Reflection for May 22, 2022

Excellent peace, Sister!

I wish you & the Holy Sisters all the best as you continue a discernment of your future. I remember one of the very first such meetings when I was just a lad. It resulted in huge changes - the most obvious was the change in dress. May the Holy Spirit guide you folks to keep doing the wonderful things you've accomplished through the years,

In God's Never-ending Love & Tender Mercy,

Fr. Bill Jacobs

Thank you for the connection between the Sunday reading and calling on the Spirit for our community this week.

May we all be transformed into Christ!

Praying the Spirit guide you as you make decisions and election new leadership: Your own Pentecost a few weeks ahead of the Church.

Thank you for this important "Reflection"! We all must regularly pause and reflect, ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, and prepare a pathway for our immediate future.

With continuing prayers that openness to the Spirit be experienced especially today. As Fr. Jacobs said... "I remember... and remember being present.

May God guide you in your selection of the team for the next 4 years.

I need to pray for direction for the coming months, will they stay the same or can I do things differently. We all need direction. I remember my Sister agonizing over problems that she saw.

Praying the Holy Spirit gives you guidance for your decisions for the present and future.

To the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross, and Friends:

Over this year's Days of Triduum, I was going through notes, handouts, and notebooks from Scriptural, Theological, Spiritual events from years past, and my own journaling notes, as well.

It strikes me how something so profoundly insightful from years past, "comes alive" again with even more meaning and purpose and validation, after so much more time of struggle-and-suffering has passed.

One certain "gem" stands out to me as one that might be useful to you as you move forward, responding to the Spirit's call to "read the signs of the Times" and to "make all things new." I offer the following for your prayerful reflection, contemplation, and dialogue:

"JESUS did not die for the sake of tradition.

JESUS died for the fullness-of-life for each and all.

JESUS died for the vision, the passion, the Real-ness of GOD's Love and GOD's Life within each and all.

JESUS died for the Reign-of-GOD ....... GOD's Abundance of Eternal "Knowing," Understanding, Penetrating Insight, Wisdom, Justice, Peace ... SHALOM ..."

I hear in this "note" from years ago, when the RCC was 'moving through' the workings of the Holy Spirit of Vatican II, the clarification ever more-truly .........

That is to say, "JESUS did not die for the sake of tradition ...... for, in fact, it was the religious and political 'traditions' of the times (as they were being interpreted, taught, and laid on the shoulders of people to bear) that killed him ...... JESUS died for LOVE-of-GOD-HUMANITY --- ALL Humanity -- as ALL Humanity-is-of-GOD.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This past Monday (May 16, 2022), I had arrived in downtown Green Bay one-half hour early for a gathering I was attending. Having that much time before the meeting, I decided to stop in at St. Willebrord Church, as I have been drawn there other times when I am in the area, and my 'encounter' inside the Church is always very meaningful.

At the very front of the Church, behind the altar, is an empty tomb, with the huge cylinder rock, pushed away from the tomb's entrance. It invites one to 'step inside.' This I did ..... and I was very awe-struck by the authenticity of the space.

It was 'easy' in this space to let myself experience what it was like for JESUS, lying there, on the ledge-bed, dead, enclosed, 'trapped,' all life and movement removed from his body, in the dark.

And then .... Spirit invited me to 'step out ....... step outside the tomb ......'

Once again, I left myself experience what it must have felt like for JESUS, to take his first step outside that tomb of deadness and confinement, darkness and dis-engagement, decay and drabness.

OMG -- Try this 'experience' some time.

Allow Holy Spirit to 'move' you; to flood you with 'new' awareness, 'new' insight,' 'new' understanding, 'new' creativity, 'new' E-N-E-R-G-Y and 'vastness,' 'expansiveness,' appreciation and gratitude for A-L-L --- Yes, A-L-L

the Abundance and Diversity of L-I-F-E.

L-I-F-E, like L-O-V-E, is ALL-INCLUSIVE.