Quiet reflective time

A Quiet reflective time leading up to Christmas, with the chaplains

Week One

Become aware of our breathing for a few moments...Hope will be woven into each of our Advent sessions. 

The mystery of hope…… In the midst of all that is not well in our world or ourselves we hold onto what is well.

We hold onto HOPE….. not a superficial, wishful thinking…but a ‘rooted in the mess of life, sure hope.’ 

So let us ask our God to lead us through the Spirit to receive the gift of hope, however wavering.

Music by Gurrumul…. An Aboriginal singer and guitarist who is blind...  This piece of music comes from his album, ‘Child of the Rainbow’. He sings in the language of his island; we have no translation of the words and yet somewhere, we connect, we understand. (words from Sr. Maryrose)  This can be a symbol of hope! 

• Angel Gabriel appears to Mary, a young, ordinary woman from a backwater village. He blesses her with good yet puzzling news.
• Have we been ‘blessed by ‘angels in disguise?...A kind word was said to us at a difficult time?

Music: ’Fill this Place’

from ‘The Secret Place’ Vol. 1 by DappyTKeys 

Although she can’t see anything, Mary starts to expect that good things will happen, that her God will bless her… 

• Think about our lives, do we expect that good things will still happen
• Have we stopped believing that we can be blessed?
• Have we ceased to dream?

Hold onto your ‘dream/hope boxes’

Have we stopped believing that we can be blessed? Have we ceased to dream? Hold onto your ‘dream/hope boxes’ (A small box  – which you can decorate at some point) - place into it your dream; your hope; either written or kept in the secret places of your heart

“In the depths of your hopes and desires

lies the secret knowledge of the beyond;

and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow

your heart dreams of Spring.”

Blessing of Hope

So may we know the hope

that is not just for someday

But for this day………

Here, now,

In this moment

that opens to us:

Hope not made of wishes

But of substance;

Hope made of sinew

And muscle, and bone.

Hope that has breath

and a beating heart;

Hope that will not keep quiet

And be polite,

Hope that knows how to holler

When it is called for;

Hope that knows how to sing

When there seems little cause;

Hope that raises us up from the dead…..

Not someday

But this day,

Every day,

Again

and again.

Jan Richardson