Br Ben McCabe

[ Other Reflective writing ]

I recently realised how blessed I am just to be, and to be where I am and with whom I am.

"Now is the time, here is the place and we are the people."

One picture of recent days is Larissa telling me her day's 'God moment' - she had tought a mother how her severley disabled child could 'walk the furniture'. Next time they arrived for therapy, Larissa couldn't get the child to move and the mother said, "This is what I do" - and the moment she touched her son, off he went in grand style. Larissa and the mother shared the moment with tears in their eyes. My eyes were wet also as she told me.

"The glory of God is the human person fullly alive."

I was doing some fancy stuff with John's Gospel at Hesed. On the last day, I was doing what I called the 6th day of the New Creation. It involved a beautiful movement from the Crucifixion of the 5th day to 'the Cana Wedding Feast', to 'the Samaritan woman by the well' to the anointing of Jesus by Mary and to 'Mary Magdalene and Jesus at the tomb'.

When I asked "What's it all about?" one person, who rarely says much (though she loves the exersive) said, almost apologetically, "They are all women!"

What a wonderful moment it was for me and what a wonderful few moments of sharing with a small group, of mainly women, especially as we visited the creation of woman in the two Genesis Stories.

Karl Rahner's statement has been walking with me ...

"When the vessel of his body was shattered in death, Christ was poured out over the Cosmos."

- not in Resurrection gloating over his enemies, but seeking in love one who was so precious in her littleness that he could teach her the depths of Contemplative Living not to grasp the Father's gifts, but to hold them gently in the feminine wisdom of peave, love and joy.

What wonderful experiences we have had in John Webb's call to prayer study with a faithful awareness, in the celebration of the Edmund RIce Associates, the visit to FAME etc etc.

May our risen life with Christ consist also of a new bodily relationship with the Earth and its living creatures and with the whole material universe in its beauty - apologies to Rahner and Einstein!

Ben McCabe