Variety: the Spice of Community Life ...by Sr. Paz

Last Wednesday, October 1, was the memorial of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus one of the four women Doctors of the church. This reminded me of my visit to a Carmelite Spiritual Center in Chicago for a Vocation Directors’ meeting in September. It was a great time of renewal and work. I got to meet in person friends that I had met only online.

However, the extra delight of this trip was the time I spent exploring the area around the retreat center. At each free time, I took off to attend Mass at the National Shrine of St. Thérèse, which was within walking distance, or to visit the St. Thérèse museum that is located next to the shrine. At the museum they have some relics of St. Thérèse and a lot of religious artworks about her life.

Attending Mass at the National Shrine was very special. Because the community is quite diverse, it reminds me of when I lived in Houston or California. There is a special attraction for me to be around people from diverse cultures and languages. I had a good sense of what it means to be at a Catholic (universal) Church. People from many languages, colors and traditions worshiping the same and only God. Usually after morning Mass I walked around the pond surrounded by meadow flowers. I felt so peaceful, there. During the evening at the same pond, I enjoyed the sunset, such a beautiful view. The only interruption was the noise of the traffic, which reminded me of the proximity of the city and its chaos.

Statue of St. Therese at sunset

One of the topics for our meeting was intercultural living--how our religious communities in the United States are becoming more culturally diverse. If religious communities want not only to survive but prosper, we need to learn more about ourselves, to openly embrace diverse expressions of the Catholic faith and offer radical hospitality to people from all cultures and traditions that want to embrace our Catholic Benedictine community. This sounds easy, and even romantic, but is not easy to get use to diverse accents, food preferences and even smells. Yes, we all smell different too and also like to eat different things, or have different music preferences. And all of this is fine. If God only loves just one color, why bother creating the great color palette of creation? And not just color, but sizes, forms, sounds and smells. I am aware we don’t talk so much about smells. Have you ever enjoyed the smell of the meadow’s flowers or seed during the fall? How different they are than in spring or summer. Here at St. Placid, after the rain, how wonderful is the smell of the evergreens and all the other trees. Then during the spring, the wonderful lilies, roses, evening primrose, the camelias.

Oh, thanks be to God for the beautiful diversity of creation. Every season reminds us of change and diversity. Why do we persist in resisting change and wanting the same thing over and over again?

Loving God, open my mind, my heart and my eyes--to be willing to appreciate, love and see your creation with the same love and wonder with which you created it.