It has been fascinating for me this weekend to be with a group of parish and community leaders in a low income barrio while they made an incursion into the monastic practice of Lectio Divino. The luxury of having hours to chew on a text is just so unusual for them as they rush to work to quite literally earn their daily bread while coping with so many obstacles such as inadequate services in transport, health and education.
With them in mind to keep me grounded, I start to thread these few
thoughts on the Markan gospel text for today, the first Sunday of July.
It is a double package with two women being cured by Jesus at the
centre of each part. Neither have a name. (Unlike the blind man of
Jericho, whom we sat with at the edge of the road during our course.
He was called Bartimeo, we are told.)
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Jesus is on the move so much, he has just crossed the lake once again.
And is at the edge with lots of people round him. This aspect of the
story jumps out at me as I have been so much on the
move myself these past months.
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Saying goodbye to living in Termas,
starting a new service to my Dominican sisters, and meeting an unusual
number of new people along the way. While Jesus focused on getting to
the house of Jairo, in response to the urgent appeal of the sick girl´s
father, he was alert to what might happen along the way. He was
prepared to stop the hurried pace, just pause and be with someone who
needed him right there. Like us when we have that little list in our
hands of what needs to be done today and lo and behold, something
unexpected crops up.
The present moment is constantly surprising us and challenging our
capacity to be itinerant at every level. It is where God is met and
recognized in the course of our day. He is the eternally present; past
and future do not exist for Him/Her. When in Fanjeaux in early May, as
we thought about how to orient our celebrations in the Dominican Family
for the next ten years, and looked back at the Dominican origins in the
Mediaeval period, it was amazing to experience the Divine presence at
every moment of that meeting. We even had a sense that Dominic
visited us when during an outdoor liturgy centred on the symbol of fire
in his life, a lively black and white dog came running enthusiastically
into our midst, greeted us and ran away!
| Getting back to Jairo´s young daughter, standing on the threshold of
her adult life, we find Jesus challenging or inviting her to waken up,
to get up and then to get fed. |
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Not all of us are any more in daily
contact with young people, as we were when schools were practically our
only place of apostolate. I find this young woman is telling me today
to waken up, get up and get fed. To waken up to the way God is calling
young people, taking them by the hand; to their crying need to avoid
prostration in a life without ideals or sacrifice or a cause; to the
hunger they have for the food of the Word, for Love, for community and
friendship. So many suicides point to the lack of horizons, of the
joie de vivre we normally associate with youth. As a region, we plan to
take this challenge as the theme of our next regional meeting. We
really do want to waken up to what these young people are asking of us,
to prepare some healthy food for them.
Veronica Rafferty, OP
Argentina (end)
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Quiet Space 
