Sr Scott – a Benedictine sister from Jamberoo Abbey in New South Wales – is best known for her appearance on ABC television series The Abbey, where she mentored a group of lay women through the experience of monastic life. Photo: Cyron Sobrevinas
By Caroline Smith
God loves you and sits beside you even in your most difficult moments, Sister Hilda Scott OSB told attendees at the Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF) in Sydney last week.
Sr Scott – a Benedictine sister from Jamberoo Abbey in New South Wales – is best known for her appearance on ABC television series The Abbey, where she mentored a group of lay women through the experience of monastic life.
Speaking at one of the festival’s many workshops on Thursday 7 December, she reflected on several stories from her own life, and one from the Gospel, to highlight God’s love for each person, and how it can guide us in our own compassion to others.
One such story was that of her cousin, who as a small child was sent to a special school for the deaf, and was very upset on her first night there. The next day, a religious sister from the school rang the family to recount how their daughter had cried all night, adding ‘but I cried with her’.
This, Sr Scott said, was an apt way to image God’s willingness to share our pain.
“I’ve thought a lot about that in the intervening years and I realised that it’s a mirror image of how God is with you and me,” she said.
“Sometimes, life is too much for whatever reason, and the reason never matters: sometimes life is too much because of what we ourselves have done, God doesn’t care. Now when you find yourself on your own or unsatisfactorily with other people, the truth is, God sits on the bed, holds you and cries with you, because that’s what love is.
“The next time things are too much for you, the next time you break down and cry, I hope you remember, God is right there, crying with you. And the great thing is, God doesn’t just have the capacity to heal you, but to take you further.”
God loves you and sits beside you even in your most difficult moments, Sister Hilda Scott OSB told attendees at the Australian Catholic Youth Festival (ACYF) in Sydney last week. Photo: Feby Plando.
A similar message of compassion could be witnessed in the Gospels, through Jesus’ interaction with a ‘little leper’ who came into town to meet Him.
“He would have had to cry out ‘unclean’ and ring his leper’s bell, so that if anybody heard him, they could go, hide behind the door and have nothing to do with him,” she said.
“So this little leper comes along and so does Jesus, and the Gospel tells us that this little fellow went down in a heap in front of Jesus, and Jesus was moved with compassion, and He asked the man, what do you want me to do for you?
“The little leper said to Jesus, Master, if you want to, you can make me well again. Jesus said, if I want to? Of course I want to! And then Jesus did a most incredible thing – He reached out and touched this man and said, be healed.”
Since there were laws and taboos against touching someone with leprosy, this action was particularly significant, and emphasised Jesus’ priority in this situation.
“What was more important to Jesus was that that poor man would feel a human touch,” Sr Scott said.
“I’m sure that man went and found new horizons, but he went back having experienced the compassion of God. He had been touched. This is what we’ve got to do with the scriptures: have a look at how that plays itself out in our own lives.”
Speaking at one of the festival’s many workshops on Thursday 7 December, she reflected on several stories from her own life, and one from the Gospel, to highlight God’s love for each person, and how it can guide us in our own compassion to others. Photo: Feby Plando
The story – and others in the Gospel – could provide a guide to how we as people could respond to others.
“There are times in all our lives when we feel like lepers, when
we feel ostracised, isolated, alone, and maybe it’s all our fault, but we feel it nonetheless. The question is, if you or I know that God loves us, if we’re convinced of the fact that God would walk over cut glass to get to you or me, doesn’t that say something about what we ought to do with other people?” Sr Scott said.
“And it’s so simple: all you’ve got to do when you feel compassion rising up in you, that’s God asking you to extend some compassion to somebody else who’s right under your nose.”