Tag: Bible

Phrasing can be as Important as the Question

Published on by Kate2 Comments

My five and four year olds have been running through the house with their race cars recently shouting, “Rampage!” It’s been consistent enough, and loud enough, both Ben and I have been wondering where it came from. Ben recalled it as a quote from a TV show, but not one for kids, so it obviously wasn’t that. He asked them, “Where is the whole ‘Rampage!’ thing from?” They both blankly looked back, unable to tell him. Ben was telling me about this and I asked if he had tried phrasing the question differently. “Which character says it?” or “What was happening in the show or book when you heard it?” Eventually we settled on the recent race car show after trying a few different questions to help jog their memories.

This whole experience got me thinking about the importance of how we phrase questions. We’ve all had a hard time accessing a memory until someone says just the right phrase, we smell the right smell, or are able to back track through a series of memories to get to the one we want. It’s like getting the right key in the lock, once we get the right key the memory opens. It doesn’t matter how we got there, just that it makes sense in our mind.

I experience this same kind of thing when doing math with my kids, especially when they are first learning the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. 8+4 can be looked at a few ways. You can start at 8 and count up 4. You can start at 4 and count up 8. You can borrow 2 from the 4 to get to 10, then add the extra 2 that are left. 8×4 is 4 8’s, or 8 4’s, or it’s 8×2 twice, 4×4 twice, etc. No matter how we get there, 8+4 =12 and 8×4 = 32. I’ve learned that each kid has their own preferences for how to break down numbers and put them back together again. It’s important to learn all the ways of course, but it’s also good to learn that this one prefers doubling while another prefers counting up or back, etc.

This is also a great way to think about the different spiritualities and movements in the Church. All the spiritualities of the Church have the same goal – holiness and intimacy with Christ. But how they get there is different, and that’s great! Let’s look at a few (there are so very many, it would be quite challenging to list them all) and see the wonderful diversity open to our spiritual journeys.

Focolare

You had to know I’d start with the Focolare. This is the lay ecclesial movement our family is a part of. In the spirituality of the Focolare, the main focus is unity. The way unity is achieved is by following the two Great Commandments of Jesus – love of God and love of neighbor. Unity can be achieved when we recognize in every person we meet Jesus alive and present before us. In this way, we can go to God together, two (or more) people loving to their fullest capability Jesus in the other person. We become a participation in the life of the Trinity: God, myself, and the person I love.

Benedictine

One of the earliest formal spiritualities in the Church is the Benedictine Order. Founded by St. Benedict in the early 500s A.D., the Benedictines follow the Rule of St. Benedict, the first of its kind. Benedictine spirituality places great emphasis on balance in life, especially between work and prayer. The community of monks come together at regular intervals throughout the day to pray, and then go out into the community (or elsewhere in the monastery) to work and serve in all areas of life. Benedictine spirituality is therefore deeply communal. Rather than moving from place to place, Benedict wished, as much as possible, for the members of the order to remain stable so they could fully invest in their community.

Franciscan

The Franciscan spirituality was founded by St. Francis of Assisi and is one of the largest religious communities, present in nearly every country across the world. Franciscan spirituality highlights both deep contemplation as well as intentional action with special focus on evangelical poverty and care of creation. For St. Francis, and by extension St. Clare who helped found the Poor Clares, the women’s branch of the Franciscan order, all of creation is an opportunity to witness and participate in the goodness of God. This included everything from beautiful sunsets to worms and dirt, from the immense joy of a newborn baby to the suffering and sorrow of a painful death.

Carmelites

Carmelites have a fascinating history as there is no single person we can trace as their founder. The Carmel refers to Mt. Carmel where the prophet Elijah settled, as we can read about in 1 Kings. In 1155 we find the first recorded references to hermit monks living in the caves on Mt. Carmel, dedicating themselves to penance and prayer. They built a church and in the 1200s St. Albert of Jerusalem wrote a Rule for them to follow. The goal of the rule was for the hermit monks to live with greater intensity their faith through lives dedicated to prayer, silence, and solitude. Today, Carmelites continue in this tradition. While many Carmels are cloistered, there are some active communities that live and work within the wider community. Carmelites strive for intimacy with God, recognizing the incredible gift of God’s entrance into human history in the Incarnation. This intimacy is especially sought after in contemplation, stillness, and solitude.

I could, of course, go on and on. There are so many beautiful spiritualities in the Church that offer unique and practical ways of journeying through this life towards heaven. There are the Marianists, the order who ran my college and sparked my interest in the importance of community. The Lasallian priests and brothers founded my high school and impressed upon me the importance of a Catholic education where all the subjects can be connected, faith interwoven even in math. There is the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an old order founded in 1609 during the height of the Protestant Reformation in England by a woman, Mary Ward, who wished for her companions to be uncloistered – a revolution within a revolution and a fascinating study (as I did in my undergraduate thesis). There are the Dominicans, the preaching order, the Jesuits (Pope Francis!), the Augustinians (Pope Leo!), and so very many, many more.

I hope that this post has inspired you to consider learning more about one or two of these spiritualities. Look around your local community. Do you have a monastery nearby, a cloister? Does your parish or diocese have a certain spirituality that meets regularly? Is your parish or one in your area run by an ordered priest? What about the local Catholic schools or universities?

No matter the spirituality, the goal of them all is to bring us closer to Jesus. I heard it explained like this once. The whole of the Gospels brings us to Jesus. But, we read them usually in short snippets, focusing on one or two aspects of Jesus at a time. Just as the smallest particle of Eucharist is still the whole Eucharist, so too these shorter sections still contain all of Jesus. So perhaps I read about one of the healing miracles and feel drawn to a spirituality that has special focus on healthcare, poverty, and service. Someone else may read about Jesus moving away from the crowd to spend time in silence and prayer and feel called to a contemplative life, one that focuses on intense prayer for the whole world and a life detached from the things of the world. Another could read the Sermon on the Mount and be drawn to a life of teaching and preaching, dedicating themselves to the spiritual works of mercy such as “instruct the ignorant,” “counsel the doubtful,” and “admonish the sinner.” Each of these biblical moments tells us something about Jesus and is a way to be close to Jesus. Isn’t it wonderful that Jesus, in his humanity, shows us such a myriad of ways to follow after him!

Daily Graces. kktaliaferro.wordpress.com

A Wellspring

Published on by Kate1 Comment

We aren’t farmers. It’s good to say that from the start. This past summer our family moved again and this time we chose a home that sits on a little less than 4 acres of land. A good portion is woods, but we are definitely “in the country” side of town. Our neighbors have horses that we can see every morning from our front yard. Down the lane another neighbor has a large garden and the best tomatoes at their farm stand during the summer.

When we bought our home we knew it was on a well. Naively, we thought we knew enough about wells due to a few previous experiences that, in hindsight, did not at all provide us with enough information to believe we knew what it meant to live with a well.

You don’t know what you don’t know

After a few formative experiences, such as learning that standing water around the well did not in fact mean we had a such a surplus of water it was literally bubbling out of the ground – this meant we had a serious leak that should have been addressed at least a month prior – we are quickly realizing that there is a lot to learn about wells. There is also a lot that is simply beyond our control.

When we first moved in, we let the well alone. We didn’t know how to measure its depth, and according to our neighbor the well had always been sufficient for the previous owners. It should be noted, again, hindsight being so clear, that the previous owners were an elderly couple. The water usage in laundry alone when comparing the needs of an elderly couple and our family of eight is rather extreme. So, while the well might have produced more than enough for them, our family has a very different level of need.

After the aforementioned leak experience, we figured out how to measure the well’s depth. We have a spreadsheet where we are tracking the depth of the well twice a week. We also have a rain gauge so we can keep a good account of the amount of rain we get. We have learned things like just because it’s raining today doesn’t mean we will see those gains in the well tomorrow. It takes a few months for the rain of today to filter down deep enough to be seen in the well. And, if there is a dry period, we can expect to see that reflected in the well’s measurements a few months later.

To whom does water belong?

We have learned so much in a few months. And yet, there is little of it we can control besides measuring and watching. Laundry still has to be done. Toilets have to be flushed. Dishes have to be washed and showers taken. We use water all the time. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of the well. We have even started including the well in our nightly prayers as a family.

This whole experience has given me a deeper appreciation for those who rely on the weather for their livelihood and way of life. We are fortunate that we can call a company to bring water to refill the well (we’ve had to once already) when, in our ignorance, we ran it dry. Now, as we learn more, we are striving to maintain a better understanding of the well, where it is sitting, and how we can modify our habits to be good users of the water we have available. Not everyone has such a luxury.

I am also praying my morning prayer with more awareness. So many psalms talk about the importance of water and all its many facets. (The following are quotes from the Liturgy of the Hours translation of the Psalms).

  • O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you, like a dry, weary land without water. Psalm 63:2
  • The Lord’s voice resounding on the waters, the Lord on the immensity of waters; the voice of the Lord, full of power, the voice of the Lord, full of splendor. Psalm 29:3-4
  • The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness, the world and all its peoples. It is he who set it on the seas; on the waters he made it firm. Psalm 24:1-2
  • Indeed you love truth in the heart; then in the secret of my heart teach me wisdom. O purify me, then I shall be clean; O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:8-9
  • You care for the earth, give it water; you fill it with riches. Your river in heaven brims over to provide its grain. And thus you provide for the earth; you drench its furrows, you live it soften it with showers, you bless its growth. Psalm 65:10-11

The list goes on. Water doesn’t belong to us. This well doesn’t belong to us. I am discovering our relationship with water in this house is a lot like the Serenity Prayer. We can absolutely take ownership of how we use the water, but we cannot control its availability. We have to rely on God’s providence in the weather.

So much of the big things in life are like this. We have the gift of life, of waking up each morning. We can choose how to spend our day, but we rely on God’s love and mercy to wake us up tomorrow. We can take ownership of our actions, but we cannot demand others act or perceive our actions in a certain manner. We can make great plans for the future and have them all change in a single day.

Through this well, our family is learning to rely even more on God. We are learning to be more patient and to be more aware of the gifts He provides the earth in the form of rain. Water is precious. Life is precious. While it would be so much easier to be on city water, I wouldn’t trade these lessons and conversations we have had because of our well.

Daily Graces. kktaliaferro.wordpress.com

Rorate Coeli ~ Advent Music Review

Published on by KateLeave a comment

Advent has always been one of my favorite liturgical seasons. The music, in particular, is something I look forward to each year. I love how mindful our Church has been throughout the centuries to safeguard and celebrate certain passages, melodies and refrains that hold special significance for the various liturgical seasons. I was so happy to be able to receive a copy of Rorate Cœli: Marian Sounds of Advent from The Monks of Clear Creek. 

This CD was recorded at Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek Abbey in Oklahoma. It is a series of chants that come from different liturgical moments throughout Advent and the Mass the Vigil of Christmas, that being Mass in the morning on Dec. 24. The “Rotate Cœli” which the CD is named after, is heard during the Saturday Mass of the Blessed Virgin in Advent. The text is taken from Isaiah’s lament over the destruction of Jerusalem while keeping our eyes fixed on the promise of God’s salvation. The refrain is specifically Isaiah 45:8:

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

I found this image to be striking. The introduction to the CD, written by Abbot Philip Anderson, reflects that, “It is through Our Lady that the Dew of God in Person finally came down from Heave to fulfill the longings of the prophets of old.” Jesus, the gentle Dew of God. It reminded me of the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19 where God passes by the cave. Not in the mighty wind, not in the earthquake and not in the fire. It was at the lightest wisp of breeze that brought Elijah to his knees before his Lord and God. Jesus didn’t come to earth on the backs of wild horses or flaming chariots. He wasn’t born in a palace or a cultural center. He came, meek and mild, as the dew we often don’t even remark upon or notice. The simplicity of chant mingles with the complexity of what is sung about. It never ceases to cause me to pull away from the demands of my day and to rest in those few moments of peace and prayer. 

As someone who loves to learn, I was so happy to find the booklet that came in the CD to be full of information. Not only are all the chants written out in Latin, but it also includes English and French translations. Additionally, the majority of the translations are also accompanied with an explanation of when the chant is typically sung, a few comments about key notes, chords, or phrases to listen for and how this chant connects to the others in the set. While these chants are beautiful and mediative on their own, their richness comes alive when you journey through them with the booklet to guide you and inform your ear to the subtleties built into the music.

Though Advent isn’t upon us just yet, still a few days to go, I am already making plans to be listening to this CD as part of our daily drive to school. My kids and I have listened through it as I prepared to write this review and there is a definite difference in the overall tone of the car from when we listened to chant and when we did not. Adding chant to our usual day may become a permanent thing. I will definitely be looking to the monks at Clear Creek for more peaceful and thoughtful chants to expand our collection.

If you haven’t yet, this is a great time to visit my previous blog post which has the Advent Journals for this year. Again, these are totally free to you and anyone whom you choose to share them with. I hope they bring you blessings and peace this Advent season.