Just moments after we got our first hug in a year and a half at Easter time in early April in Kansas City! Today is Hallel's 30th birthday and we are all gathered around her in spirit. We love you, Hallel!
She is my baby girl of 4 so it is quite big when she is turning 30 today! It is very good to be turning my thoughts in a special way towards her today as there is so much in the readings and Gospel today which are pulling at me... One of the women mentioned in the Gospel today is Susanna... when Susan/Hallel asked me what Saint she was named after I told her that it is Susanna in the Bible - she is found both in the Old Testament, and here in the NT! What does Susanna do? She is a woman, who after being healed by Jesus followed him and his disciples and "provided for them out of their resources" in other words served them by caring for their needs.
Ruth had Hallel pose in her family picture at the Monstery Lumen Christi - Light of Christ - and that made total sense to me... She joins with us to complete our family, and with her we now have a much larger family with the Little Brothers and Little Sisters from The Community of the Lamb!
Getting to know adorable Luke.
Hallel lives out the life of the poor as she has taken a vow of poverty! It was pretty fun mailing her birthday package at the beginning of the week. When you send things to Europe you have to fill out a form that lists everything and what it costs... sports bras, candy and some zucchini bread that will probably be crumbs when it finally gets there. The lady helping me mail my package and I talked about how nice it would be if you could fit all you own on your back. Not having to be burdened by all that material things and as St Paul warns us today...Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and into a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains. I Timothy 6:2-12
So true! I see in my own life how material things take too big an importance. But mostly I see the reverse with Hallel and her Community - without all that to get distracted by you can devote your entire attention on Jesus in prayer and worship each day and being Christ to the world. Just as those women in the Gospel today - serving and returning the mercy they have been given.
The glorious sunrise called me outside this morning... there was a small slice of sky at the horizon and now just clouds making it a dreary day after such a spectacular sunrise!
A good one for today.
I said we must get back to the ideal of service... But all this will only be understood and desired when the Church again produces men and women who are themselves fulfilled. Fullness; the word had a special attraction for St Paul. It applies today even more forcibly than it did then. Fulfilled men and women - not pious caricatures. People who are genuinely impregnated with the spirit of their calling, people who have prayed with all sincerity: make my heart like thine... There hearts will beat with one desire - to help and heal in God's name. Father Alfred Delp (1945) condemned to death by the Nazis
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