We, like the three apostles, can experience God's beauty
by Sister Lynne Marie Simonich
In our Gospel for the Feast of the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John journey with Jesus up a high mountain where they are given a glimpse of glory. For a brief time they see with clarity who Jesus is and hear a voice telling them, “This is my beloved Son ... listen to him.” We can only imagine what they felt in that moment of beauty.
Our lives are full of glimpses of glory – a helping hand, a loving smile, a beautiful sunrise or sunset, a kind deed. All ways God’s glory is revealed to us.
We celebrate the lives of our Sisters who have shown God’s glory in so many ways throughout their lives. We celebrate the jubilees of Sisters Agnes Fischer, Gerald LuMaye, Marie Goretti Marcelle - 70 years; Sisters Sharon Lasee and Marguerite Rollo – 60 years; and Sister Mary Kabat – 50 years. They have journeyed up mountains of beauty & down valleys of sadness with so many people. May they know how much they are loved and appreciated.
On my way to Thursday evening's 'Silence & Sunset' at the Bay Settlement Sisters of St. Francis, I stopped at Communiversity Park on Nicolet to view the meeting of Water, Earth and the glowing Sun [Son] above.
Driving into the parking lot, the gleaming, shimmering sparkles of light being reflected and dancing on the water immediately caught my attention. It was simply stunning. And so I stopped my car right there, to take it in. I didn't want to move an inch more because that could disturb my view, and I wouldn't see these beautiful, streaming, beaming lights in the same way.
Besides the obvious 'far off,' 'communal and collective' rays and shimmers of light on the distant water, from where I was, there were multiple, individual, amazingly beautiful sparkles of 'diamonds' sporadically appearing near the water's shore. Mesmerized, my eyes were fixed on these. Each and every 'diamond' appearing for a brief moment on the water, stunning me more and more.
My only response was awe .... awe and wonder at the Amazing Beauty of it all. And gratitude for this encounter with God's glory.
That Lynne Marie now tells us that this Sunday's Feast of the Transfiguration is also a celebration of Women Witnesses as Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross, tells me, too, that each and every one of them - and us - is a beautiful 'diamond' sparkling and dancing on the Waters of God's Creation and, likewise, emerging from our Baptismal Waters into which we were (are) plunged into Christ, so that Christ might shine through us like the Sun, reflecting its' radiant Light as Earth and Water and Son meet.
+ + + + + + + + + + + +
[Consider in prayer / reflection / contemplation: *We are "Earth," physical matter.
*Holy Spirit is "Water," free-flowing, fluid, without fixed shape.
*Sun (Light) is God's Beloved Son, whom we contemplate, i.e.,"Listen to."]
"This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him." Matt. 17:5