
Past Hazelnut Posts
2023
2022
- Christmas is for… (Dec 25)
- The longing of Advent (Dec 17)
- God our beginning (Dec 08)
- To desire healing (Oct 22)
- Common Listening (Sep 26)
- Which kingdom? (Jul 11)
- Saint for the unfinished (May 09)
- To give us (Apr 16)
- Staying with Jesus (Mar 25)
- Our utmost bliss (Mar 05)
- Growing in proximity (Jan 19)
- Best Books of 2021 (Jan 01)
2021
- Opening to the light (Dec 20)
- Spending attention (Nov 28)
- Owning (Oct 10)
- In the midst of the storm (Jun 26)
- Corpus Christi (Jun 05)
- Bearing the whole vision (May 08)
- The gift of the Spirit (Apr 11)
- The gift of eucharist (Apr 03)
- The merciful space of Lent (Feb 18)
- The Common Life (Jan 18)
- The Gift that gives (Jan 06)
- Best books of 2020 (Jan 02)
2020
- The questioning of Thomas (Dec 22)
- The Divine Longing (Dec 19)
- Gifts from a long way off (Dec 09)
- On making choices (Oct 17)
- In an economy of love (Sep 30)
- With Jesus our heaven (Sep 05)
- With gratitude and praise (Aug 15)
- Called to grow (Jul 04)
- Awareness and reconciliation (Jun 12)
- Our Pentecost (Jun 02)
- Julian today (May 08)
- Alleluia! Christ is risen. (Apr 12)
- Giving in place (Apr 04)
- The Annunciation (Mar 25)
- A way through (Mar 14)
- The work of Lent (Feb 26)
- Living the giving (Feb 08)
- Building Community (Jan 25)
2019
- The best of the best of the best… (Dec 31)
- Motives & motivations (Dec 15)
- New beginnings (Dec 02)
- For all the saints (Nov 02)
- Being Hospitality (Oct 19)
- Jesus comes by (Sep 28)
- About forgiveness (Sep 07)
- Hope and witness (Aug 24)
- Practice makes commitment (Jul 13)
- Matter and Energy (May 31)
- Growing season (May 20)
- Our part (May 08)
- The patient work of love (Apr 06)
- The task before us (Mar 25)
- Being here (Mar 04)
- What you really want (Jan 19)
2018
- Mercy & newness of life (Dec 31)
- Attention and discernment (Dec 15)
- Anticipation (Dec 01)
- Something better (Nov 17)
- A matter of trust (Nov 03)
- Preference and honor (Oct 20)
- What is revealed (Oct 06)
- Praise & Blessing (Sep 22)
- Importance & care (Sep 01)
- Strength and support (Aug 11)
- The measure of enough (Jul 23)
- Rising to the challenge (Jun 24)
- Real power (May 18)
- I saw (May 08)
- Always learning (Apr 14)
- What listening does (Mar 10)
- Saint Matthias (Feb 24)
- What cannot be said (Jan 27)
2017
- Entrusting all (Dec 30)
- Giving ourselves away (Dec 17)
- In the midst of our penance (Nov 18)
- Together for good (Nov 04)
- Oppression & possibility (Oct 17)
- Trust & fear (Oct 07)
- Exchange and freedom (Sep 25)
- You are here (Jun 11)
- Get on with it (May 27)
- An economy of trust (May 13)
- What Julian did (May 08)
- Enough (Apr 29)
- Christ is Risen! (Apr 16)
- A radical family (Apr 01)
- Peace be with you (Mar 31)
- The oratory (Mar 18)
- Grace & necessity (Mar 11)
- Going Places (Feb 18)
- Part of each other (Feb 04)
- True Courtesy & Friendliness (Jan 21)
- Treasure hidden (Jan 07)
2016
- Christmas Gift (Dec 24)
- Advent 3 & 4 (Dec 17)
- Advent 2 (Dec 10)
- Advent 1 (Dec 03)
- Learning humility (Nov 19)
- Learning Joy (Nov 05)
- Invitations (Oct 22)
- Ordinary joy (Oct 08)
- Benedict & Ownership part II (Sep 24)
- Benedict & Ownership, Part 1 (Sep 10)
- The beginning of trust (Aug 27)
- Stability & Identity (Aug 13)
- Look again (Jul 30)
- Choir Practice (Jul 16)
- Attend (Jun 25)
- Accept (Jun 18)
- Allow (Jun 04)
- Await (May 28)
- God’s Joy (May 21)
- The work of exposure (May 14)
- Four Keys (May 07)
- Why Julian now? (Apr 30)
- Opening (Apr 23)
- Patterns (Apr 16)
- Learning (Apr 09)
- Seeking (Apr 02)
- Seeing (Mar 26)
- Nonviolence (Mar 19)
- Housecleaning (Mar 12)
- Compassion (Mar 05)
- Awarenexx (Feb 13)
- Perception (Feb 13)
- Orienting (Feb 06)
- Courtesy (Jan 30)
- Blame (Jan 23)
- Disquiet (Jan 16)
- Epiphany (Jan 09)
- Names (Jan 02)
2015
- Christmas (Dec 26)
- Waiting (Dec 19)
- Habits (Dec 12)
- Fear (Dec 05)
- Welcoming (Nov 28)
- Priorities (Nov 21)
- Clarity (Nov 14)
- Shadows (Nov 07)
- Gifts (Oct 31)
- Contributions (Oct 24)
- Praying (Oct 17)
- Yes (Oct 10)
- Feasts (Oct 03)
- Changes (Sep 25)
- Perseverance (Sep 19)
- Comfort (Sep 11)
- Thanks (Sep 01)
- Mary (Aug 14)
- Transfigured (Aug 07)
- Traveling (Jul 26)
- Practice (Jul 17)
- Listen (Jul 10)
- Choices (Jul 03)
- Perspectives (Jun 26)
- Together (Jun 19)
- Patience (Jun 12)
- Knowing (Jun 05)
- Glitches (May 29)
- Goodness (May 22)
Holy Cross
Jesus did and taught many things in the course of his ministry, but said that it was by being lifted up from the earth that he would draw all people to himself.
St Paul worked and taught amongst people to whom saying clever things in public was competitive sport. He was a man never slow in his own defense and a canny public speaker, yet he said to the Church in Corinth, “I determined to know nothing among you except Christ, and him crucified.”
When in answer to a lifelong prayer God gave Julian the gift of a vision, almost its whole visual content was of Jesus on the cross. Julian spent twenty years and more thinking and processing just this.
And one of the constants of our life here in the monastery is the presence of crucifixes. They are everywhere we are, everywhere we look, in the chapel, in the refectory, in the chapter room, in our cells, in the workshop, in the library, in the parlor.
When Jesus said that by his crucifixion he would glorify the Father, and by it make him not only known but compelling—what is it about this that St Paul, St Julian, the Church and the monastic tradition have all understood?
The cross is to us, and continually presents to us, the whole of the truth of the Gospel, God’s endless, limitless love for us, and our immediate response to it. Jesus came to show us the Father and his love but we could not take it on. Anything we humans do not understand and that threatens our stability we try to make go away, by violence if necessary, and we did this to Jesus.
Jesus had no need to respond to difference in this way because he was secure in his communion with the Father. He suffered all that the people could think to do to him and loved them still, and loves us still. Jesus’s cross is the story of our liberation. Working on us visually, slowly by slowly, it is the icon of our transformation from a people whose response to inexplicable love is rejection to a people who, in the security of God’s love and for love can suffer anything and love as Jesus does. We desire what we see, we become what we desire, people bearing the likeness of Jesus, people of peace.