Sister Karen Brink is currently the prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Pittsburgh having served on monastic councils and initial and on-going formation teams. She also has extensive experience as a school administrator and as a member of parish teams. Her experience as director of RCIA teams led her to reflection on Scripture, especially the Sunday readings. She invites you to "break open" God's Word once again.Pentecost Sunday
May 31
Karen Brink, OSB, St Benedict Monastery, Pittsburgh, PA
“Veni, Creator Spiritus;” Come, Holy Spirit, Fill the Hearts of Your Faithful; the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; the final sacrament in the sacraments of initiation.... Each of the previous was part of my religious education when I was a fourth grade student and we were informed that the bishop was coming to our parish to confirm all of the students in grades four through eight, nearly 100 of us, maybe more because the church was packed and only our sponsors could come to the ceremony. My aunt, who was my sponsor, bought me a Kodak Brownie Camera and my dress was pink! What I remember most, though, was the great amount of practice that we experienced. Everything had to be just right!
These are my memories of my Confirmation preparation and the actual “tap on the cheek” by the bishop, and I was confirmed. Not nearly as dramatic as the first Pentecost when the disciples of Jesus experienced wind, fire and speaking in tongues.
Seventh Sunday of Easter
In last Sunday’s gospel for the fifth week of Easter, Jesus promised those who follow him that they would do “greater works” than those that he, Jesus, had done. The Church followed that gospel with the reading from the Acts of the Apostles this week with some examples of the disciples doing “greater works.”
There are two phrases in today’s gospel that always manage to grab my attention. One is “I go to prepare a place for you” and the other “the one who believes in me…will do greater things than these because I am going to God.”
During the Christmas holidays my nephew and his wife took their four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter to a live representation of the Christmas story. Among the animals present were several camels. The four-year-old took his dad by the hand and led him to the area where the camels were. Somewhat delayed in speech development, he kept repeating the word gate. "Gate, gate" he kept repeating as though he wanted his dad to open the gate so that he could get up close and personal with the camels.
In my early days in community (early mid-1960s), the day after Easter was called "Emmaus Day." Our lives were very structured then and we very seldom left the halls of the monastery except for health reasons or ministry. No family visits, no meals out, no movies. That was then! On Emmaus Day, however, some outing was always planned outside the monastery: a visit to Phipps Botanical Gardens, or one of the several local museums, or another place of interest and usually beauty or culture! Maybe it was called Emmaus Day because we got to travel as did the two disciples did on the first Resurrection Sunday.
And who of us hasn't had our Thomas moments? I sometimes wonder where Thomas was the first time Jesus appeared to his disciples after the resurrection. Was he taking care of family business and couldn’t join the crowd, because he did come back. Did he go back to work as a fisherman, or his stand at the market, or his carpentry business and had to finish some work? But he came back.
Wouldn't you have liked to have been on the road to Emmaus when Jesus strolled along with the two downcast pilgrims? What about the Garden of the Tomb when tearful Mary looked at the gardener and discovered the "Rabbi?" And in that room full of disciples when during their terror and dread Jesus appeared and asked for something to eat? Today, for us, these are all stories of faith. We can open our Bibles to the end of any gospel and read and re-read those accounts. We can even pray those accounts.
... a little change of pace ... 
Doubtless, most of us have had the experience of the phone call, note, letter, or face to face message that someone close to us is seriously ill. Responses to the message may be as different as the person receiving them. Rush to the hospital, arrange a flight to another city, a phone call to another person, intense emotion and you could probably name others.
I'm an early riser so it is always dark when I wake up. For me, the early part of the day is my best time for quiet, lectio, and my attempt to pray. I always have a small candle lit whether my lamp is on or off. Sometime, if the candle is almost ready to give up its flame because of use, when I turn off the light, it is almost totally dark, sometimes just a flicker, and sometime the flame does indeed light up a nice section of my "prayer space." The whole idea of the "rods and cones" comes to me occasionally as I remember my sophomore biology days and how our eyes adjust to light and darkness. 
The readings for the 3rd Sunday of Lent always strike me as full of both humanity and divinity! 
Second Sunday of Lent
First Sunday of Lent