May 8, 2021
“Joy is God in the marrow of our bones.” (Eugenia Price)
from Seven Sacred Pauses by Macrina Wiederkehr
Joy is a deep well.
If, in times of sorrow, we go down under the sorrow,
we will discover that joy is still alive.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, we pray with Psalm 100, considered by some to be the most revered and important of all the psalms. Walter Brueggemann says this:
This psalm is one of the best known and best loved in the entire repertoire of the Psalter.
It breathes a faith of simple trust, glad surrender, and faithful responsiveness.
It is not sung by newcomers who are only now embracing the faith but by those who are seasoned and at home in this faith and piety.
Psalm 100 is a prayer of pure, complete and confident joy in God. What a great way to live our lives!
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
Psalm 100: 1-2
serve the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful song.
This is the kind of joy experienced by the early Church in Acts:
Day after day the churches grew stronger in faith
Acts 16:5
and increased in number.
It is the joy which makes us impervious to hate, as Jesus describes in the Gospel:
Jesus said to his disciples:
John 15: 18-19
“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own;
but because you do not belong to the world,
and I have chosen you out of the world,
the world hates you.
Here is a line I love:
Don’t let the devil steal your JOY!
I first saw it from Pat Livingston, a wonderful speaker and writer on spirituality. But its roots are in John 16:22 as Jesus bids farewell to the disciples:
Now is your time of grief,
but I will see you again and you will rejoice,
and no one will take away your joy.
Let us look at Jesus in our prayer today,
and let him look deeply into us.
May that prayer give us immense joy!
Poetry: Happiness Is Harder
To read a book of poetry
from back to front,
there is the cure for certain kinds of sadness.
A person has only to choose.
What doesn’t matter; just that—
This coffee. That dress.
“Here is the time I would like to arrive.”
“Today, I will wash the windows.”
Happiness is harder.
Consider the masters’ description
of awakened existence, how seemingly simple:
Hungry, I eat; sleepy, I sleep. Is this choosing completely,
or not at all?
Music: Jubilate Deo – Mozart
Jubilate Deo omnis terra; servite Domino in lætitia.
Introite in conspectu ejus in exsultatione.
Scitote quoniam Dominus ipse est Deus; ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos.
Populus ejus, et oves pascuæ ejus, introite portas ejus in confessione;
atria ejus in hymnis, confitemini illi.
Laudate nomen ejus, quoniam suavis est Dominus;
in æternum misericordia ejus;
et usque in generationem et generationem veritas ejus.
Lavish Mercy 