In Jubilee Time

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM  May 3, 2019

We talk of keeping it, making it, spending it, saving it. We fear running out of it. We seem to never have enough of it. “It” is time, and already when we arrive at the end of this sentence, it will have passed from the second we began reading until we reached this present moment.

Perhaps you, like me, have heard yourself wondering, “Where does the time go?” or heard yourself exclaiming with astonishment, “Wow, this year just sped by.”

Those have been my sentiments as I entered into my year of golden jubilee marking fifty years since my first profession of vows as a Sister. I can distinctly remember, as a new, young community member, looking at the Sisters who were celebrating their silver (twenty-fifth) jubilee and noting how old they were and how it would be ages before I ever arrived at that milestone. Well, here I am today, times two, and arrival has been surprisingly quick!

In celebrating an anniversary of any kind, we may inevitably be drawn to reflect on time. We may survey the past and all it has held of memorable people and events, experiences of both exquisite joy and profound pain. We may extract meaning and wisdom from prayerful reflection on how the Holy One continues to live and move and breathe in our lives and in the lives of others whose paths have intersected with ours. We may look with hope or anxiety or wonder toward an unknown future.

A time of jubilee prompts us to ask how we might live like a jubilarian, that is, live more fully the themes of Biblical jubilee: letting the land lie fallow, forgiving all debts, freeing captives, and celebrating.

So what might this mean for any of us desiring to align our lives more closely with the witness of Jesus and all the holy ones? The particulars will be as unique as each of us is. As one who has orbited the sun many times before this jubilee year, I’ve been holding in my heart all those whose paths have intersected with mine through presence or prayer. As my way of contributing to the healing of the world this jubilee year, I’ve written to family, relatives, and long-time friends: Announcing Sabbath time to pause, reflect, and offer profound thanks for all that the Holy One has brought to birth in me for the life of the world these fifty years (letting the land lie fallow). Asking forgiveness for any way I might have contributed consciously or unconsciously to the brokenness and wounding of the world in them (forgiving all debts). Asking their blessing on the deep inner soul work that is still mine to do (liberating the captive). Asking their prayer that I might cultivate deeper spaciousness of heart and live from a place of love and tenderness in the years that are left to me (celebrating).

An anniversary or any time-related milestone is an invitation to look at our past with the compassionate eyes of the Holy One who sees the heart and bypasses our yardsticks and calculators, the Holy One who announces that it is never too late for forgiveness or homecoming, as David Ray imagined in “Thanks, Robert Frost.”

Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was… 

Jubilee is the time to look the past squarely in the face and name with humility our own omissions, limitations, regrets about loving indifferently or setting limits on our spaciousness of heart, but not as an act of self-flagellation; instead, as a profession of gratitude and astonishment at the Holy One’s ability to bring to completion what is lacking or unfinished in us.

In contributing to Prayers for a Thousand Years, Blessings and Expressions of Hope for the New Millennium, Gunilla Norris makes a case for how we might desire to spend time in ways that will contribute to the healing of our world:

When you love instead of kill, time grows long. When you preserve and create instead of use and destroy, time grows full. And when you give yourself to time, yes, when you open yourself to each moment—not avoiding either suffering or joy—then time is no time. Then time is forever time. Then you will be a stranger to nothing and to no one. Then time will turn your shimmering and fleeting life into love. You will be part of the Mystery that does not cease. 

Jubilee holds an invitation to know ourselves as beloved, to live in the spirit of Kairos time, where no act of love is ever lost, forgotten, or wasted. Jubilee is the time to enter the present with an open and tender heart as Rumi advises,

This is now. Now is
all there is. Don’t wait for Then;
Strike the spark, light the fire.
Sit at the Beloved’s table,
feast with gusto, drink your fill… 

And celebrate jubilee time!

NOTE:

Please hold in your prayer these coming events I’ll be leading and all who will be part of them: 

May 4, Spiritual Spa Day, Our Lady of Grace Center, Manhasset, NY 

May 8, Carrying Treasure in Earthen Vessels, a day for Treasurers of Congregations of Women and Men Religious, Sisters of St. Joseph Motherhouse, Philadelphia, PA 

May 11: Spring Day of Prayer, Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth, Wernersville, PA 

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on a time in your life when you have been particularly aware of the Holy One present and at work in you.
Does this call you to connect with any of the themes of Biblical jubilee: taking Sabbath time, forgiving all debts, liberating captives, and celebrating?
Set your intention to mine this and integrate it deeply into your everyday living.
Ask the Holy One to bless your desire for the life of the world.

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