Sister Paula's Presentation on Hope

Natalie and I  attended the Annual Spring Recollection for Auxiliaries yesterday, March 20, 2018 at Medaille Hall of the Motherhouse.  Sr. Paula Drass, CSJ was the featured speaker on the topic of Hope. Fifty or so auxiliaries attended and braved the impending snow that was coming that afternoon and found peace in the stillness and wonderful reflections given by Sr. Paula. The exquisitely and thoughtfully prepared two page handout by Sr. Paula is reproduced below.

Along with the handout which consisted of song lyrics, scriptural quotes, a poster and two beautiful poems, I am sharing with you a few of my notes on hope taken during Sr. Paula's presentation. These are my notes and not necessarily Paula's thoughts.

• According to Pope Francis, hope is like grace.  It is a gift and cannot be bought.
• Hope is about presence. God's and ours.  It is how God is with you no matter what.
• Hope can be found in the quiet.
• It is a way of life, a journey not an outcome.
• If you seek you will find it.
• Practice meditation and you will find hope, presence.
• Let us not be afraid of distractions during meditation. According to St. Therese of Liseaux, distractions during meditative prayer can be considered invitations to what God actually wants.
• According to Cynthia Bourgeault, in her book, Mystical Hope, hope overcomes fear.
• Hope is divine energy.
• As the poem in the second page of the handout, it keeps you going. Hope gives us strength to continuously be present.
• The Maxim, "Do not be ahead of grace" was also quoted by Paula.  You will have what you need when you get there.
• Hope is not about having the outcome but about showing up with God and dear companions in the journey. It is not about God getting the outcome we want.  Instead hope is about God being there with us in any event or journey not necessarily changing the event to what we want.
• We can be both hopeful and fearful.  It is up to us to choose the first option.
• As Jesus in the Garden in Gethsemane, we are to be courageous, to lean on God.

In the poem Paula wrote on Joy and featured in the second page of the handout, she reminds us to live life with not only hope but joy,

In the second poem on the second page, the poet, Rilke, invites us:

"To let everything to happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me,"

As we were breaking bread with the other attendees and sisters during lunch, Natalie and I saw Jeanne Minnicks, the present head of the CSJ Baden Development Office, at another table.  We decided to request her to give us copies of the beautiful Spring Prayer she said at the start of the meeting. The copy is reproduced below.

In this snowy day, the day after the start of spring, I pray you find peace, joy, courage and hope in the stillness as you meditate on the messages in the handout prepared by Sr. Paula.  Thanks Paula, Jeanne Minnicks, Christina Blomburg and the other organizers for this inspiring event.