiday weekend but, if nothing else, listen to today’s glorious song)

Today, in Mercy,  in our readings, we definitely get the sense of a young Church growing in its self-understanding.

The early Church leaders, most of whom are Jews, grapple with the question of whether new Gentile followers must first be circumcised in order to be baptized.

Over twenty centuries later, the answer seems obvious. But the question nagging the disciples shows us how they experienced their Christianity as emerging from Judaism. They had no concept of the call to Christianity coming in any other way.

It seems it was a huge shift for some of them to realize that God is not Jewish, that God is the God of all peoples – just as some of us today have trouble understanding that God is not Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, male, white, born again or any other human limitation we attach to the Divine.

Rev21_2 Jerusalem

Our second reading reveals how John dealt with navigating this shift. Still cemented in his Jewish symbols, he sees “Jerusalem” coming down out of heaven from God. But it was a new Jerusalem – one without the central symbol of Judaism, the Temple:

I saw no temple in the city
for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb.
The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it,
for the glory of God gave it light,
and its lamp was the Lamb.

For John, the New Creation in Christ included, but exceeded the Jewish narrative.

In our Gospel, Jesus prepares his disciples for life without his physical presence. They, too, need to learn to let go. He encourages them to open their hearts to even greater graces:

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I told you.

Jesus is reminding his disciples, and us, that the graces and learnings of the New Creation are infinite. If we can learn when to let go of our old practices, our material symbols, our impregnable sureties, the Holy Spirit will astound us, and re-shape our understanding of God, just as She did for Mary, Peter, Paul, John and all the many enlightened saints through the ages.

As Pentecost approaches, let us pray for such Enlightenment in ourselves and especially in our Church. For the world grows ever more resistant to the Holy Spirit Whose Gifts are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and awe of God.

Let us pray for a New Jerusalem where all are one in God.

Music: If you do nothing else with this reflection, please allow yourselves the thrill of listening to the celestial voice of Miss Jessye Norman. (Always gives me goosebumps!)