Reflection

The Season of Spring

By Fr Kevin Canty, CM (National Director), published in AMM Bulletin Spring 2024.

We have a beautiful large tree in our backyard here at Ashfield, which I have enjoyed as it changes during each year. I have photos of it during each season, and was hoping to locate one particular one on my computer, so that I could include it here in this reflection. But unfortunately I failed to do that. I have enjoyed spending time beneath it as it changes with each season, looking, for example in Autumn, for any sign of a leaf, that perhaps was finding it difficult to let go, assisting my own reflection concerning what I might be called to let go of, in my Autumn time reflection. It is very much with its Spring attire at this time. You may have your own experience of such a tree to assist you with this reflection as you read it.

The season of Spring has a special ability to awaken one to joy, gratitude, and praise. The prayer of praise is an attitude of gratitude towards life. Sometimes, when one is grateful a person can feel impelled to reach out to others. One can feel oneself being pulled out of oneself and long to find ways to bring joy to others around oneself. When one is connected with the beautiful, you feel called to give praise to the One from whom all this beauty has come.

Some suggestions for praying with the Gospel of Spring, passages from John’s Gospel. You might like to read and reflect on any of the following:

John 11: 1-44

www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/raising-lazarus

Lazarus, like an opening bud comes out of the tomb. Still bound, he is received back into the hands of others. Gently he is unbound and they set him free. Leaving death behind, he sets back into life.

Has there been a time when you have stepped out of the tomb of death and into the womb of life of praise, thanks and hope?

John 20:10-18

www.rvasia.org/commentaries/rabboni-moment

Mary, weeping at the tomb is experiencing the terrible darkness of the death of Jesus. She has not yet seen the hope that stands waiting in the garden. Then suddenly Jesus calls her by name and her winter leaps into spring.

Has there been a time when your name spoken was a gift of life. Who was it that spoke your name? What was that like for you?

John 5:1-9

www.jesuswalk.com/john/11_bethesda.htm

A nameless man is lying by the pool. Thirty-eight years is a very long winter. The gospel of Spring was far away until he heard the question that was also an invitation. ‘Do you want to be healed?’ ‘Would you like to arise from your bondage and be set free?’ ‘Take up your mat and go home.

What about me? Has there been a mat of bondage that prevents me from leaping out of winter into Spring?

I have always remembered a comment made in a talk given to the Daughters of Charity in Paris, when Fr Richard McCullen was our Superior General. He suggested we be careful not to confuse Optimism with Hope. We may not be optimistic about our world, or our own efforts to change and grow. But we should not lose Hope, the virtue that the Risen Christ continually offers us. And Spring is a special time when we might pray:

Lord Jesus, I believe in you, please increase my faith. Lord Jesus, I hope in you, please increase my hope.Lord Jesus, I love you,help me to love you, daily more and more.

The Season of Autumn

by Fr. Kevin Canty, CM (National Director), published in AMM Bulletin Autumn 2024

I was fortunate to have been given the opportunity of spending two years –1984-5 in Boston in the US.  It was good to have had the opportunity of experiencing the seasons of the year in the northern hemisphere, especially Autumn. And I remember how a group of us travelled north into the state of Maine, where the Autumn colours were in a grand display. In the back yard of our house here in Ashfield, we have a beautiful tree that provides something of the Autumn colours that we can enjoy in parts of Australia. I have taken photos of the tree in each season. I believe the Blue Mountains are presently well worth visiting.  I remember a Spiritual Director’s Conference I attended in Hobart a few years ago.  Someone from the Tasmanian group, who lead the prayers and liturgies each day, provided in our opening prayer on the first day, a reflection entitled Listening to Autumn, from a book “The Circle of Life”. I found it an excellent reflection and was struck by the following few lines.

I am listening to the song of transformation, to the wisdom of the season, to the losses and the grieving, to the turning loose and letting go. I am listening to the surrender of autumn.

from “The Circle of Life” by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wierderkeh
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Reflection on Christmas

by Fr. Kevin Canty, CM (National Director), published in AMM Bulletin Christmas 2023.

In our first reading from Isaiah for the Christmas Day Mass, the prophet Isaiah announces the return of the Israelites from exile in terms that speak of “good tidings”. The Hebrew word for good tidings lies at the root of the New Testament ‘evangelion’ or gospel. Paul took up this very text and applied it to his own apostolic work of preaching the gospel in Romans 10:15, and it probably influenced Jesus’ own proclamation of his message of the kingdom or reign of God.

The use of the passage in the liturgy for Christmas suggests another application. It can be referred to the angelic proclamation at the nativity. This is indeed a proclamation of good tidings, a proclamation of salvation, an announcement of the beginning of the dawn of God’s reign. It is in the annunciation that the church sees the return of Yahweh to Zion to comfort his people and to Jerusalem. The angel at the nativity, Paul in his apostleship, and the church today all make the same proclamation: ‘Your God reigns’ – through the sending of Jesus into the world.

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