I wonder why:: A Year of Consecrated Life

Monday, February 23, 2015

A Year of Consecrated Life

So we have celebrated the Year of the Priest, the Year of Faith, and now we have a fun year ahead.

What will we do? How will we celebrate?

We went on a tour of a local monastery/convent. It was fun to see the library and museum which are not regular haunts of ours when we visit for a Mass or to cheer an infirmed sister.

There is a local monastery which we visit monthly and sometimes weekly. I think we might travel to visit a community a little farther away. (Visiting monasteries is not new for us!)

But I think our highlight of this year will be our visitors. As in the year of the priest and are continued practice of Benedictine hospitality, we will have a consecrated visitor each month (or maybe more!)

For February we hosted two consecrated priests who are part of the Rosmini Order. One of the priests has been monumental in our married life. I met with him for years for Spiritual Direction. He was pivotal in helping me make my way to RCIA and continues to answer questions for me. He's been a model and guide for both my husband and me. The other priest gives us a lovely look at suffering. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's soon after his ordination. It has been a quick moving disease. The children and I love to host him. His joyfulness shows through his eyes. It saddens the children to see the progression of the disease, but it also gives them such a relationship with the disease to see it in real life in someone the care about. It helps us to know to pray for him everyday too.

There are some consecrated to God that we cannot host in our homes. We are planning some gift baskets to be taken in the coming weeks. We are also writing letters to those we can't visit.

So what are you doing to intentionally live the year of consecrated life?

Wonder at the things that are before thee making this the first step toward further knowledge.

Clement of Alexandria

Without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is generally personal.

Saint John Paul II the Great

Persevere in reading while dwelling in stillness, that your mind may be drawn to wonders of God at all times.

St. Issac the Syrian

We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable.

G.K. Chesterton

Children are born with curious minds, and all they need are things to wonder about, reflect on, imagine and experience in order for their minds to do their inner work and stretch their minds to capacity.

Charlotte Mason

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

Anne Frank

Wonder is not a force that pushes us passively from behind; it is situated ahead of us with irresistible force toward the object of our astonishment; it makes us advance toward it, filled with enchantment.

Sofia Cavaletti

I wonder-hush he whispers-if perhaps the world will wake again. When Christmas brings the stories back from where the skies are blue, Where clouds are scattering diamonds down on every cottage window-pane And every boy's a fairy prince and every tale is true.

Alfred Noyes

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder..., he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.
Rachel Carson

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the oceans, at the circular motion of the stars;and they pass by themselves without wondering.

St. Augustine

Thoughtfulness is the beginning of great sanctity. If you learn this art of being thoughtful, you will become more and more Christlike, for His heart was meek and always thought of others.

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Only those who look with the eyes of children can loose themselves in the object of their wonder.

Eberhard Arnold

Wonder is the salt of the Earth.

M.C. Escher

I think we need more of the wordless in our lives.

We need more stillness,

more of a sense of wonder, a feeling for the mystery of life.

Ben Okri

The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder.

G.K. Chesterton

When we consider how human beings are made, we are filled with wonder at the wisdom of the Creator that is revealed in us.

Theodoret

Open my eyes to see clearly the wonders of your law

Psalm 119:18

Life eternal! O what wonders crowd on faith; what joy unknown, when amidst earths closing hungers, saints stand before the throne.

William Irons

When all thy mercies, O my God, my rising soul surveys, transported with the view, I'm lost in wonder, love and praise. Addison

Generalism is the enemy of wonder because it suppresses uniqueness.

D H Lawrence

Wonder now more than ever is an essential survivor skill. Robert Macfarlane

The ends of the earth stand in awe at the sight of your wonders. Psalm 65

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature. If you never ask yourself any questions about the meaning of a passage, you cannot expect the book to give you any insight you do not already possess.

Mortimer Adler