Dec 24

Dec 24 May Christmas find you where you are: A Blessing for the night

What I most long for at Christmas is silence. When the hustle and bustle fades, the people go home and the lights go off. Left alone before the flicker of a last candle, wondering, even doubting, what this is all about…

Jan 5
Jan 5 The 12th Day of Christmas: Reclaiming the incarnate word

Almut Furchert

12 Days of Christmas

Today, on the last step of our journey though the 12 days of Christmas we invite you to ponder the Divine word within.

Jan 5
Jan 5 Epiphany: Reading the Wise (Wo)men journey inwardly with Hildegard of Bingen

Almut Furchert

12 Days of Christmas

Hildegard helps us to see that we have, all along, already been traveling with the wise (wo)men on their journey. This is the journey of the heart to the place where Divine wisdom dwells, away from what we considered urgent and important and towards the living light, who wants to dwell in us.

Dec 24

Dec 24 Christmas Eve: A Blessing for the Night

Almut Furchert

12 Days of Christmas

This Christmas Eve might be the darkest and quietest night for many, one not seen in a life time. It might well be the night which brings us closest to the original Christmas. No busy church services calling for attention. No big family meals to prepare or plan. No last minute shopping in overflowing malls. Thrown back onto ourselves we walk into this night wondering, quietly, pregnant with the unknown …

Jan 16

Jan 16 Finding the key inside. Wrapping up the Christmas season

Almut Furchert

Have you wrapped up the Christmas season yet after the three kings left the scene? Or may be wondered how to make sense of Divine birth the rest of the year? Here is an invitation to pause at the threshold to “ordinary” times once again and ponder the mystery of Divine birth with a little help from two of my favorite depth psychologists: Søren Kierkegaard and C.G. Jung.

Jan 4
Jan 4 The Eleventh Day of Christmas: God with us

Chuck Huff

Whether or not we have eyes to see, the Christ child is being born, God is with us, the Divine is seeking shelter, all around us. The holy birth is not reserved for Christmas Eve. It happens for us every time again, when we open our heart to a sacred encounter

Dec 24

Dec 24 Christmas Eve: Entering Silence

Almut Furchert

12 Days of Christmas

What I most long for at Christmas is silence. When the hustle and bustle fades, the people go home and the lights go off. Left alone before the flicker of a last candle, wondering, even doubting, what this is all about…

May 10
May 10 Giving Life: On the Poignancy of Motherhood.

Almut Furchert

Hildegard of Bingen

For some, mother's day comes with a bittersweet undertone. No happy children posting happy messages. Some have lost their children before they could birth them, some lost them later, to death or to life. All mothers are also daughters, some cherishing, some mourning, some still struggling with their own mothers.

Jan 3
Jan 3 The Tenth Day of Christmas. Becoming vulnerable

Almut Furchert

12 Days of Christmas 2018

Tending to our weaknesses isn’t what we learned at school. Still it is part and parcel of our spiritual journey. From the monastic infirmary we learn that weakness needs its room, that we must come to terms with, and even welcome, our vulnerabilities, our brokenness and our need for healing.

Jan 14

Jan 14 Finding the key inside. Wrapping up the Christmas season

Almut Furchert

Have you wrapped up the christmas season yet after the three kings have left the scene? Here is an invitation to pause at the threshold once again to ponder the mystery of Divine birth with a little help from two of my favorite depth psychologists: Søren Kierkegaard and C.G. Jung.

Jan 5

Jan 5 The Twelfth Day of Christmas. Finding the key inside.

Almut Furchert

12 Days of Christmas 2017

With Epiphany approaching here is an invitation to ponder the mystery of Divine birth once again with a little help from two of my favorite depth psychologists: Søren Kierkegaard and C.G. Jung.

Kierkegaard tells a tale of a man rowing out on a lake in the quiet of dusk. The shallow lake lay silent beyond the circles where the oars broke the surface of the water, trickling little droplets of murky water back into the boat. It was then that an oar hit a dark object on the shallow floor of the lake. When the man lifted it out of the water he found himself looking at a little treasure chest...

Dec 24

Dec 24 Christmas Eve: Entering the road to silence

Almut Furchert

12 Days of Christmas 2017

Is your heart, now, at the end of the day, on the Eve of Christmas, also longing for that silent night? When the hustle and bustle fades, the people are gone, the lights are off? And we are alone before the flicker of a last candle, wondering, even doubting, what this is all about?

May 11
May 11 Giving Life: On the Poignancy of Motherhood

Almut Furchert

Hildegard of Bingen

For some, mother's day comes with a bittersweet undertone. No happy children posting happy messages. Some have lost their children before they could birth them, some lost them later, to death or to life. All mothers are also daughters, some cherishing, some mourning, some still struggling with their own mothers.

Jan 5

Jan 5 Through the Eyes of a Child...

Almut Furchert

Dec 22

Dec 22 Expecting Deliverance

Chuck Huff

As a Benedictine Oblate, I regularly pray the daily office, and at the end of the day find myself praying the Magnificat. My long apprenticeship as a Protestant metho-bap-terian did not prepare me for the beauty and terror of this praise poem. Through long practice, I have seen deeper levels and more variety of meaning than my initial Calvinist skepticism would have expected. The text has alternatively left me peaceful, puzzled, cold, frightened, hopeful, and comforted.

This is a canticle of justice finally being done, of a deliverer finally coming to the aid of the oppressed. It is part of a long tradition of Hebrew women in scripture who sing pointed praise songs about a deliverer who "triumphs gloriously" in favor of the oppressed...