Sr Kym Harris – Page 2 – Benedictine Monastery

August 1, 2020

Jesus comes home…to us!

Last Sunday, we had a strange Gospel reading. It told the story of Jesus’ return to his home town. You would have thought they would have been delighted, ‘Local boy makes good!’ and at first it seems they were, but then they turned on him. They had heard about his teaching and miracles and they wondered and questioned where he got his power. Right question! Well, the obvious answer was from God. Oh dear, that made them uncomfortable. How could someone that they knew well- why he was a local traddie, they knew his Mum…and all his rellies- reveal God to them? And they rejected him, closed their hearts to him.

What they did reveals something about how we humans want to do religion. We want God to be ‘special’ (which God is) but we can make God special by removing him from our ordinary daily life. We can do this by excessive religious practices that neglect the people around us. Or we can do it by leaving religion for the special occasions when we go to church, e.g. Christmas, First Communion. Is that what our Christian faith is about? With the coming of God in human flesh, God tells us very clearly, “I don’t want to be out there, something special. I want to be here, now, in the midst of your ordinary life, transforming from within.” In this coming week, imagine God coming to you as a local traddie to do some maintenance. He sees your situation and offers reassurance and advice – what could he say that you need?

Loving God, with the coming of Jesus you showed how much you want to be part of lives. Show me how I keep you remote from my life. Heal my heart of its fear and embarrassment and let me be open to your Spirit’s life and grace. We ask this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear us.

August 1, 2020

Big Catholic Words

Eucharist, Communion, Reconciliation: What is it with Catholics and big words? This week we will be celebrating First Reconciliation and First Eucharist, or as it was known when I was a child, First Communion. Why do we use such big words and what do they mean? We use such words because we are trying to capture a great mystery in our human language: that God wants to be present to us, supporting and helping us to live deep and fruitful lives. We struggle to get our heads around this so we have been given the Sacraments, ritual actions and words, that offer us the mystery in way we may be able to understand. So what do these big words mean?

Communion: We feel communion with people close to us and with whom we feel at ease having a common bond. By offering himself to us under the form of bread and wine, Jesus is telling us how much he wants to be part of our daily lives, sustaining us with himself.

Eucharist: This is another word for Communion and comes from the Greek word for Thanksgiving. In receiving the Eucharist we affirm our thanks and praise to God, for having Jesus come to live with us in our lives.

Reconciliation: We not only recognise that relationships can break down, but also that they can be healed. But sometimes we feel to power to heal is beyond us. In all these situations God wants to be with us strengthening, healing and helping us. First, we need to recognise our sin and failure and ask God’s forgiveness and help.

The sacraments when celebrated can seem to be made up of simple words and gestures but what is important is to realise is being conveyed: God is with us at all times and wants to give us the fullness of life and love.

Loving God, Jesus used words and actions to reveal the mystery of your love. Send us your Spirit that we may enter into the mystery of this love when we celebrate the sacraments. We ask this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

August 1, 2020

Images of Grace

I have been a nun for most of my adult life so I have mostly lived with women. Strange as it may seem, women are sometimes ‘narky’ and even difficult. At one stage in my life, I used to visit a community that had some ‘interesting’ members who would give their opinions in a free and forthright manner. A friend of mine was superior of that community and no matter how another person acted she always treated them well. A friendly, courteous, even gently humorous response would be given to words and actions that did not deserve them. I found her inspiring so one day I asked her about her behaviour. She told me that she had decided that no matter how another person acted, she would try to treat them with the respect due to a human being, and she would treat herself in the same way. She was no door mat for bad behaviour. It sometimes took great effort to do this. She had to prepare ‘good’ responses for expected bad behaviour and she had good friends to debrief with. The consequence was that she acted in a particularly graceful manner in difficult situations. She is one of my ‘pin-up nuns’.

We all know people like this- the ones who seem to be able to turn around difficult situations. They are ‘graces’ in our lives and, if it is possible, we should talk with them and ask them how they do it. It is not magic. They are wise people, who know how to access the grace of God that can transform the negative into something positive and life-giving.

Loving God, sometimes people are difficult – not only others but also us, even me. Send us your Spirit that we may gracefully turn our difficult situations and bad moods into something that gives life. We ask this in Jesus’ name, confident that you will hear us.

August 1, 2020

Images of Grace

I find that the notion of grace is best expressed from experience. When I think of ‘grace’ the first image that comes to mind is the beauty of the man who built ‘on-site’ our concrete water tanks down in Victoria. Rarely have I seen a person so graceful, not a movement was wasted and everything he did, seemed without effort: spreading gravel, mixing concrete, climbing in and out of the half-finished tanks. He exhibited a level of discipline and care that one would expect of ballet artists and when he finally finished by putting his ‘signature’, his phone number on the tanks, he stepped back and said: “They are beautiful!” So like God over creation: “God saw …it was very good!” (Gen1: 31)

Why does this come to mind as an image of grace? Because this man recognised the deep dignity of his work. He did not dismiss himself as a glorified concreter but rather he understood that every action can be precious and good, no matter how humble. Was he religious? I don’t know. We only talked about his wife, whom he dearly loved, and his footy. He was over forty and still played for the local senior side. He kept on trying to retire but the team wouldn’t let him. Why would they? You don’t let spirit like that go.

In this Year of Grace, I hope to occasionally describe images of grace that have touched me: people, moments, events. I invite you to do the same and to share them with others – they can change your lives for the better.

Loving Jesus, your grace comes to us through the experiences of life. Send us your Spirit that we may realise when grace is happening and respond in love. We ask this in your name, confident that the Father will hear.

Sr Kym Harris osb

August 1, 2020

When we don’t respect difference…oh dear!

Last week, we reflected on loving ‘difference’. This week we’ll look at what happens when we don’t. In the Gospel there is a story of Jesus visiting his friends, Martha and Mary. Martha’s straight into the kitchen, cooking up a storm. Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to him. Yes, you’ve guessed what happens next…Martha creates an incident…she takes Jesus to task because Mary is just ‘sitting there’, not like her, Martha, in the kitchen working. Not content with what she was doing, she got angry and disgruntled. If she had changed her attitude and appreciated what she was doing she could have celebrated Mary enjoying the words of Jesus. She could have recognised each one’s uniqueness in the situation. Then, the meal would have gone so much more pleasantly and she might have been able to suggest nicely that they might like to do the washing up!

One of the integral factors in living a peaceful, happy life is the ability to live ‘in our own skin’, to recognise, appreciate and enjoy the life that is our own. God enjoys making each of us uniquely and we need to share in God’s joy over who we are. When we do that, we will discover the freedom of heart to celebrate the uniqueness of others.

Loving God, you have made us each so different. Send us your Spirit that we may share your delight over us and that we may have the courage, wisdom and humour of heart to delight in others. And when people try us, let us see the face of Jesus in them. We ask this in his name confident that you will hear us.

August 1, 2020

Loving Differences

I love listening to elderly happily-married people talk about their spouses – with the evident love, the delight in the other and the wry humour at the characteristics of the other that after 50, 60 or even more years still annoy them, sometimes intensely. No matter how happy the couple, there are still differences – it seems to be part of the nature of loving another.

This Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Trinity – that is we recognise and celebrate that our God is a community – Three Persons, Father, Son and Spirit, equal, holding all in common except in their differing relationships to each other. This is hard for us to get our minds around but our hearts know what it is about. We are made in the image of God and relationship is at the core of our being, relationship that involves both loving union and difference. Loving union we can cope with, dealing with difference is more of a challenge. To appreciate it we need to recognise what good ‘differences’ can bring to a relationship. The attraction of love can be so strong at times that one can run the risk of ‘falling into’ the other – becoming a clone or a slave. Our differences protect us from that. Differences also help us define our individuality. This is important because it is only as free individuals that we can truly love. So perhaps this Sunday you could name and celebrate the differences in your relationships – with your spouse or partner, your children, your parents – and realise that these, if used rightly, can enhance your loving.

Loving God, help us to love each other as you love each other within the Trinity, celebrating both what we have in common and the differences between us. We ask this in Jesus’ name confident that you will hear us.

August 1, 2020

“Games we play”

“Just what is it about games that draw us in?” A friend was recounting the trials of Killer Sudoku, when another asked, “But do you enjoy it?” She paused, “It’s so frustrating but I do.” We like to be challenged, to grow, to improve ourselves. That is human. In good games we can both learn skills for life and relax. We enjoy the flow, the frustration, the success and we like to win! But, like all good things, games can get out of hand. They can become a substitute for that area of life where we have our greatest challenge and frustration, our relationships with each other.

Trying to keep Jesus’ command to ‘love one another” is challenging in so many ways, but mostly because people, including us, keep changing. We never can ‘win’, but neither are we meant to. We are meant to love and to serve, most often in the most mundane events: getting the kids to eat their vegetables, talking with the family grumps, dealing with difficult neighbours. When family life gets sticky, there is a real temptation, both for us and for our children, to withdraw into cyberspace or wherever and neglect the reality of the world. But that is not the way to true happiness. The frustrations of dealing with people must be faced and carefully worked through with all the wit, wisdom and humour we can muster. And if at times it feels that you really are on a loosing streak, then ask for the grace of God and hang on.

Loving God, we all need wisdom in how we love and play. Send us your Spirit of freedom and joy that we may learn to love like Jesus loves in the challenges and frustrations of family life. We ask this in his name, confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

August 1, 2020

“Think Twice”

“I tell my children and I try to do it myself. Think twice about what you are doing and going to do. You can even use it in learning people’s names.” So said a neighbour while chatting recently. They are wise words, words to live by. Children can drift through situations, not noticing what is happening and then explode, overt react or get into trouble when things move beyond their control. But a little thought along the way, a little mindfulness can make their lives and ours a richer, better experience.

Jesus tried to provoke such thoughtfulness. His whole way of teaching wasn’t a series of straightforward, black and white rules. Rather his parables, his short sayings, some of which seem to contradict each other, are meant to challenge us to ask ourselves, “What does God want me to do in this situation?” We need to use thought and prayer to discern what to do in changing circumstances. Our brains are not there just to keep out ears apart. Along with our heart, we are meant to use this precious gift so that we can live as humanly as possible in the varying events of life.

Loving Father, send us your Spirit that we may know how to apply the teachings of Jesus to our lives. Filled with his Spirit may we have loving thoughts and wise hearts. We ask this in his name, confident that you will hear us.

. Sr Kym Harris osb

August 1, 2020

How to give a gift, especially to Mum.

Gifts can be tricky things. We all know stories of people giving gifts to spouses that really were something they themselves wanted. One husband finally stopped giving his wife power tools for her birthday, when she gave him a frilly nightdress for his! To truly give a gift, you need to understand what the person may truly want or need, you need to get ‘inside the skin’ as it were. Then such a gift goes straight to the heart.

We see this in the life of Jesus. One of the truly amazing things, I find, is that he lived our human life for 30 years before he began his preaching. Given that he came from God, you would have thought he would have come and just told us what to do. But no, he came experiencing all our stages of growth. By the time he began preaching he was a very mature age. When Jesus offers us guidance for life, we know he has been inside our skin.

Mother’s Day is coming soon and it is very easy for us to presume that we know what our mother would want – after all we have truly been inside her skin. We can presume too much. A good idea over the coming week would be to ponder on our mother is like and ask “What does she really want?” We may be surprised to realise that it is not so much presents as presence.

Loving God, your Son Jesus experienced what is was to have a human mother, to know growth as a human person. Send us your Spirit that we may live in awe at the mystery of every person, especially our mother. We ask this in Jesus’ name, confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb

August 1, 2020

Conquering Sin.

When Christians proclaim that Jesus has triumphed over sin, they could well be dismissed with cynicism. “Where?”, “How?” can readily be asked. After digesting the latest news feed, we have to say certainly not ‘out there’ in the world. So where is the change in which we believe? Primarily it is within our hearts. We know this not by sin being taken away but by the power we have been given to face sin.

First we must realise what sin does: it causes rupture, distress and disharmony in our relationships: between us, between God and us and even within our own selves. The first triumph of Jesus to is to make us dissatisfied with this disharmony. We don’t like it and we hope for something better. The very desire to improve our ways of loving is a triumph.

The second triumph is to offer us the grace to do things differently. The normal human reaction is to hit back when hurt. With the example and power of Jesus, we can instead offer love and forgiveness, even when seriously wronged.

The third triumph is to take sin seriously, whether it is within us or between us. Jesus’ life and death show that easy solutions often do not work. We need wisdom and patience for true change.

Jesus’ triumph begins hidden in our hearts, grows slowly out into our lives and blossoms, offering light and love to the people God has given us in relationship.

Loving Father, we suffer from the effects of sin in our relationships. Send us the Spirit of Jesus that with grace, love and wisdom we may face and heal our own frailty and that of others. We ask this in his name, confident that you will hear us.

Sr Kym Harris osb