Hermits of the Holy Cross

Roberta shares an Article on Sister Evelyn hearing the Call

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Segovia, Spain, Jul 8, 2021 / 11:50 am

Sister Evelyn of the Child Jesus took her final vows as a cloistered Dominican nun at the Santo Domingo el Real monastery in Segovia, the community’s first vocation in almost 30 years.

Sister Evelyn explained how responding to her vocation has made her happy: “When I make my response to God and agree with his will, I feel happy. I’m a sinner, but God wants me to act as a sentinel before the world to say ‘God is there, God exists, there is eternity’. I don’t have to talk much, but the existence of a cloistered nun can do more than if I were in the world, for her life of prayer, her life of charity with her sisters … And although many people neither understand our vocation nor know of our existence, the vocation of the cloistered nun in the monastery is like the heart of a man, it’s not visible like the hands, the eyes… but it is vital for the man to live.”

According to El Adelantado de Segovia, Fr. García stressed that Sister Evelyn’s courage to take “a definitive turn to her life” can only be explained “because God has touched her heart and has come out to meet her, and she has set out on her way.”

Peace,

Roberta HHC

An Enraptured Soul speaks on Spiritual Poverty

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Life is Liturgy Unceasing!
Lectio Divina is Life;                                                                                                                                                        Every Word an utterance of the Divine.

Asceticism is Life lived in the                                                                                                                                                  Absolute Poverty of the Now;                                                                                                                                        Empty of past and future,                                                                                                                                                      Empty of reflections and memories,
Empty of expectations or desires for rewards,                                                                                                                Empty of imaginings and visions,                                                                                                                                           Empty of spiritual possessions
Empty of satisfactions and distractions,                                                                                                                         Empty even of a way of one’s own or a plan
For Only In the Emptiness of this NOW                                                                                                                                 Is the Fullness of the All to be found.                                                                                                                                             To be anywhere else is to be no-where,                                                                                                                           Lost in the daydream of Illusion.

Thoughts still arise, Ideas still pretend importance.                                                                                                              What is one to do?                                                                                                                                                               

Hold to the Loveliness Beyond!
Listen to that Silence as to a Symphony;                                                                                                                      Simply watching, Simply waiting, Simply aware,                                                                                                                Being, in Love!
                                        
                                                              (Theresa-HHC)

A Searching Shepherd

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Reflection – Submitted by Roberta-HHC

A Searching Shepherd –

God made thorns, he told himself. Thorns are good. But they hurt. They scrape the skin to blood. God made thorns, but why? Oh why?

God made rain, but it doesn’t seem to like the desert. Rocks are hot, and the sand is burning. The sand is cracked from thirst. Now, where have the sheep got themselves to?

I am the shepherd of the sheep, says the Lord. I search. To search is who I am. I am the one who wanders, the great walking one, the one who sleeps in the cold and culls the burrs out of their wool. Yes, I know—they cannot be recommended for intelligence. This is a small brain we are talking about. But I am their shepherd.

They are the objects of my love.

I take them up in my arms, my tired arms, my bleeding arms. And they are more to me than rest and beauty and food and light—my own, my flock, my creation.

And I love them. I bring them into cool valleys where the trees drop fragrant shade, and the birds serenade them, and they can hear the streams falling quietly from the hills. Where they can drink. They shall eat and drink and never want. They shall romp in the green grass and race in the wildflowers.

My own flock, with deep brown eyes that speak to mine, and white wool that sparkles in the dusk.

I have made them and sought them and brought them home.

Sr. Miriam Pollard – Miriam Pollard, OCSO, is a Sister of Santa Rita Abbey in Sonoita, Arizona.

PEACE,

Roberta HHC

Wisdom of the Early Desert Fathers

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Chant – “Become All Flame”

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office. I fast a little. I pray. I meditate. I live in peace and as far as I can. I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?”
Then the old man stood up, stretched his hands towards heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him,
“If you will, you can become all flame.”
–Sayings of the Desert Fathers (Sr. Benedicta Ward)

LYRICS

Lyrics:
If you will, if you will, if you will, if you will,
You can become all flame, become all flame, become all flame.
You can become all flame:
Become all flame.

Gospel Thoughts and Reflective Music for Meditation

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Today’s Gospel – Gospel of John 2:13 – “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

Why was Jesus so angry? I never really understood this passage about Jesus’ anger before. But today, something changed. What? Well, today, I meditated silently for 15mins. after hearing it read. And then, reading it for myself later on, I meditated again. The silence allowed it to speak to me or rather to penetrate my heart space and reveal itself to me. What was going on inside of Jesus and why was He so very angry?

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