Month: November 2017

„St. John in Montana News“ 11/2017

Ein Karem, Wednesday, 29 November 2017 As we fly along with time so many events have taken place during this last two months. Juliana was away on holidays when Celia arrived from New York. Celia had a very warm early morning welcome at the Ein Karem gate on 11th October. After dropping her bags, Colette, Nancy, Lucia and Celia sat down to a festive breakfast. She had a day or two with Lucia and Nancy learning to find her way around Ein Karem, and also to catch the bus/tram to Ecce Homo and the market for shopping. The next day she began in the Centre for Biblical Formation at Ecce Homo with Marge and working also with Anne, Andrea, Maria and the Sisters at Ecce Homo. On the 31 of October Andrea and Maria returned to the novitiate after their apostolic experience ministry at Ecce Homo. The month of November began by saying goodbye to Kathy Wolff who returned to Germany after so many years as a contemplative solitary sister among our Jerusalem community. The …

Workshop on prayer

From Wednesday 15th until Tuesday 21st  we had a workshop on styles of prayer with Sr. Maureen. This was a time when we could be more in touch with our own inner being, the nature, the Scripture and with one and other. During these days of workshop, we received two sessions each day. In the first session of the day Sr. Maureen gave us a short input about styles of prayer and it was followed by a video of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. In the second session of the day, we had a silent time to practice one exercise. The dynamic and structure of the workshop enabled us to enter into an important time of reflection and sharing. We learned a lot about what prayer is and which are the different styles of it. For example, some of the exercises we practiced were; to look for a tree that could represent who I am, to write a canticle or prayer to God or to go deeper into a text from the Scripture using an imaginative exercise. …

Walking together in Sion

We had five days of assembly in Kiryat-Yearim with Sr.Piluca, our facilitator who helped us to enter into our meeting together asking us how we understood the Chapter Document? In groups of three we shared our reflections. Following this we looked at our place, where we were in the region Jerusalem, Egypt, Gemenos, Tunisia and the Novitiate. Day by day, we were reflecting together in view of our criteria, a culture of dialogue, interfaith relations, interculturality, solidarity with those living in poverty, concern for our common home and our own reality, our community, our context and our country. We reflected together as the Novitiate about two points. The first was to reflect on what would we like to say to Fathers Theodore and Alphonse? We thought of their vision, their experience of God and what we admire in them. Secondly we looked for a symbol or an image that represents the congregation. Then we wrote a letter to Fr. Theodore answering the first question and we read this to sisters in the assembly.    In …

A pilgrim among the pilgrims

A monthly group gathering on the last Thursday of the month, called “Praying Together in Jerusalem”, reminds me of the Psalm 122 and eventually becomes one of my favorite Psalms for my prayer during our apostolic ministry in our guest house at Ecce Homo, in the Old City. “I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord! Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem”. Psalm 122:1 When I try to read and meditate on this Psalm, I arrive at the moment when I ask questions about a “house of the Lord” and “Jerusalem”. Why does the city become the house? Why did the psalmist use an image of a “house” to describe Jerusalem? Can we consider a house as a home where people take refuge, where members of a family live together, where the people come together in relationship? James Luther Mays says that Jerusalem is praised for three reasons: it is a place of refuge; a place of praise; and a place of justice. …