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I want to take this opportunity to tell you about our glorious Christmas Basket liturgy. There were 280 baskets which were lovingly delivered by a cadre of volunteer families and staff to agencies throughout the St. Louis and St. Charles area. The view of the baskets on the bleachers was humbling and awe-inspiring. A HUGE thank you to all families who generously and lovingly donated and helped!
 
At the conclusion of the liturgy, I shared the following quote of Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCJ as she reflected on the Christmas mystery:  
 
“It was at Christmas that our Lord, as it were, took His first plunge into the heart of our troubles, of our difficulties, of our experiences, into the heart of the life we are leading.
 
“And that, not as someone standing at a distance, but as thrown into the stream―feeling the shock, the human astonishment at what took place around Him―feeling the poverty, the pain, the isolation in which He was left.”
 
I love that image of our Lord! Mother Stuart is describing a God who IS INDEED WITH US, one of us, suffering among us. God is with us in our worry and agony (just as Jesus agonized on Holy Thursday). God is with us in the midst of our physical pain (as was Jesus on Good Friday). And God is with us in the seeming spiritual emptiness of our lives (similar to the experience of Holy Saturday).

I reminded everyone that, though our world may have bleak moments of darkness, it is IN THE VERY MIDST OF THAT darkness, we must remind ourselves that we have a LIGHT.

That light was born into human history 2000 years ago in a very unique way, but that light IS born in our hearts in the here and now.

We keep that light burning brightly when we open our hearts and allow God’s Light to fill us.

We keep that light burning when we help at places such as Santa’s Helpers wrapping gifts for children who might otherwise not have gifts, as did the Fourth and Fifth Class students.

We keep that light burning when we donate money to buy presents for Adopt-a-Family families rather than buying gifts for each other, as did our Fifth through Eighth Class students.

We keep that light burning when we put together baskets of food for families in need, as did many of you.

We keep that light burning when we come in early to carry baskets or organize baskets, as have our oldest students, our Social Justice Club members, our Student Council leaders and many of our dedicated faculty and staff.

We keep that light burning when we help deliver baskets, as did many of you, our parents.

We keep that light burning when we choose to be gentle with each other, as we are inspired to be by the child in the manger.

Thank you! Thank you for keeping the Light burning bright in our world. And, may we all continue to open our hearts, thus experiencing the ongoing birth of God’s love within us and, in doing so, may we continue to BE GOD’S HEART and God’s LIGHT in a world which so desperately needs it.

Merry Christmas to each and every one!

My heart is filled with gratitude as I sit down to write this missive.
 
I am grateful for God’s creative pouring forth of Self through the Love which became this universe and all that is in it!
 
I am grateful to God’s yearnings for re-union with us and thus reaching out to all of us as our Beloved.

I am grateful to God for the MANY ways God tries to wake us up to the height, breadth and depth of that Love, especially by BEING perfectly one of us (God-Among-Us/Emmanuel/the Christ) to SHOW us the Face of Perfect Love in Human Form.

I am so grateful for this mission, to come to know and then reveal God’s Love; a mission given to us by St. Madeleine Sophie and brought to the United States by Philippine Duchesne.

I am grateful to be partnering in this mission with parents who are so very open to living this mission in their own lives and who live lives of service and generosity which WE experience regularly here as you:

• Support the Adopt-a-Family program.
• Create baskets of food for families in need.
• Help us as drivers on our service trips and field trips.
• Donate your time regularly here at school in MULTIPLE capacities.
• Provide the funds needed to help cover expenses to make this the best school possible (for the SAKE of making this world a better place by educating MORE students in the WAYS of God’s Heart)

And, above and beyond that, you have generously given at the Silver Teas to help provide a Christmas gift/bonus to each Academy faculty and staff member!
 
Gratitude abounds. I have no words but THANK YOU!

From my heart to yours,

Maureen Glavin, rscj

As we look forward to the upcoming choral performances endearingly known as Silver Tea, I do so with some hopes.
 
My deepest hope is that you, our parents, experience the love that this gift is meant to convey. The children understand that this performance is for you. They practice harmony, memorize words, pay attention to the details of how they are presenting themselves, and patiently persist in the pursuit of perfection, all for the sake of providing you with the gift of joy that they expectantly intend for you to experience.
 
Another very deep hope I have is that, through the pure innocence of these children’s song and story, we are all reminded of the True Meaning of Christmas. Secular, commercial and cultural pressures tend to override or at least minimize the powerful message of the birth of that one sacred baby born in the Bethlehem manger. I don’t think we can say it enough: God revealed God’s Self in a unique and new way through that vulnerable, poor and needy child!
 
My third hope is that the implications of this special story hit our heart at new levels! What does this story say about the Master and Creator of the Universe? What is God trying to REVEAL by BEING so perfectly present in this human form? Do we understand our material world differently? Do we understand humanity differently? Do we understand God differently?
 
My final hope is that you ENJOY the performances! Sit back and take in this time while your children are shimmering with innocence and shining forth with heart-beauty reflective of the Face of Christ we see within their deepest and best selves. The incarnation assuredly continues as they (and we) allow God to fill our hearts and shine forth through our lives and loves.
 
United to each of you in and through the Heart that beats in each of our hearts, if only we allow our hearts to be open enough to birth Christ anew in the here, and the now!

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. Most fundamentally Advent is the word we use to describe the four-week period of time leading up to Christmas. Most profoundly Advent is a season of heart-attentiveness, allowing for an experience of interior emptiness.

Put that way, Advent doesn’t sound too appealing, does it? Yet, it can be one of the most profound liturgical seasons. It is so because the effect of the kind of heart-attentiveness which Advent promotes is the very thing that allows for the experience of the birth of Christ’s fullness within!

How? Well, Advent is meant to be a time when we actually slow down long enough to notice, our hearts’ longings and yearnings. Many of us keep our lives busy for the very reason that we don’t LIKE experiencing our inner aches. We fill our lives with distractions as a way of avoiding or as a way of trying to fill our hearts so we aren’t aware of the ache. We fill our hearts with people, material things and thrilling experiences. In fact, we all know of people whose lives have been ruined in their desperate drive to fill that empty interior space―sometimes in destructive and unhelpful ways.

The Advent invitation is to just notice the heart-hole, notice the longing, notice the yearning and notice the ache―without filling it up! These human longings are symbolically communicated during Advent with unlighted candles on the evergreen wreath. We sense in this visual reminder that the fullness of Life and Light will be ours even if we don’t experience that fullness in the present moment.

So, in the spirit of Advent let us try NOT to fill our heart-hole with anything else. Let us consciously experience our inner yearning, knowing that we will be surprised with great JOY, when God’s Very Self, through Christ, fills our hearts to overflowing! THEN we can really celebrate Christmas!

United in prayer during this holy season,

Maureen Glavin, rscj