Catherine Kirwan-Avila, ACJ

Day 26: December 24

Reflector: Catherine Kirwan-Avila, ACJ

Image Title: God’s Labor

Image Source: Allison Bradbury, Smithsonian Magazine

“It was I…” when our imagination gives out, God continues laboring, opening pathways of life. God, who assures us that, even if we fail to see, the Faithful One’s vision is clear. God who chooses such funny building materials for salvation: weakness and mundanity, babies and outcasts, failure and forgiveness, promises, friendship and bread. The only thing unusual about these elements seems to be the subversive, hidden power with which they are imbued. Who would dream up salvation by way of wrinkled, wailing flesh? Bear it forth into the world without insurance? Risk dirtying it up amidst so much sin and confusion and death? 

“It was I,” says the Lord, “it was I.”  

Blessed be the Lord.

Catherine is a Handmaid of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and currently has the joy of ministering with students at St. Joseph’s University and sharing in community with seven other sisters at the St. Raphaela Center. She is a Massachusetts native who has felt at home in many parts by getting out into God’s wide and wild creation and connecting with others through conversation.