Posts by Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider
To Live Is to Be With
Thanksgiving is perhaps the #1 day of the year to be with family; however, this year we are encouraged to stay home and enjoy the holiday with only those of our household. This is sad, and we empathize with those who are lonely. Allow me, though, to change the perspective from loneliness to aloneness. Cosmologists…
Read MoreGod’s Peak Moment
Last week the autumnal colors were at their peak. Driving down the same road a week later, I appreciate the fall colors, but my breath isn’t taken away. The peak moment is gone. Or is it? I imagine that God delights in every splash of sun across the trees, the sound of scurrying chipmunks, the…
Read MoreMy Aunt Died
My aunt died. I didn’t know her well. Her husband, my uncle, married later than most in the 1960s, and I was in high school by the time of the wedding. Both sides of my family came from households with ten kids. My parents’ nine siblings married, and that gave me quite a few aunts…
Read MoreWho Is Essential?
A word that has gained prominence over the past months is “essential.” We speak of essential workers: doctors, nurses, researchers for vaccines, firefighters, police, ambulance drivers, paramedics, soldiers, teachers, grocery store employees. Of course, they are undeniably essential and deserving of gratitude and admiration, as well as the last spot on the nightly news. As…
Read MoreCreative Continuation
God said, “Let there be light!” and God created things that keep creating themselves from that first burst of energy. Everything and everyone is a creative continuation of God. The Trinity is Love, an energy of love, a relationship of love. Richard Rohr writes in The Sacred Dance: “God’s nature as relationship creates ours, and…
Read MoreApples, Pumpkins, Doughnuts
October sets a splendid table across the land. Orange pumpkins, checker brown fields. Green and red apples peek through leaves turning a rusty hue. Gray clouds like puffed rice predict cold nights. Startingly white full moons belie “the blue moon.” Baskets of yellow mums, like centerpieces, rivet the eye. Corn fields beckon for a-maze-ing adventure.…
Read MoreSuffering Sand
Dick Ryan said: “Suffering can be like a grain of sand in an oyster; it can create a magnificent pearl.” Although suffering can be irritating like a tiny grain of sand, we may feel its weight like a huge boulder. No matter the size, we rarely think of the suffering’s potential to become a pearl.…
Read MoreGrape Harvest
The purple orbs bulge and cascade in clusters. Grape harvesting time is here. Grape wine, juice, jelly—delicious in taste, resplendent in gustatory expectation. But first, the mess, the stains, the intense labor. Is it worth it? Dick Ryan writes: “Whatever happens to me in life, I must believe that somewhere, in the mess or madness…
Read MoreOne Step Behind
In her essay Evolution Toward Personhood, Ilia Delio writes: “If we relate only to the past deeds of others, we will always be at least one step behind where they themselves presently are and thus we will never really be in relationships with them, only with their ‘remains.’” I’ve never thought of living persons as…
Read MoreSame New, Same New
When asked “What’s new?” during this time of COVID, we might answer with a sigh “same old, same old.” Days blur, little is newsworthy, and we mark time by trash pickup days. With little stimulation and in-person interaction, it’s easy to feel lifeless. To add spark in my life, I read biographies, where I find…
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