Touching the Sunrise with Sister Kathryn

It is in our heart space that we receive after deep contemplative listening. That we unfold within the wisdom from God who makes diamonds of our dust. We have been created to hear the voice of God and His word. In a loud and noisy room, we all know we hear little. And if we are doing the talking in that loud and noisy room, we are so full of ourselves we receive nothing. Instead of unfolding, we clamp down in a hardened empty shell of self-importance. So how do we return to our heart space so that we can live in the turbulence of our age with our heart attuned to the deepest place within us where wisdom is born, where God makes himself visible through us, and where we welcome both our own true voice and God’s Word, so that we can be God’s Voice the world so longs to hear.

The night can be a scary time. As kids we might have been afraid of monsters under our bed or of sleeping in our own room. Even now as adults the “dark night”—whether it slips into our life as depression, breaks our heart with unexpected ruptures of relationships and futures, or quietly takes from us what we had most cherished—still holds hands with its sister anxiety. Just as individuals live through darkness, cultures and periods of history also can be overshadowed by fear and chaos and death. Now is one of those times. The saints lived through times such as these. The courage of the saints might seem “out of reach” to us, but the Church as a good Mother gives us stepping stones each Lent so we can regain our balance and our strength, knowing truly that this world—even as it is—is still in Christ, and without Christ the world has no meaning.

Do you ever wonder how to hear God's voice? It is a voice that is so beautiful, leading us to holiness, truth, and peace. Learn how to sort out the various voices we hear around us and within us in order to be guided at last by the voice of the One who loves us forever.

Lent is a time when we traditionally take our "spiritual temperature" to refocus our lives on discipleship and holiness. But in these days there are many other reasons why we might want to take our spiritual temperature. There are symptoms we may struggle with because of the scandal in the Church or problems in our country: symptoms like anger, a general malaise, uncertainty about the future, fear. Join Jeannette and I as we talk about ways we can find true inner peace in these difficult times. Hello, my name is Sr Kathryn Hermes and I’m inviting you to my free Private Facebook Group. This group is for those who feel the call toward being a part of a community with others who want a more heart-centered and spiritual life, but would like support on the way. The goal is to walk together on a contemplative and healing path to refind the joy that is the gift of God to us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

Life has a way of gradually leading us deeper and deeper to the point of life—the “height” of the mountain—love. All other reasons for living need to fall away. The unstoppable circumstances-beyond-our-control are perfectly fit to addressing our deepest sin, our greatest fear, our strongest selfish ambition. The only way to deal with them is to realize we can’t and to simply allow them to do their work in us, a scalpel held in the hands of the Divine Surgeon. Hello, my name is Sr Kathryn Hermes and I’m inviting you to my free Private Facebook Group. This group is for those who feel the call toward being a part of a community with others who want a more heart-centered and spiritual life, but would like support on the way. The goal is to walk together on a contemplative and healing path to refind the joy that is the gift of God to us. https://www.facebook.com/groups/srkathrynhermes/

It takes so little to bring joy to another...

Ever-happening transition and the need to keep up with the changing expectations around us, as well as the not-so-peaceful world we live in can create tempests in our spirit. I call it verbal pollution when I feel harmed by the disrespectful words and attitudes and reactions of people in both the social conversation and in my own personal space. Sometimes I myself don't respect and truly love others into profoundly gifted relational bonds through unending kindness myself. So here are four habits that might help to calm the storms that rage within no matter what their source. Let me know if you find them helpful.

I have many inner struggles around the work I do. Some of the things I have been asked to do in mission required long hours. Sometimes I have gotten angry about the amount of work expected of me; other times I know I could give more but am holding back. On the one hand, I feel like I need to always be available; on the other hand, I can use work as an escape. I look at others working more, working less, and in both cases I feel guilty. I want what I do to flow from who I am, and the integration — when it happens — feels wonderful! How complicated is the human heart! Reflecting on my own experience, over the past months I have identified three guides that help me in unraveling the motivations of my heart; to connect my "doing" with my "being" so that my work flows not from workaholism but from something deeper.

Sr Germana and I have known each other for many years, and I'm really grateful for her sharing her expertise as a spiritual guide and counselor with us.

We all face surprises, pressures and difficult situations. The good news is that by making a few small changes to the way we work through them, we can shift from angry assumptions to intentional love. In this podcast I offer a three-step tool I use when I'm angry or frustrated may be helpful.

This is our last conversation, Jeannette and I, on the book Reclaim Regret... I'm sharing some of my experiences and dreams which were part of my healing and I pray will be part of yours. It has been a blessing to share these conversations with you.

"See how they love one another!" From the origin of Christianity, people were so attracted by the joy they saw in the followers of Jesus that they eventually felt they no longer could tenably hold to their viewpoints and prior beliefs. This joy and this love then spills over into legal and social action, ministries of justice, and service to the most vulnerable. Pope Benedict XVI stated in his book  Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures : "Our greatest need in the present historical moment is people who make God credible in this world by means of the enlightened faith they live. ... We need men who keep their eyes fixed on God, learning from him what true humanity means ... so their hearts can open the hearts of others" So here are some suggestions for this Christmas and holiday season.

The end of the liturgical year, the anything-but-quiet waiting weeks of Advent filled with the tug between the contemplative and commercial, the awesome birth of Christ in hearts anew on Christmas night, the first day of the brand new year and the World Day of Peace. . . . There has always been something almost magical about the turn of the year. Children with their excited hope for what Christmas morn will bring and cloistered nuns with their contemplative immersion in the mystery of all Christmas is — and everyone in between — are swept up by something fresh and exciting and innocent in these weeks. I've been thinking about how much we need this gift particularly at this time, this year. Our hearts have been so beaten and tainted by the mainstreaming of aggressive and violent language. It has infiltrated our hearts and minds through social and news media on our computers and television screens. Then like an unwanted blot of dark ink it has soaked into our conversations and r...

Big questions. Is God reliable? Is life reliable? It makes me think of when I was 21 and had a stroke. How can God be trusted when something goes wrong in life: an illness, a failure, a betrayal. How do we recover from these situations? Does God really love us?

God created the human heart to be like a large box vast enough to hold God himself. When we hate ourselves for what we’ve done or who we think we are, our hearts become smaller and smaller until our spirits have no more room to breathe. Sometimes we don’t think we can bring our shame into the open before God. Perhaps you believe that God won’t forgive you. You hide from God just as you hide from others when you are afraid to reveal your true self. At the root of this unhealthy behavior is the reality that you have rejected yourself. Do you love yourself in all your vulnerability and imperfection? When we refuse to allow ourselves to be held by God in the midst of our struggles, we deprive ourselves of God’s tenderness toward us. To see who we really are is to see ourselves as God sees us. We need to expose ourselves to the messages, the Voice, the Words of God to know ourselves and others in truth.

When I lead people through the journey you have been experiencing in this book, I often find that at a certain moment—a sacred moment—something wells up deep within a soul: repentance. Your regrets may be a mixture of things you have done, sins you have committed and things that have happened to you. But all of us have done things we look back on with regret. In this journey of life, we experience regret around things we could have done differently, ways we have hurt others, words or actions we can never take back, and relationships that have ended. As you explore your regrets, do not feel surprised if you begin to feel the bubbling waters of a cleansing sorrow that are as different from burning shame as day is from night. This sorrow is pure gift, but we can ask God for this spiritual sensitivity. Repentance is a step into the mystery of our salvation. It does not always feel good but it ultimately leads us to wholeness and healing. Our human nature is frail and we know from expe...

Many of us excel at putting up a facade to protect ourselves. We embrace our pretenses, defenses, games, ploys, or idealized self-images as though they were real. We convince others and even ourselves that they are real. But if we look closely at the masks we wear, we discover that they often project the opposite of the secret we are seeking to cover up. For instance, if my secret is that I am unable to accept my own hostility to others, I might create a mask that is sweet and kind. I may fool others for a while, I may even fool myself, but eventually the deception ends up bankrupting me. In time, my bitterness and hostility will come out in public, in a way  I can’t hide. If my secret is that I regret having missed opportunities for advancement, I might cover my anger with a passive meekness. But beneath my humble words, a raging inner victim resents that others have what I don’t. Or perhaps my secret is that I have seriously injured a relationship by something I did—maybe I ...

Have you ever awoken in the night with terrible thoughts about things you've done in the past, even when you were a child? Thoughts can go around and around like a hamster in the wheel. The Evil One can instigate over and over again our returning to memories of past weakness and faults, so that we never entirely move on. Thoughts can keep us intent upon looking at ourselves. God asks us to look at what he is doing, what he is saying, what he is desiring. God says, "Look at my wounds. Look at my love for you." That is what is true. That is what is real. We explore the thought of Elder Thaddeus on how our life depends on the kinds of thoughts we nurture.

In the dining room of our house is an unassuming image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus embroidered by my grandmother. I can’t remember a time when it hasn’t graced the walls of our home. Beneath it is a simple glass shelf, a small votive candle, and a pamphlet about the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home.  Another image of the Sacred Heart stands out from my childhood. In St. James Church, our parish, to the right of the main altar was a marble statue of the Sacred Heart. I often would stand before the Sacred Heart of Jesus and pray, and lighting candles there was special, especially as a child. Even today when I return home for vacation, I stop to pray before this statue when I make my Hour of Adoration in the church each morning.  In my teenage years I read  The Imitation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  From what I remember, each chapter of the book developed one of the virtues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that we could imitate in our own life. The t...

The woman bent double who was healed by Jesus is our guide today. What was she thinking all of those years, about herself, about life, about others as she waited all those years for a miracle. She teaches us who may feel the same way, that we are not alone. Our lives are woven into this huge tapestry of love and mercy and compassion. In some place we are also like looking for healing. We may have an illness, a disappointment, a failure, a secret we haven't told anyone, family expectations. Our discussion looks at how we can move beyond the point of accepting that nothing can change, that this is all there is. It is easy to do, but it costs so much. It is the face of Jesus, the call of Jesus, even today, that heals.... It is from Jesus that we learn who we really are. We learn to stop writing our own stories we feel comfortable living with. Jesus shows us how to emerge from the stories we are telling ourselves about our lives, our past and disappointments, our future.

St Peter guides us in our own journey of finding peace in our lives, even after our own regrets. We discuss the power of our own self-image and failure. Peter shows us how to be courageous in following Jesus no matter what devastating losses and disappointments we have lived in our own lives. Peter shows us that failure is a part of our journey to finding Jesus and his tremendous love. Regrets are devastating on many levels, but they are in some way our history in learning our own place in relationship to Jesus and our own place in salvation history. Nothing is ever lost.

In Episode #3, Jeannette and Sr Kathryn explore the story of Moses. From his place of privilege in Egypt he ended up in the desert caring for the flocks of his father-in-law. When he approached the burning bush that caught his attention in the desert, God helped him realize that precisely the place of our defeat is where we encounter our holy ground. God sent him back to Egypt, back to the place of his failure. In the same way the failures and fragments of our lives are holy ground. Who we are includes all of these pieces. Through the healing of our life’s disappointments we can discover the meaning of our life. When we look reverently even at those parts of our life that fill us will sorrow or shame, we can discover patterns that have been playing out in our lives since we were children. The patterns in the seemingly random events of our life help us to come to terms with what our life has been so that God can intervene and create something new.

In Episode #2, Sr Kathryn talks about the healing that comes from a great awareness of ourselves through the full texture of our experience.

You are busy. Life happens. You can barely keep up. You know that you could be thinking about more important things, but you don't have the time to stop and consider what they would be, much less do them. And then something happens. You are stopped in your tracks. A spouse leaves. A friend dies. A job is lost. Opportunities pass you by. A child makes decisions that break your heart. As you absorb the pain of what is happening, the important things begin to surface. What was hidden, suddenly seems so obvious. The knowledge of what you could have done, should have done, for years perhaps, or years ago, leaves you feeling profoundly empty, or guilty, or depressed. If only you could do things over again... Author Sr Kathryn J. Hermes walks you through her new book “Reclaim Regret.” “you may have trouble believing that a light shines on the other side of the darkness of regret. But I can tell you from experience that it does.  God wants to heal your heart and bring you into...