A Note of Thanks

Dear readers,

The time has come to farewell my contributions here, on Keeping Company. It has been an immense joy and privilege to share my thoughts, reflections and insight into the charism of the Faithful Companions of Jesus Sisters. Thank you to each one of you, for your kind words of encouragement and support. If you wish to continue to follow me on my writing journey, you are welcome to do so.

For now, I hope that each one of you have gained something from this endeavour and that you yourselves do not stop reflecting, savouring and praying through the ins and outs of your life, on your journey with God, as I have learnt to do from this undertaking.

I leave you now, with an official statement from Sr Judith Routier fcJ, Province Leader:

The Faithful Companions of Jesus would like to thank Geralyn Anderson for initiating and maintaining this beautiful ‘Keeping Company’ blog for the past few years. The blog was a project on behalf of the fcJ sisters in Australia and through this use of social media Geralyn promoted the mission and identity of the fcJ Society to people with whom we would not otherwise be in contact.

Geralyn has posted many inspirational and creative items based on a variety of sources, not only things connected with the ministry of the fcJ sisters.  We have been moved by stories in the life of her young family, by her personal reflections, by theological and educational articles, and by insights into social justice issues. The arrival of a new Keeping Company post in my inbox was always something to which I looked forward.

The fcJ sisters wish to voice our gratitude to Geralyn and to her family, and to assure them of our prayer of blessing on their lives.

Judith Routier fcJ
Province Leader

 

Reblogged: SINEAD’S ADVENT PRAYER

SINEAD’S ADVENT PRAYER Thank you, Lord, for the….

Thank you, Lord, for the rainbows and the sky.
Thank you for stuff both inside and outside.
And thank you for Jesus, the Word growing in Mary’s tummy.

Sinead Goroncy (five years old)
10 December 2011

This advent, compose your own advent prayer, or poem, psalm or drawing.

Picture source | Per Crucem ad Lucem

via SINEAD’S ADVENT PRAYER Thank you, Lord, for the….

Geek Excitement Again

You may or may not recall a certain geekish excitement that I posted with about our @walkwithyoufcj Twitter account some time in August. For those who don’t recall, I shamelessly posted about Fr James Martin SJ being our first ‘official’ Twitter follower and all the warm fuzzies and joy I felt because of it. Well thanks to Twitter again, I am pleased to inform you that I have just written and submitted a piece as a guest-blogger.

What I am excited about though, is the grace I have received through all of this, of adventure, of experience and of discipline. Personally speaking, I enjoy writing and especially on things of the spiritual/faith type. Being invited to contribute has meant that I have had to write to specific guidelines and to a certain time frame, which by the by, always seems to be interrupted by life’s turbulence.

Again I am grateful to the FCJ Sisters and the role I am in, which have presented these opportunities, both to further my self-improvement, but more importantly, to share the good news that is part of being a person of faith, a Christian, a companion of Jesus.

Geek, Catholic, Ignatian. God in all things, and ad majorem Dei gloriam (for the greater glory of God).

Write the Soul Online Retreat

We can be so busy doing the work of God that we forget to just be with God. That’s why “spiritual checking-in”, as I like to call it, is so important. Without grounding in where you are with God (and self, included), there is often the potential to lose balance. All work and no pray makes Jack, Jill and John potentially harmful by this distraction away from God. In Ignatian spirituality, we call this temptation as working or following “the angel of light”, essentially a bad spirit appearing as the good.

As such, I wish to share with you, a brilliant initiative by Vinita Hampton Wright, of LoyolaPress on her blog, Days of Deepening Friendship (for Women Growing Wiser). Below are the details:

Please share this around to your friends, family and networks.

A life worth living is a life worth recording!

Attention and attentiveness are key qualities to a life that is spiritually in tune with what one yearns for, hungers and dreams about.

In the words of Henri Nouwen:

As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.
 
One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

It’s a discipline that is therapeutic, creative and prayerful. It’s like setting yourself a course on a map, which you can look back on later, to see where you’ve been and how you’ve arrived at where you are. The journal is a time capsule of memories and hopefully, a source of joy, if not experience to say the least, experiences of a life given voice to in the penmanship on the page.