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Growing toward the light, a young fern changes every day on the grounds of St. Mary Monastery, Rock Island, Illinois.
Growing Into What God Wants Us To Be
In the middle of Mass at the monastery one recent Sunday morning, a cactus clattered to the floor, causing heads to swivel and minds to wonder. What Sr. Mary Core wondered was, What on earth made it fall right now? No one was near it, nothing shook the floor. It had to have been something the plant itself did, she decided.
And what the plant must have done was grow, Sr. Mary concluded, as all of God's creation must do to live. In fact, life requires change.
"The minute we think a plant has all it needs, either it will die or break loose," Sr. Mary, the initial formation director for the Benedictine Sisters, says. "In the case of the cactus, it had grown too much to be able to thrive in its small pot. Its roots needed more space. That's true of people, too."
Indeed, children grow, friends move away, loved ones get sick and we all, eventually, die. Perhaps the most important skill to learn in life is how to accept - and even embrace - change.
"Our Benedictine lifestyle encourages us to accept change as part of our participation in God's creation," Sr. Mary says. "In fact we promise to grow with God at the center of our lives. We promise to allow ourselves to be transformed by monastic life so that we turn to God in the midst of everything that happens in our lives, whether joyful or painful. We promise to allow ourselves to be transformed in communal and private prayer, so we can grow into what God wants us to be."
As for the cactus? It was repotted and is once again thriving ... according to God's good plan!
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The Spirituality - and Financial Workings - of Community
From our blog: In Christianity's earliest community, if someone received money from
their work or selling something they owned, then the money went into
the community collection to be used for the needs of the whole. Special
care was given to the widowed and orphans because they had no means to
get money. Likewise, the community cared for the elderly and sick. Each
person had what they needed. Read the rest of the post!
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Time for What Matters... |
We pray together
in the morning...
at noon...
and at night.
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