Year: 2023

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   February 26, 2023

Anyone who knows me would never list “penitential spirit” as one of my striking attributes. Why, then, does Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season, evoke such eagerness in me?

The answer is straightforward: because Ash Wednesdays past hold a particular place in my treasured memories. For quite a few years on this very day, I helped to distribute ashes at a parish in Southeast Queens. The first time I did this, I was not prepared for what would happen. Each subsequent Ash Wednesday, I lived in hope that it would be repeated. And I was never disappointed.

Because, you see, on Ash Wednesday I got to peer into the faces of every person who came forward to receive blessed ashes. Whether I recognized the individual or not was of no consequence. On that day, I didn’t need to know names or stories to discover on every upturned face a raw, unfiltered longing laid bare. Faces lined with sorrow, or marked by weariness, or timid or hesitant or hopeful of a new beginning. They all carried that singular emotion: a longing so pure that I wanted to whisper, “How did you come to be this beautiful person?” A longing so unmistakable that I wanted to weep and fall down in worship at the same time.

Because, you see, while I was blessing with ashes whoever stood before me, all the persons in the approaching line were blessing me by their transparent yearning for the Holy. They were offering me a food I hungered for without recognizing the insistent pangs. Something to remember during all the months my prayer felt like nothing but silence and dry dust. Something to nudge me when my shadow resisted being coaxed into the light. Something to cling to and lift me up when discouragement wrapped itself around me like a winter cloak. Something to bolster my insistence that dreams of a more just and tender world were indeed possible.

Ash Wednesday is past, but I invite you to stand with me now and see what I see. Peer into the faces of those Ash Wednesday strangers.

Better yet, stand in front of a mirror and gaze at the image that gazes back at you. Can you find there the face of one who came from dust, stardust, and was dreamed of since the beginning of time? Can you reverence this body imagined as a unique gift to the universe? Can you recognize the face of a creation who is beloved of the Holy One, every second of today and forever? Can you name the deepest desires of your heart?

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may wish to place before you a mirror or a photo of yourself.
Take a long, loving look at the image which gazes back at you.
Allow your longing to surface. Savor it.
Give thanks to the Holy One who longs in you.

Featured Image: KTMD Entertainment, Unsplash

NOTE:
Blessings of this season to you.

May I ask you to hold in your prayer this Lenten event:

March 3-4: Travel and a retreat day I’ll be leading at the Sisters of St. Joseph Spirituality Center in Ocean Grove, NJ. Please remember all who will be part of this day as we remember you and your intentions. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   February 12, 2023

Perhaps you know the feeling. For me, here in the Northern hemisphere in February, it manifests as an overwhelming desire to see something blooming, some living being that’s not merely displaying its greenery, but wildly, extravagantly, colorfully flowering. By now, gone are my fuchsia Christmas cactus, purple or lavender African violets, deep red-and-white-edged-with-pink amaryllis. They delighted me in stages from November up until January’s end. Now they are dormant and resting and empty of buds.

And I get that, I do. As their roommate, and especially as a writer, I understand the utter exhaustion that follows weeks of creative growth and inspiration. But I find that living through flowerless seasons grows increasingly difficult as the outer world lacks living color. I wonder if the inner world is also dormant or if this near constant desire for blooming in February is somehow connected to hope.

When I turn on the news or check my email, the images I see are largely absent anything resembling flowering. My heart aches at the growing count of lives lost in the horrific earthquake that killed thousands in Turkey and Syria, including hundreds of already battered and broken Syrian refugees who saw Turkey as the place that would shelter them from danger. No blooming. My heart aches over the growing divisions in my own country that express themselves in acts of hatred, racism, refusal to accept differences. No blooming. My heart aches over yet another school shooting, snatching tender lives to gun violence. No blooming.

But my times of prayer reveal that I’m overlooking the flowering of the spirit unfolding all around me. The White Hats in Turkey dig with shovels and bare hands in a desperate search for the living buried under rubble, each miraculous find exploding in cheers and hugs. Flowering hope.  Members of Sandy Hook Promise turn the tragic deaths of their little ones and teachers into an urgent advocacy to protect children from gun violence and prevent tragedies. Flowering hope. A stranger with a desire to express peace for Ukraine in an artistic way asks for permission to use the Prayer for Peace I wrote as an accompaniment to bracelets she makes so her creations can inspire others to pray for peace in Ukraine. Flowering hope. The IHM EarthCARE committee meets each month to pray and work to restore our land, cultivating native species of trees and plants that then invite native birds and other inhabitants to again return home to the land we share. Flowering hope. The list is long.

Whether you live in the northern hemisphere where winter has a grip, or you live in the southern hemisphere where a riot of colors is in bloom, today might hold an invitation to explore fresh ways of growing the spirit of compassion and welcome. What flowering do you long for in your life? What is the Holy One coaxing to bloom in you?

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Place before you a flowering plant or a photo of one.
Reflect on all the elements (water, sun, etc.) that came together to bring this plant to a time of blooming.
What flowering do you long for in your life?
What might be needed to bring something to bloom in yourself?
What is the Holy One coaxing to blossom in you?
Ask for the fullness of flowering.

Featured Image: Chris Koellhoffer, my last blossoming African Violet

NOTE:
I wish every blessing of love and compassion to you this Valentine’s Day.

May Ash Wednesday hold an invitation to work towards the fullness of blossoming for yourself and for our beautiful yet wounded world.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   January 29, 2023

Recently, I read a quote that transported me back to a delegation to Haiti in 1993. Our group had a free day with no travel planned and one of our group, a nurse, asked me if I’d be interested in spending that day at a home for children run by the Missionaries of Charity. I told her I had no medical background but she assured me, “There will be plenty for you to do.” That was an understatement.

At the home, we discovered over one hundred infants and toddlers, many with HIV, tuberculosis, and other illnesses so advanced their families could no longer care for them. There were only four adult caregivers to bathe, dress, and feed those hundred plus, so my only role the entire day was to assist the caregivers by changing diaper after diaper. I quickly got into something of a rhythm, tending as I could to each child’s need for changing, offering a warm smile and hug, and moving on to the next.

This worked smoothly until I got to two-year-old Andre. He attached himself to my leg like a Velcro fastener. So profound was his need for physical affection that he cried, pleaded, and refused to let go. I felt so ashamed to have to loosen his grip and pry him off me that I wept in frustration. “What kind of world is this that I can’t hug a child for as long as he needs?” I wailed to God and to the world.

Today, some thirty years later, Andre still has a grip on my heart and my memory. In a mysterious way, he was still clinging to my leg when I read Ajahn Sumano Bhikkhu’s quote, “Goodness radiates and sticks to people.” Andre was still holding on when I read a few more words, the admonition to “become sticky with radiant goodness.”

Oh, how I savor that kind of stickiness! It’s rather deliciously rich and extravagant, isn’t it? I think of our saints imaged with golden halos surrounding their heads. Isn’t that, after all, why we venerate them? Because they gave their lives over to listening to the Holy One and to practicing deep, inner soul work, leaving a trail of goodness and compassion in their wake. I think of the legion of uncanonized saints living among us whose very being draws us in, deepens our desire to snuggle up as close as we can to the spaciousness of heart we sense at the center of their being.

And I can’t limit radiant, sticky goodness to the human family. Of course not! I must include the fuzzy bumblebees coated with golden pollen dust, delivering that radiant goodness to every blossom they pause to kiss. I must include just about any dog I have ever met, those creatures whose singular and unambiguous desire is to bask in our presence, to radiate love without limits or conditions. I must include the moon in the night sky, shining her love down on us stargazers, and the sun in the day, warming our bodies and brightening our hearts.

Who or what else must we include? Whose presence has stuck with you and inspired you to become even stickier with radiant goodness yourself?

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Call to mind the image of any creatures who have witnessed to sticking power in your life.
What drew you closer to their witness? What qualities do you continue to admire in them?
Ask the Holy One to help you deepen those same attributes in yourself.
Bow and give thanks for your own radiant goodness.

Featured Image: Christoph Polatsky, Unsplash

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   January 15, 2023

Sometimes I can’t help myself. My natural curiosity impels me towards connection with strangers I randomly meet on a street, at a supermarket, in a doctor’s waiting room. That practice may be rooted in my believing that anyone can be a bearer of wisdom and my not wanting to miss a single image or word or story that might supplement my own meager supply of wisdom.

Studies have shown that a person’s overall well-being and happiness can be predicted by the depth of their social relationships, by whether they have close connections with family, friends, or co-workers. More recently, studies have suggested that relational diversity, talking with or connecting with strangers, can also contribute to our overall happiness, can complement the typical close relationships we already have with people more familiar to us.

In this sense, the “stranger” might be a person sitting next to us in church; a person from whom we buy the morning newspaper or grab a cup of coffee; a person struggling to carry a bag of groceries; a member of our choir or book club; a new neighbor; and so much more.

Hebrews 13:2 admonishes us, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that, some have unknowingly entertained angels.” It would seem, then, that our attitude of hospitality, our spaciousness of heart, is what invites the angels into our orbit and our awareness. An open heart leads us to pause, or to greet, or to ask, or to wonder, or to notice, to hold space in our heart to welcome the Holy One who appears in the unexpected, the different, perhaps the uncomfortable, guise.

Our hospitality may be a momentary occasion of intersection, but when we can still remember those encounters many years later, there’s clearly deeper meaning that invites mining. As I write this, I’m remembering two of the many who have blessed my life in a momentary encounter that awakened me to the Holy all around.

The toll collector on the Whitestone Bridge
Many years ago, in the days of tokens or cash only, this New York toll collector broke through the monotony of his everyday job by trying to name the occupation of any driver who stopped at his booth to pay the designated toll. Not knowing that, I greeted him and handed him cash as he scrutinized my face. “You must be a healer,” he guessed, and then explained his practice of naming what he saw. I longed to hear more but the line of impatient drivers honking their horns behind me warned against that, so I drove off, shaken by what he had discovered in my face. I wonder still.

The homeless woman by the entrance to Manhattan’s West 4^th Street subway station  
Every evening, she carefully placed her sleeping bag on the sidewalk and arranged a sheet neatly turned down as if she were in an upscale hotel. As I passed by, she was kneeling by her makeshift bed, head bowed in silent prayer, oblivious to the crowds bustling around her. Her reverent ritual stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly, I was no longer one of the hundreds rushing to be somewhere else. I was here, in this sacred moment, and I was witness to a prayerful presence that lingers with me these many years later.

These angels are all around us, aren’t they? Today might hold an invitation to reflect on and share some of the blessed encounters, brief as they may be, that have startled or touched or surprised us, those times when we have suspected or intuited the presence of the Holy in a seemingly random intersection. Today or any day, may we sit with and mine the resonance that continues to linger still.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on one memory of an encounter with a stranger that still resonates with you.
Mine the experience:
What did it look like? feel like? What touched you? surprised you? Filled you with wonder?
Thank the Holy One for this visitation and ask to be that same holy presence to all you encounter today.

Featured Image:  Alex Alvarez, Unsplash

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