September 2011, Vol. XXXI, No. 7
Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters
F
r. Don Goergen, OP, ended his retreat with the famous question asked at fast food stores, “Is this for here or to go?” I hope all of us found at least one inspiration from the beautiful retreat on the Holy Spirit that will be “to go” in our lives through the coming year, something that will make us more open to the Holy Spirit, and I hope this Spirit can unleash her power in us, her servants. For me, what I take “to go” are the questions, “Do you know you are God’s temple? What does it mean to be God’s temple?” We are a home for God, the Holy of Holies, where God dwells, the place where God intensely dwells on earth. And this opens my eyes to the word contemplation. Contemplation is living our lives “in the temple,” in touch with our truest selves, where God and I are one. This makes us free and the Spirit takes over our lives more and more.
JUST TO BE IS A BLESSING!
We were anointed as God’s temple in Baptism and again in Confirmation. To anoint is to make sacred, to make holy. Christ is the “Anointed One: and he knew his anointing was a mission: to bring the “Good News” to the poor. Our anointing, our sacredness gives us a share in this mission of being and bringing “Good News” to the oppressed and poor around us. And just what is this Good News? That our very existence is sacred and a participation in God’s action in our universe. There is a cosmic and primordial anointing that permeates all of creation. God looks on everyone and everything in creation and pronounces it “very good.” What an anointing! You and I are “very good.” Yes, we are sacred, God’s temple. (continued on page 2)