life in Cochabamba

This Saturday morning I took a picture of this young native woman with her baby who is selling different items on her wheel cart.

July 31 2010

Leaning on God
by Joyce Rupp
A reflection for you this coming week. frankie

Which of you walks in darkness and sees no light? ... lean on GodIsaiah 50:4-10
Some people lean against fence postswhen their bodies ache from toil.Some people lean on oak trees,seeking cool shade on hot, humid days.
Some people lean on crutchesBrozova/dreamstime.comwhen their limbs won’t work for them;and some people lean on each otherwhen their hearts can’t stand alone.

How long it takes to lean upon you,God of shelter and strength;how long it takes to recognize the truthof where my inner power has its source.
All my independence, with its arrogance,stands up and stretches within me,trying to convince my trembling soulthat I can conquer troubles on my own.
But the day of truth always comeswhen I finally yield to you,knowing you are a steady stronghold,a refuge when times are tough.

Thank you for offering me strength,for being the oak tree of comfort;thank you for being the sturdy supportwhen the limbs of my life are weak.
Praise to you, Eternal Lean-to,for always being there for me.Continue to transform mewith the power of your love.

seeing God in the other

These days I am reading a book called “Thomas Merton’s Gethsemani Landscapes of Paradise” These words by Thomas Merton struck me, His love of nature is like St. Francis of Assisi … He is a true Franciscan… In the sacramental vision of reality, each bird, each frog---and Merton himself--- was continually created; moment to moment each creature was loved into being by a God who is intimately present to each speciesAnd each individual in that species. Merton understood that each creature reveals the immanence of God. Each creature is God coming to us. Each day is an experience of Advent. Making straight the way of the lord, building a highway in the desert is not for the purpose of going to God.We can’t “get to God” for God is too great, too transcendent, God must come to us. God has and God does. God is continually revealing God’s self in the world around us. God’s fullness is present in the person of Jesus, and in God’s overflowing love expressed in each creature. God is not Deus absconditus but Deus imtimus, a God who Saint Augustine said , is more intimate to me than I am to myself, a God longing to be discovered as the very Ground of my being.This is what I want to share with you today for a reflection my dear brother Thomas. And I would like to know what are your own true feelings on this that is written by the famous Contemplative Trappist monk Thomas Merton.It is in this honest sharing with each other that we truly grow as brothers in service to others in the classroom or in our community as well as with our intimate friends. Would you agree with me on this?
your brother in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Frank

Saturday morning

here I am at 8 in the morning on this Saturday July 17th. It had rained and it was a little chilly.

Martha

A Woman’s Place
Barbara E. Reid JULY 5, 2010
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), July 18, 2010“Martha welcomed him into her home” (Lk 10:38)

M artha always gets a bad rap. In traditional interpretations of her story, she is said to be too preoccupied or anxious about the details of hospitality to attend well to her guest. Her sister, by contrast, sits in rapt attention at Jesus’ feet, drinking in his every word. When Jesus declares that it is Mary who has “chosen the better part,” the message we are supposed to take away, according to many commentators, is that contemplation, rather than active service is the harder but better choice, and that no one can minister without first sitting and learning at Jesus’ feet. While finding the right balance between contemplation and action is a perennial challenge for most Christians, that may not actually be the question that today’s Gospel addresses. There are many tensions in the story left unanswered by the traditional interpretation.
Recently New Testament scholars have proposed that this Gospel incident may be more a reflection of the situation of the Lucan communities and the questions they were trying to resolve, rather than a report of an episode in the life of Jesus. They have noticed that what concerns Martha is much diakonia, and her distress is over her sister leaving her to carry it out alone. Both the noun diakonia and the verb diakonein occur in verse 40.
Elsewhere in the New Testament, these terms refer primarily to ministerial service, as in Jesus’ declaration of his mission “to serve,” not to “be served” (Mk 10:45; Lk 22:27). In New Testament times, diakonia covered a wide range of ministries. In the case of Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna and the other Galilean women who “provided for” Jesus and the itinerant preachers “out of their resources,” diakonein refers to financial ministry (the Greek word hyparchonton connotes monetary resources, Lk 8:3). This is the same nuance diakonia has in Acts 11:29 and 12:25 regarding Paul’s collection for Jerusalem. In Acts 6:2 diakonein refers to table ministry, while in Acts 6:4 diakonia connotes ministry of the word. In Acts 1:25 diakonia is apostolic ministry. One individual in the New Testament is named a diakonos, Phoebe, “deacon of the church at Cenchreae” (Rom 16:1).
Scholars are now thinking that the incident in today’s Gospel is not about preparing a meal; instead, Martha voices how burdened her heart is over the conflicts surrounding women’s exercise of their ministries in the early church. Some people were greatly in favor of women evangelizers and teachers like Prisca (Acts 18:26), Euodia and Syntyche (Phil 4:3), women prophets like Philip’s four daughters (Acts 21:9), and women heads of house churches, like Nympha (Col 4:15), Mary (Acts 12:12), Lydia (Acts 16:40), and Prisca (Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19). Others, however, argued that a woman’s place was in the home and that speaking and ministering in the public sphere belonged to the men (e.g., 1 Cor 14:34-35; 1 Tm 2:11-12). Luke takes the latter position, giving it validity by placing approval of the silent Mary on Jesus’ lips.
There was never any question in the early church about women becoming disciples. Both Martha and Mary welcomed Jesus and the word he spoke (vss. 38-39). The controversy swirled around what women would do with what they learned while sitting at Jesus’ feet. The answer Luke gave was quite understandable for his time. Today’s Gospel invites us to reflect on what answer Jesus might give today to the question of woman’s place in the ministries of the church as they have now evolved.

July 16th, 2010

Today in Bolivia and also in Chile it is the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She is a General of the Armed Forces in Bolivia and Chile.
We are suppose to have snow in the nearby mountains for this date but nothing has happened.
The weather is chilly in the morning but warm in mid day. The "Winter" only last for a three week period in July and then it is Spring. Cochabamba is the land of the Eternal Spring.

Our Lady of Quilvo

This is Our Lady of Quilvo at the Trappist monastery.
Today is the 4th of july and we had a nice celebration here at our home in Cochabamba and 30 visitors were present which was the Maryknoll Priests, Brothers, Sisters and lay people,
With a nice cookout of hamburgers, frankfurters, potatoe salad etc.
Maryknoll seminarian who is Korean American Dae Kim did the cooking.
It was a nice sunny day and everyone enjoyed it.

july 3rd, 2010

Birthday reflection for you Thomas

can it be?

can it be?
have I for so long forgotten to feed myself?
yes.for a year now
I was slowly starving.getting lost in busy days,tossing aside the hunger that chewed away inside.

yet, I did not die.by some quiet miracle I made it to this momentof truth:
I nearly starved to death.
it was not my body
that I failed to feed.
t was my spirit,left alone for dayswithout nourishment or care.
and then one day
I paused to look within,
shocked at what I found:
so thin of faith,
so weak in understanding,
so needy of encouragement.
my starving spirit cried the truth:
I can! I will!
I mustbe fed!